Let girls be girls campaign is puritanical?

[clemette]

here

"The pubescent padded bra ............"
She's wrong from the off.

(She reminds me of our supposed 16 yr old lad from last night).

there are quite alot of um, nasty comments about mumsnet on twitter, but i can't work out why this particular campaign has got everyone so up in arms about?! (apart from the fact that a collective group of people maybe have clout that their particular blogs or forums haven't been able to produce)

There's a really shocking level of anti-mother sentiment out there, sea. MN is seen as the embodiment of cunting bupcakery (entirely erroneously of course, but 99% of those offering comment - including Laurie Penny - have plainly never entered the MN address in their browser, and have literally no idea what Mumsnet is actually like, or what tone this place has). So we're used as a proxy for all mothers, especially - horrors! - articulate, powerful women who might be able to strong-arm a politician or a retailer. And as we all know, giving middle-aged women that sort of power is just wrong, and it must be stopped at all costs.

How about pants with measuring tapes so boys can see how far their balls have dropped....?

That article was a load of tosh.

I live somewhere where little girls remain little girls until they start puberty. Lots of running around in the mud, tree climbing and football playing, albeit quite often in pretty (but robust) dresses and skirts and Start-rites.

Women here are very sexual, however.

That is absolutely spot on, PW. Many of the MN-bashers have never even looked at the site, just see it as representative of women who have a mind of their own and are not afraid to use it.

agree, it's very depressing!

Ooooh, a bunch of articulate women expressing IDEAS and having a discussion???? Won't their brains overheat or something?

Get them back in the kitchen or doing repetitive boring tasks, it's all they're good for.
What a bunch of blue stockings, I bet none of them have a man.

Yes, 19th Century attitudes still live on.

I thought we had all lost any ability at articulate thought, let alone expressing it, as a result of having children....doesn't being pregnant rot the braincells?

"a significant minority of seven-year-old girls have already started puberty". Really?!? Does she know many seven year olds?!

Ah I see, so the boys cannot control themselves and their childish insults. So of course it is up to us girls to ensure that our prepubescent little girls have the correct padding, so that the boys behave themselves.

And of course that is not going to add fuel to the myth that in order to be sexy or womanly you must have breasts that look a certain way?

i wonder if the same journo thinks bhurkas are a good thing, covering up and all that!

Message withdrawn

One of the commenters has just said that MN is the spawn of the Daily Mail. sigh.

Hmm I actually agree with some of her points...

I think there is this perception that we are "imposing" sexuality on girls when it is far, far more complicated than that.

For a start, young girls are probably very sexual already - see that thread recently where women admitted having orgasms as early as six.

I think the campaign confuses 1. a terror of paedophiles and 2. a terror of the culture that young women are growing up in. I don't think it really deals with either very well.

The problem really is that adult women are sexualised. Girls aspire to be like adult women. I think we are trying to intervene into that, but it's pointless. We could say 1. We are campaigning against adult women being sexual objects (cf. the objective of the organisation Object) or 2. We are giving young girls alternate role models (cf. the objective of the Pink Stinks campaign). As it is, we are trying to prevent girls from aspiring to be like adult women, when that's what they do. And also saying that there is something wrong with young girls experimenting with being sexual in the way that adults are - which again, is what they do.

It's very complicated to articulate but I think that's the point she is trying to make, and I have some sympathy with her position.

... I think there is also the issue that we are a bunch of middle class women campaigning about what working class women are buying

A massive generalisation of course but it is nonetheless an uncomfortable fact

lol Dittany

I don't even know what that means

I'm amazed she wasn't ashamed to put her name to that stupid article.

In her World, prematurely sexualised girls (and only girls, no trunks with padding) is the norm and anybody who objects is a puritan?!!?!?!?

Yes seven year olds

I think we all forget how sexual children are because they don't always have the words

I was snogging boys at 7
Hands in pants at 8

How is selling 7 year olds padded bikinis or pole dancing kits 'helping them to explore their sexuality'?

Oh and if Laurie Penny had ever bothered to look at MN, she might find out that we're not all the middle class reactionaries she seems to assume we are.