sexualisation of children vs slut shaming

[bikeandrun]

My DD is y6, having a great time with a fancy dress parades and final party. Being having lots of discussions with other mums and my mum about what the girls have been wearing. Finding my responses to this difficult
" cant believe mums let their daughters out of the house dressed like that" response to crop tops, mini skirts, lots of slap high heels etc

"girls don't understand the effect they have on men when they dress like that" this was aimed at a girl in dds year who has obviously gone through puberty and has a woman's body
Are just a few quotes I have heard
As a young single woman i used to enjoy dressing in an extreme and sexual way and felt empowered and confident.BUT

These girls are not sexual beings yet but is it slut shaming or just protective parenting to not want 11 year olds to dress like this.

I persuaded dd to wear converse rather than high heels mainly cos I know she wanted to jump around like a manic but I also really didn't like how she looked in those heels.
Help me find a feminist way through these feeling as I support my daughter as she grows into a woman

What makes the clothing inappropriate holmes? What I'm getting at is, I understand that you think it looks awful, but you also 'disapprove' of it - why is that?

I was very confident and assertive as a girl. I didn't just look like I knew where I was going, I knew where I was going. Just walking down the street or sitting on public transport throughout my teenage years, I was wanked at, flashed at, groped - not to mention the verbal stuff - whilst wearing school uniform or jeans.

That's awful Laurie I am sorry

yup, I'm sorry too because all that is still happening to girls every single day. I never bothered to report any of that stuff - I couldn't see the point, it's not like they were going to be tracked down, and I just wanted to get on with things. I realise now, of course, that it would have been worth reporting because people just don't realise the extent to which this goes on if they haven't experienced it themselves.

I find it slightly naieve to imagine that you can protect your DD from being called a slut, by not allowing her to dress in clothes which in your opinion, denote her as a slut in the eyes of the world.

I've been called a slut hundreds of times, I'm sure. Sometimes because I've been running while in possession of a vagina (men have yelled it from vans etc.), sometimes because I've disagreed with someone or stood up for myself, sometimes just because I'm in the company of a man who hates women. At no time was what I was wearing, the defining variable in whether I was called a slut or not.

Slut is simply a hate-speak term for a woman, in the same way that the N word is a hate-speak term for a black person. I recognise that when someone calls me it, it says nothing about me and everything about them and that's what I've taught my 13 year old DD. She'll almost certainly be called a slut at least once in her life and probably far more often, because any minority group will suffer an "othering" insult at some point in their life. There's no point trying to avoid being called a slut if you are female because any woman can be called a slut if a man (or another woman) doesn't like her, so to teach your children to try and avoid it, is really and truly pointless. It's like trying to teach your child to avoid being called a racist or homophobic term. You can't. They'll be called it anyway, no matter what they wear or how they behave. What you need to teach them, is how to deal with the name-calling that will come their way, not to live their lives to try and avoid the name-calling.

Interesting discussion. I am not a feminine woman, I don't own any high heels. I let my 11 year old dd choose what she wears. Sometimes it's 'skimpy', but surely the onus is on adults to recognise she is a child and not to 'slut shame' her

I don't have time for people who are so ininvested in what other people wear.

Dd went through a phase of wearing a hijab. I received feminist comments about that

Clothes are so superficial.

Because it makes them look fake-adult, Cailindana. I suppose that, in my experience, children who are allowed by their parents to wear inappropriately adult clothes are often allowed to behave in adult ways too. I think it often demonstrates a lack of good judgement on the part of the parents, which will probably be apparent in other aspects of the child's life.

And as for clothes being superficial... well, in the literal sense they are. But the clothes people choose to wear can say a lot about them. People (especially teenagers) like to be able to choose what clothes they wear because it is means of self-expression. It's the main reason most kids hate school uniform. You can't claim it as a means of self-expression and then claim it says nothing about you.

Holmes I understand what you say about self expression. But an outfit is a snapshot in time. My dd spends most of her life (outside of school uniform) in sports clothes; running or football kit, karate suit and mostly her jodhpurs. And when at home/out and about she is normally in leggings and t-shirts

But if you see her at the school disco in a short skirt and some makeup, you assume that I don't have good judgement?

What do you mean when you say that it is an indicator that they are allowed to 'behave in adult ways'?

Which 'adult ways'?

the clothes people wear say a lot about them

I think clothes say very little about a person actually. And are often used as a mask anyway

I was raped when I was 17. I can tell you exactly what I was wearing that night; jeans, 18 hole Dr martens and a baggy tie dye t-shirt covered in blim burns

I can't believe some people still don't get this. The incidence of sexual assault and rape has no correlation what so ever with Amy type of clothing

I think people cling to it though to make themselves feel safer. Like if you don't let your dds wear short skirts, they won't get raped

Marmaladeatkinz - I don't know, I guess the clothes and make-up are just part of the picture. And 'adult ways' - well, underage drinking, bad language, watching age - inappropriate stuff etc. I've been a secondary school teacher for 20 years, so I have had a lot of opportunity to muse on what I've witnessed. It's always interesting to see what the kids wear on non-uniform days.

I can appreciate what you're saying. Clothes are in some senses 'just clothes', but it is very difficult to totally avoid judging people on what they wear. After all, they (or their parents ) chose to put it on.

I think the fake-adult argument one is interesting, that if we allow our daughters to dress in "inappropriately adult" ways then it might hint that we also accept "inappropriately adult" behaviour from them too. But what does that mean, that we allow them to be disobedient? Or that we allow them to be involved in something sexual such as trying to attract a boyfriend at an "inappropriate" age?

