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

In many countries women have to cover their hair and even their faces. Do we just accept that men find those sexually appealing and so they must be covered?

I work in a very male environment. We get a lot of female reps visiting who are very aware that their breasts are sexually attractive to men. They generally have a lot of breast on display and are extremely friendly and smiley with the male bosses / buyers and are quite dismissive of the few female staff.

Why do you think that is pax?

Because if I go to work it is not appropriate to dress provocatively. Right or wrong I don't know. I do know if I wear a low cut top and a short skirt and big heels I will get more male attention than if I go out wearing my current get up of trackies. I think a lot of people male and female equate wearing provocative clothes, make-up etc with being on the pull. No problem with that, just like a peacock struts around showing off his arse to impress the ladies, I don't think he does it because he just feels like it. I don't think you can take something like heels that 20 years ago would only be found in sex shops; and which are now being sold in high street shops and say actually their origin was not sexual and we shouldn't sexualise it. Fishnets too, they are not functional. They may make a woman feel empowered but I'm sure part of that is sexual confidence knowing you are turning someone on, or turning heads in a tut-tut way. Saying these things are not sexual means you are trying to desexualise something that has long been seen as sexual, and imo a bit of a uphill struggle children don't need to be part of.

At one point it was seen to be sexual for women to show their ankles. Do you think that should not have been desexualised?

captain, those children are already part of the struggle if their clothing choices are being restricted.

cailin, I'm totally with you on the breast thing. IMO, the world would be a much better place if all body parts were desexualised (except the parts actually used for sex). Women simply should be able to have bare breasts in public if they wish. And it can be done. Women's ankles and knees can be seen in public these days - something which was pretty much unheard of in this country 100 years ago.

This is really interesting, this topic.

Because I also flinch occasionally when I see what teen (girls, always girls) are wearing, and I have to wonder to myself why it is.

Having given it some thought, for me, I think it goes:

Some adult women are very sexually attractive to men. Some adult women like to be sexually attractive to men in a general way, for whatever reasons they have. (Many women don't , they want to be found sexually attractive by people they also find attractive and not the rest of them thanks actually you can stop following me now). Anyway, the women who are very sexually attractive to men have certain attributes that probably haven't changed over the millenia - things around symmetry of face and curviness of hip and slenderness of waist and so forth. And thus fashions over the years will look to accentuate these points on women generally, whether they are actually in the realm of very sexually attractive or not, and depending on the prevailing mores of society (ankles / breasts / hair covered / uncovered and so forth).

Of course many women and girls who are very sexually attractive don't like the attention and so try to hide their body and looks - which is very difficult and life for them can be very difficult indeed.

So then we are left with the fashion for women who are adults and if they want to of dressing in a certain way which is understood by society to mean "I am trying to look sexually attractive" and this of course changes over the years as to what it consists of.

But girls will always emulate women - that's just normal and standard - and this is where the problem comes as (as a poster previous has pointed out) the girls are dressing this way because it is the fashion. They are not (almost always not) dressing that way because they even want to look attractive to boys their own age, and you will be hard pressed to find any who dress that way because they want to look sexually appealing to a random passing 60yo lech.

So, really, the problem is getting the intent of some adult women and assuming that intent is there in much younger teens and even children.

Then, also, well it's not the clothes, is it. If you take "sexy woman" clothes and makeup and put them on a man, or a boy, people don't make comments about them being promiscuous. If you put them on a 4 year old, people think that's a bit weird, but they don't think the 4yo is "slutty". It's only when you put the clothes on a female aged about 8 up that people start making all these unpleasant comments. And, as we all know, even if girls and women don't wear these clothes, they still get the kind of treatment from men that presumably is being invited by "the clothes". it's not though is it, it's the young female person in the clothes and it doesn't matter what they wear it'll still be that way.

So in short, saying that girls in X clothing are is very basic fundamental victim blaming. Before anything has even happened they are saying it is the girls fault for choosing to wear certain clothes. Which is patently ridiculous.

And of course anyone who thinks that adult men are liable to assault female children just because they've got a certain type of shoe on is deluded. Paedophiles don't select victims based on their shoes.

It's just all pre-empting the usual victim blaming shite.

So I guess what I'm trying to say in all that is not that it's clothes that sexualise children, it's people. By ascribing adult motivations to them, when they shouldn't.

This only happens with girls, where they are deemed to "know what they're doing" in this regard from a very young age by lots of people, words like "knowing" and talk of "jail bait" and so forth. Child rape victims being described as "no angles" and "child prostitutes" and so forth, there is a keen-ness to do this in order that they "share the blame" and take some of that away from the (invariably) men who have behaved inappropriately / assaulted / groomed / raped / etc.

angels! not angles

"But girls will always emulate women - that's just normal and standard - and this is where the problem comes as (as a poster previous has pointed out) the girls are dressing this way because it is the fashion. They are not (almost always not) dressing that way because they even want to look attractive to boys their own age, and you will be hard pressed to find any who dress that way because they want to look sexually appealing to a random passing 60yo lec"

Before anyone jumps on this I'm talking about younger children, an about sexual attractiveness.

