Modesty in young girls’ fashion?

[Mel15sa]

I’m honestly quite shocked at what I keep seeing lately. So many young girls from those walking with their mums to groups of older teens wearing these high-waisted, skin-tight gym shorts that are basically leggings chopped off mid-thigh. They leave nothing to the imagination.

When I was that age, yes, we wanted to look fashionable too. We wore jean shorts, maybe a crop top on a hot day, but there were still some boundaries. Now it feels like modesty has completely gone out the window.

I can’t help but think: is this really just “fashion”? Or are girls dressing like this for attention, because it certainly draws the eye? It makes me sad that such young girls feel they have to put their bodies on display like this.

I know people will say “times change” but is this really a change for the better?
Are we doing girls any favours by normalising clothes that show off absolutely everything?

For context, I’m not bitter or jealous. I get compliments, and I could wear the same if I wanted to. But I choose not to, because I believe in dressing modestly. Even in the gym, I don’t dress in skin tight clothing. What worries me is seeing younger and younger girls thinking this sort of exposure is the norm.

What on earth has happened to modesty? Am I the only one concerned about this?

There were bum scrunch shorts in the 1980s like the ones I posted above going right into the bum crack, and people were wearing them out and about in the street? That’s absolute nonsense I’m afraid! Those fabrics didn’t even exist at the time.

Honestly I started off sort of seeing your point and then I got to the end of your post and thought you just sounded awful and horrendously self righteous with the ‘girls should dress modestly’, ‘I don’t even wear skin tight in the gym’ rubbish. Congrats, did you want a medal? Why should girls dress modestly? For what reason?

Creepy men will stare regardless. I used to get leered at in my knee length thick woollen pleated school skirt and blazer when I was 13 years old. I got leered at when I was 18 in short skirts and platform stilettos. I get leered at today aged 31 when I’m wearing an oversized jumper with denim shorts.

You have internalised misogyny and I hope you get the help you need to unpack it.

I completely agree with you @Mel15sa - most of the mumsnet crew won’t!

Children need to be children for as long as they can and that includes young teens who are sexualised far too early and usually by parents trying to follow trends/online/influencers etc

As a middle aged woman, I’m constantly surprised by the way so many young girls dress and are out with parents or family while they are half naked!

lol I grew up in Lancashire!

(maybe people were pointing and laughing, if they were I didn’t notice)

Boys and men just take their tops off completely and wear shorts.

they’re often exposing a lot more flesh.

(in very hot weather, obviously)

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I remember buying knickers to match my mini dresses, as the skirts were so short (1960s).
My hotpants were short and tight, worn with big platform heels (1970s).
I could be found in bum-cheek denim cutoffs with little crop tops (1980s).
By the 1990s I'd got a little too old for tiny street clothes - but still wore short, silky slip dresses and chose my thongs for how they'd look above the waistline of my trousers.

I HATE the word 'modest' when applied to clothing! It implies that people (women and girls, let's be real) ought to be ashamed of their bodies. Fuck that.

I promise you, absolutely no young woman going up the stairs is thinking about you, GrandTheftWalrus, enough to take ‘great delight’ in knowing you can see up their skirt. I honestly can’t imagine this even goes through their minds. What a strange thing to assume they delight in? “Can’t wait to go out on the lash tonight wearing my mini skirt! Can’t wait to flash my arse cheeks to the unknown judgemental woman/man sat at that table as I walk up the stairs to find the toilets!”

Yes, DS has said he doesn’t know where to look when he is going up the stairs behind the girls at school when there’s bum cheeks at eye level.
I was glad DD always decided to wear the longest school skirt available in M&S (already quite short) so I had no parenting decisions to make.
I have mixed opinions on it, I think that gym wear is comfortable and that’s the norm these days but I think once you get to bum cheeks on display, it’s going a bit far. I don’t have a view on the sort of moulded shorts in the image if young women want to show off their shape, but scrunch bum is a bit much.
It’s very hyper-feminised which I read somewhere could be seen as a reaction to transwomen claiming femininity. The shorts pictured are very obviously worn by a female person. It all goes hand in hand.
But regardless, I think I would rather live in a country where women are free to wear what they want and not have their clothes or style policed. Long may young women be able to walk around the place in gym wear and whatever else they like.