Apart form all the arguments about pressures from every corner of society/the media etc which teaches girls that attracting a boyfriend/husband is the holy grail of their existence, why are we only reserving this fake-adult concern for girls?

Lots of little boys, my own included, wear pretend football kits imitating professional premiership-league footballers. This is "inappropriately adult" clothing as the little boys are not old enough or skilled enough to be real premier-league professional footballers. Following the same fake-adult logic that we applied to the girls allowed to wear "inappropriately adult" clothing, might this also be a hint that we are willing to accept "inappropriately adult" behaviour from these boys, too? So would that be allowing them to be disobedient? Or that we allow then to behave in ways associated with professional footballers including arrogance, over-ambition, selfishness and, on occasion, even violence?

Except no one is worrying about that because no one polices or judges boys' or men's behaviour in that way.

rose

Ido feel that it's only the girls

My daughter wears very tight school trousers - not allowed as part of the uniform

They are hipsters -not allowed as part of the uniform

Boys wear similar -not allowed as part of the uniform

She has never been told off about them, or any of her male friends

Most girls wear skirts, short ones are not allowed, they are regularly told off, made to kneel down to check the length in assembly's (not dd as she is in trousers, anyone in trousers is excused) and letters come out to the parents on a regular basis

I once got into a heated debate with another parent who thought that short skirts were dreadful because as she walked past the senior school men were looking at the girls, beeping their horns and yelling. She just didn't get my point that the MEN shouldn't have been doing that

And I am teaching my Dd not to give a flying fuck what other people think of what she wears Holmes

Because your opinion, for example, is judgemental and incorrect. And this is true of so many people. She (or I) got judged for the hijab

It's ridiculous to think that because I allow her to experiment with makeup (which I don't wear btw) and wear short skirts (which I don't) that I would allow her **to drink alcohol...Which would be damaging to her health

I do agree that it's hard to find good cheap clothes for girls sometimes

We went to Jordan two years ago and dd ended up in next boys shorts as they were nearly knee length as I couldn't get any girls ones

Handy to pass on to her little brother though

the effect on men comment is just out of order totally wrong on all levels

but i do think you should teach your children appropriate dress cropped tops yes miniskirts yes both together perhaps not

there is a difference between guiding choices and expressing freedom i would not allow my dd to wear cropped top and a short skirt together nothing to do with men and phedofiles round every corner scares etc just because i don't think it looks nice plus if your going out you need to be vigilant about your top and your bottom half at the same time its not a comfortable "look" and actually my dd likes to be comfortable in her clothing choices

I don't think it looks nice

What is 'nice'?

Holmes - so you're judgemental then, and decide what a person is like from their clothes rather from who they actually are. I'm sure you're lovely and everything but I won't be teaching my daughter that she needs to dress a certain way so that people like you don't judge her. I also won't be teaching her that it's ok to judge others based on what they're wearing. I did plenty of 'adult' things when I was a teenager and I never once wore a short skirt.

It's fine if you don't think certain clothes are 'nice' but in that case I think it isn't fair to try to control what a teenager wears just because you don't like it. Everyone has their own taste but imposing taste on someone else is quite controlling.

It is only the girls. On every level:

Level 1: whether it looks "nice" or not - no one cares whether football kits on boys look "nice" or not. And, even if we don't think they look aesthetically pleasing, we put up with it because the aesthetically pleasing requirement is not important enough when applied to boys to stop them doing something.

Level 2: whether or not football tops will encourage them to behave too much like men in other ways - behaving like men is a good thing, behaving like women is open to judgement.

Level 3: whether or not it will encourage sexual attention - many professional footballers on the field, are seen as sexy - but it's OK for little boys to wear their strips because boys are not the gatekeepers of sex and will not be considered as trying to attract women with their clothing.

Level 4: the fake adult argument. It is OK for boys to be fake adults because adult men are perfectly acceptable. Adult women are not. Little girls are acceptable, they are sweet and well-behaved and controlled by their parents but when they become women, they start to have their own opinions and make decisions in all sorts of areas but, especially, in terms of how they behave sexually. This is open to judgement and disapproval, it is linked to fear of female sexuality and attempts to control it in our society. Thus, boys growing up is OK, girls not so much.

Hear hear rosabud.

I don't believe that anyone is not judgmental, ccailindana. And no, it would be utterly idiotic to judge someone on their clothes rather than on the way they are. Nobody would do that if they had any knowledge of the person. We probably only judge people solely on their clothes when that is all we know about them.

I too teach my children not to treat people differently according to their appearance. Not to treat them differently. I am not naive enough to think that they won't make their own judgements though. Because that is what humans do. It is what allows us to be drawn to some people, be wary of some people, be attracted to some people etc. And much of that begins at first sight.

I have an opinion on clothes, in the sense that I like some and not others but I honestly don't think I judge people based on their clothes, simply because life experience has taught me that clothes tell you little or nothing about a person. I have friends who dress in full leather and heavy eye make up, friends that wear short skirts and heels, friends that wear mainly sports gear. They are all lovely people.

I think it's incredibly narrow minded to look a child and make judgements about their parents based on what the child is wearing without actually knowing that child or their parents.

Also for some reason you see dressing like a woman as being 'distasteful.' What's distasteful about looking like a woman?

Excellent post Rosa

Holmes you think the sub conscious judgements we make, which help protect us from harm are based on what people are wearing??

I'm with cailin I have opinions on clothes (not very strong ones!) about what I like the look of etc. But I don't form any opinion of a person's character (or family ) based on what they are wearing. I don't think this is unusual