A 10yo rolling up her skirt for school isn't (usually) having a thought process of "Men find long legs on women sexy. I want boys (and men) to find me sexually attractive, I want them to want to fuck me. So I am going to roll my skirt up".

Most of them just think, I'll roll my skirt up because that's what everyone else is doing.

Why people look at them and think that they "know what they're doing" ie they are deliberately trying to provoke a sexual response in random men, is quite honestly beyond me.

Well said whirlpool.

If they are thinking that then there's something gone wrong, obv.

but is it fair for them to be part of the struggle, when they don't really understand what that struggle is? Would you be happy for your 11 year old daughter to dress provocatively in make-up, heels, short and tight clothing, knowing that a good proportion of the people she encounter will either think she is seeking sexual attention? Utnil the day comes when it is no longer sexual then I'd rather grown women fought against societies preconceptions and not children.

And when sexual clothing does become non-sexual will people actually want to wear it? because I doubt many people will want to because it will just be impractical clothing.

DD is 17 & went camping with friends - when we were packing I suggested she packed her shorts & sports bras, as she would be doing a lot of dance workshops.

She asked if it would be safe and if I would mind - I said she would be as safe there as she would be anywhere irrespective of what she wore & that shorts/crop tops were the best for exercising in warm weather

Her question is obviously a result of my attitude to her clothing when she was younger (I never really liked bikinis-preferred just bottoms or one pieces as she got older) - but maybe I went wrong somehow

"Dress provocatively" is a horrible turn of phrase isn't it.

I'll have to see what I do when they get to 11 if they want to dress up like that! DH won't like it, that's for sure. I'll probably be a bit more relaxed. I wore too much makeup and heels when I was 12, I mean this stuff isn't new!

I bought did a skirt a few years ago when she was about 10. It was an inch or two aboppve the knee and very nice she looked too

Now she is inches taller...but the skirt still "fits"

I do find it hard to explain to her that some people are going to decide what type of person she is or what she "wants" based on the length of her skirt that was "cute" at 10 and "sexy" at 12

I don't think as a society we are ready to ditch sexual attire. Many, many women myself included wear sexually provocative outfits purely because they are sexually provocative. I do it to make myself sexy when out with my DH and I like how he likes what I wear. How can we on one hand say it is sexy here and not sexy there. Age obviously does not matter to a high proportion of men.

Plus of course it's the attitude to women and children that's the problem and victim blaming. Some children will be groomed and attacked and stuff whatever the fashion is. Children in a certain type of clothes aren't "part of the struggle" - either something bad will happen to them or it won't and what they are wearing will have fuck-all to do with it. And, of course, victim blaming people will simply find something else that they did "wrong" to provoke the poor chap.

I think it's up to individual parents to decide that captain. What I'm looking at (and what whirlpool expressed so clearly) is the thinking behind the idea that girls are seen to be 'provocative' not because they actually provoke anyone, but simply because they wear clothes. Why are the girls and women criticised when it is the men who ogle, assault and rape?

perhaps fathers don't like it, because they know all too well how the male mind works. They've overheard the comments of their peers. I used to work in a male environment. A couple of them were talking about how they liked it when their DD brought their friends round and the outfits they were and, 'phwoar! if only they were a couple of years older!' These are supposed to be respectable family men... eurgh.

"I do it to make myself sexy when out with my DH and I like how he likes what I wear. How can we on one hand say it is sexy here and not sexy there. Age obviously does not matter to a high proportion of men."

You can't see the difference between a 25 yo in a basque and heels and stockings, say, and a 7yo?

You think most men can't?

That's not what you mean, I'm sure!

The problem is men who are attracted to girls - and act on it - when they shouldn't.

100 years ago you might have donned a floor length nightie with a corset under or whatever the fashion was with Victorain lingerie.

The clothes change, the body under them less so. Many men find women's bodies sexy, especially certain types of bodies. The clothes are beside the point. Put the same clothes on a man, and the man will no longer find them sexy. He should't find them sexy on a 7yo. The fact that some do, and act on that, that's the problem.

But it is the men who are the problem there captain, not the girls. Why give girls the message that they are being 'provicative'?

Sorry 'provocative'

because as I said most women wear these clothes either because it makes them feel sexy, because they want sexual attention, because they like how it shocks.

I don't think they wear it because they think it would be practical when out in the garden or doing the shopping.

so when girls do it then it is not too much of a leap to assume these girls are doing it for the same reasons. But unless you own a daughter of that age you wouldn't necessarily know otherwise, I mean how many people who are not mothers to young girls knew that it is nigh on impossible to buy practical clothes for girls as young as 3 which are not tight/short or trying to be grown-up?

My mother never had this problem. We are going backwards. Women have become sex objects.

captain so again it's the men who are the problem, vocally leching over girls who are underage.

That is what is not right.

You honestly think they would stop doing that if all girls wore skirts 3 inches longer or whatever? Of course they wouldn't . It's not the clothes that are "making" them behave like that, it's the girls inside the clothes. And they can't change what they are, to stop it. So people blame the clothes, as they don't want to blame the men.

100 years ago they'd have been saying "cor look at her ankle if only she were older" etc etc