I agree in the case of bare bum cheeks partly on display, and flesh coloured bum scrunch leggings. Gross.
However, in the 80's and 90's I wore tiny hot pants and bra tops and cut out leotards in the gym.
The shorts you show are perfectly acceptable with a crop top in the gym - but IMO need a t shirt/sweatshirt outside of the gym.

Those just look like cycling shorts.

Those shorts are awful on anyone, no matter what age. And since when did bra’s become clothing and not underwear?

Those are long compared to the ones I have seen some kids wear.

Well of course they didn’t because the technology for this sort of fabric didn’t exist.

but if you or @Mel15saor @Whenthetimeisrightand all the others who seem to think it’s a new phenomenon you really must have terrible memories or lived in a nunnery. The fabrics were not as technical and so they didn’t sit the same way and looked a bit unflattering but if anything the shorts were even shorter. They were all scrunched up the front of the crotch area

Yeah, I was wearing something along those lines downtown in NZ in the late eighties - along with a crop top - and if my Dad had managed to prevail, possibly a t shirt.

I can remember Dad doing his nut at me wearing my cycle shorts and crop top. That wasn't what was memorable. What was memorable was my mother sticking up for me wearing it out. . .

One post wonder goady perve 🤢🤢🤢

I think this is a thing outside of London. In London children seem to dress like Scandi children and dress for the weather.

When I went to Chessington World I was shocked to see what the little girls were wearing.

But come on, we all know that the kind of cycling shorts and tight leggings and tops in old-fashions Lycra that we were wearing in the 80s and 90s weren’t the same as the ones on sale now in tiny thin modern sports fabrics and bum sculpts.

I don’t know why MN has such a weird attitude to young girls dressing in a sexualised way. Not wanting your 12 or 14 year old to dress like an adult woman is not “internalised misogyny”. It’s just not wanting a child to wear clothes that on adult women are an explicit choice to look sexy. My DD loves the clothes in Urban Outfitters: I even bought her a dress she wanted and then when it arrived, hell no! I sent it straight back. On an adult who chooses to wear sexually appealing clothes, sure! I wore revealing and sexy clothes in my twenties; we probably all did. But on a young teenager, who isn’t making adult choices and doesn’t understand the adult sexual world yet: absolutely not. It’s perfectly possible to wear a mini skirt and crop top that looks fun and appropriate for a teenager but still doesn’t look either like she’s Christina Aguilera going clubbing in 2002, or like an OnlyFans bum fetish channel.

Not wanting your kid to wear sexualising adult clothing isn’t misogyny. Thinking that it’s totally cool for teenage girls to be exposing their bottoms, because the fashion is to look sexy for men, is not some kind of feminist flex! 12 year olds aren’t being somehow “empowered” by wearing bum scrunch shorts, are they?

But these clothes are obviously not at all the same as the ones we’re discussing on this thread. The T-shirts are not skin tight bra tops. And boys at the time of your photos wore shorts that looked exactly the same as these! Whereas I don’t see many male thirteen year olds out today wearing bum scrunch short shorts and a bra top — I wonder why?

'leaving nothing to the imagination'

You're imagining what girls look like under clothing?

Saw a comment on this recently, and yes, it's just stating that you're going to be thinking sexually about the person in question anyway, covered or otherwise.

Hardly a trend we were doing it 40 years ago

I keep seeing girls of no more than about 13 or 14 walking around the city in the middle of the day in black or red cropped, basque type tops that look like sexy underwear. It's very disconcerting.

And I a young woman walked past me yesterday in a thin lycra type body suit that looked like a second skin. It literally looked like she was naked and had been sprayed green apart from her hands and face and shoes. It hugged her fanny crack in a way that was very unpleasant to see at 11.30 am in the middle of a shopping centre. I honestly don't know what's got into people.

My 9 year old wears Nike Pros, as do all her friends. They're fine, they're just shorts.

when I was in high school, girls wore skirts so short their vulvas hung out and leggings so see-through you could see their entire arse spilling out of their thongs

if anything, girls are more modest now!

I show less skin in my underwear than teens do fully dressed these days. The mostly bare arses are a bloody disgrace and unhygienic to boot. Yuk.

They wore the equivalent - mini skirts etc. It's not some shocking new modern phenomenon