To think MIL shouldn't have said this

[rainbowsbutterfliescompromise]

13 year old daughter just showed MIL a new dress she bought for a family wedding (strappy floral New Look thing).

MIL said she liked it but then said "you need to make sure you don't wear clothes like that when walking outside as men might harass you or worse".

Aside from the fact that she isn't likely to be walking around in public in said dress, I'm really not happy with MIL implying my daughter is responsible for men's behaviour. I can still remember having this said to me as a teen and how uncomfortable it made me feel. I also remember being catcalled by men on the street - never in party clothes but more than often than not in my frumpy school uniform or a tracksuit.

I asked my husband to have a word, but he said there was no point and 'that's just the way her generation think'. AIBU to think that's a massive cop out?

She is making a 13 year old accountable for the behaviour of adult men. I would absolutely have interjected in the moment.

There is a joy sucker type that love to rain on a happy moment.

Dismiss her for old sourpuss she is.
Just tell your daughter how fab she looks.

Its a balancing act for mothers to celebrate our daughters AND try to keep them safe.

No she isn’t. She’s recognising that some forms of dress are more likely to attract unwanted male attention than others. It’s undeniable regardless of the feminist utopia some of you think we live in.

I don't think that grandparents need to be rebuked for every mistake they make, any more than grandparents should rebuke their adult kids for every mistake they make.

In this case I think the priority should be to let DD know your own feelings in order to undo any discomfort she felt, and to simply explain to her that your MIL is out of date and that things have changed a lot (re blaming women for what they wear) since she was young.

Really? You don't think that those images of young women we see with their tits and arses hanging out on High Streets on Saturday nights are not giving out a dubious impression ? Yes it may well be female empowerment or whatever other random reasons are chosen but the fact remains they are attracting attention to themselves. They are going to get the catcalls, the comments and the looks. You have to take some small iota of responsibility with this.

Some of the victim blaming responses here are crazy. My friends and I would often be catcalled by middle aged men when walking home from school in school uniform even as tiny year 7s. We certainly didn’t have our “tits and arses hanging out”. In this situation, i’d simply have a chat with DD and explain that she is not responsible for mens actions.

Sorry but with my daughter's I wouldn't have a problem with that being said. It's naive to think this world is all roses these days so would always make sure there dressed appropriately for there ages.

What wonen should be able to do and what they can do are not the same thing . Because men are arse holes. That's reality no matter how much you want it to be different.

I got catcalled and harassed as a teenager wearing my dowdy school uniform. It really doesn’t matter what you wear.

I am on your side OP. It was I inappropriate of MIL to bring this up and I hate people trying to police what women wear like that.

It's not like that at all though.
Stop victim shaming.

Nice victim shaming/blaming.
Girls and women expressing themselves through clothing doesn't give anyone the right to act in a disrespectful manner toward them.

The actual problem is the unwanted male attention though.

Of course it is, nobody with half a brain would disagree with you. But that’s more likely to happen in some clothes than others. We don’t live in an ideal world where all men are sensitive and respectful, we live in a world where lots of young guys are influenced by Andrew Tate and his ilk. We have to deal with the world as it is, not how we’d like it to be.

We don't with it by telling our girls and women to dilute themselves. 🙄

I don’t know what that means.

What?
It's fairly straightforward.
We don't deal with male entitlement by telling women to behave in a certain way.

@Koalafanit's not victim shaming or blaming. It's about making responsible decisions based on the reality of life.

I didn’t say we did.

Haha! Frumpy school uniform. The latest version locally is a take on Britney Spears’ outfit- tiny pleated skirts with over the knee socks with satin bows. Jumper gathered in and knotted at the back waist. Plus full face of slap.

I would direct your MIL to the “what was she wearing” exhibit. sbaproject.org/what-were-you-wearing/

The thing is, the weather is getting warmer and DD will be wearing things like denim shorts and vest tops like all the rest of the girls in her friendship group wears, when she goes to meet them. Am I supposed to tell her to put her winter clothes on instead?

I haven't yet had the conversation with her about men wanting to leer at her in public, as frankly I don't think it's that age appropriate (although i think it will be in a year or so), so I'm also annoyed that MIL saw fit to go there before I did.

DD is at a girls school and not into boys or anything yet- just a lovely, innocent, sporty kid who still sleeps with all her cuddly toys and doesn't really go anywhere on her own, apart from walking to school. I'm not wrapping her in cotton wool, but want to let her enjoy another year maybe of childhood innocence before she even has to think about these things. That aligns with the messages she gets from school at this stage, too.

Another thing that angers me is that MIL made a similar comment to me a few years ago - something about men being 'animals after all' so women should cover up "to not get raped". I was shocked and told her as much back then, so it's not like she has never heard an opposing view.

(Oh she also thinks maternity leave is too generous, sexual harassment never happens at work because it never happened to her and if it did she just said 'oh stop being a nuisance, Simon' and it stopped and is glad she mostly worked with men as female colleagues are "so bitchy")

@Pottedpalm well my school uniform was an ankle length kilt (actually that was by choice as we were in our Kurt Cobain era), a blouse, black jumper and blazer...and i still had a dirty old man grab me by the wrist and ask me my shoe size...'because it must be big enough to balance out my massive tits"

The sad reality is that women do have to police themselves due to men’s bad behaviour though. It’s why we teach our daughters never to take a shortcut through parks at night, never to walk down alleys, to get out of a lift if a guy in there makes you uncomfortable with your gut feel. Are women responsible for any of this, no! Do women have to modify things about themselves and they they do because of men’s bad behaviour, yes. Is this right, no, in an ideal world it is not. But it’s not an ideal world and it’s a sad fact.

Here is the offending dress- although comes to DD knees as she is tiny