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

I don't know you'll have to ask them.

Well surely if clothes are going to make them commit crimes then they shouldn't be allowed out?

And as previously mentioned rape cases have unfortunately not ended up with a conviction because the rapist thought the woman was up for it because of the way she was dressed and because she was drunk. It's not right but it happens.

Feminists have started to change that situation, as can be seen in the Ched Evans case.

And it's not the case that the rapist 'thought the woman was up for it,' it's that in our society people see certain women as sluts who deserve to be raped.

what do you want me to do? Pretend these things don't happen, that these slut opinions don't exist? That men find women in sexual clothing sexy and possibly up for a bit of action? What are you planning on teaching your daughter? One minute you say I am going to raise my daughter scared of men by highlighting these unfair stereotypes and the next you are ramming home the point any man in her life right now who loves and cares for her is more likely to rape her than a stranger. Do you want me to teach her that? Do you think that won't scare her more? and then I'll put her in hot pants and crop tops, with make-up and heels and send her off to parties with boys who are using porn as a blueprint of relationships because the feminist agenda demands that women wear what they want and 2 fingers up to anyone who thinks flaunting my tits and arse is remotely sexual.

Deserved to be raped? Hmmm I don't think so. But sympathy for a man trying to read mixed messages, possibly.

I don't want you to do anything. I've already said it's up to you how you parent your daughter.

I said I won't be telling my daughter that her clothes might cause her to be assaulted because that isn't true.

I have no idea why anyone would 'put' their daughter in hot pants and heels if the daughter didn't choose that.

Normal men find women sexy, then talk to them and kiss them if that's what they want.
Sexual predators assault women, regardless of what they're wearing.

Mixed messages? So a man can just assume from what a woman's wearing that she wants to be groped and just grope her? And that's fine because of what she was wearing?

Would you seriously have sympathy for a man who assaults a woman?

You're going round in circles.
I mentioned my experience up post of not commenting on my daughters' going to school on short skirts and make up as I felt that in broad daylight with friends was a good safe way of realising the different way you are treated depending on how you are dressed. I'm awake now as dd1 has just called to let me know she's safe (overseas and clubbing) coincidentally she did get into a difficult situation- nothing to do with predatory men, but all the same the common sense rules about knowing where you are, friends knowing where you are not getting so drunk you make bad choices etc got her out of it.
You can encourage your children to be safe without slut shaming or breeding paranoia.

You seem to think that what I think and what wider society thinks are the same thing. I don't have sympathy for them, but in this world men are often given sympathy.

Because I don't want my dd to have sexual attention before she is ready for it, is the reason why I don't want her to wear these clothes. Slut shaming in wider society is common, happened when I was at school, is it right err no, do I want my pre-teen called a slut no.

Am I going to tell my dd she is going to be called a slut and be assaulted? No. Do I think that wearing certain outfits may make men think you are on the pull and get your arse squeezed or wolf ehistled, yes. Happened a lot, very common. Do I think it's right young female students get given rape alarms at freshers week? Well, I wish there were no link to being young, drunk, and slightly less worldly wise than others that makes it a good idea for universities hand them out to 18 year old girls. This was my university 15 years ago, nowadays we are told female students face more threat of being assaulted than in my day, because their male peers see them as sex objects.

do I actually think my dd will be raped because of her clothing, probably not, but having unwanted sexual attention is not rape, but neither is it very nice. But by 18 she'll have to navigate life herself, she won't be 10 dressed like she's going clubbing with her mates on a Friday night, when actually she's just at the primary school disco and totally unaware that her attire has any affect on how likely someone finds you sexually attractive. And because wearing these clothes may also make men and women think you are sexually active and seeking sexual attention, that a person gets judged accordingly.

You can try and argue otherwise but obviously as the OP States a child will get called a slut, boys will think she is sexy, and older perverts might privately be enjoying the view and getting a thrill. It is not an over reaction but a fact. And why you would expose a child to all that is beyond me, wait until they can understand all 3 of those issues properly and be more self aware, and more aware of the motivations of others.

But hey let's keep putting our preteen girls in tight and short clothing,because that is what is normal now and let's pretend it's not because women are more and more often treated like sex objects thanks to pop culture and porn becoming very mainstream. Either you do think clothing makes you a sex object or you don't. And I think it does.

Captain, one of the reasons this is going round in circles is because you think that you were only sexually harassed because and when you wore skimpy clothing.

I can assure you it happens regardless. I got tons pf sexual harassment as a teen. I never wore skimpy clothing. In fact I made damn sure I didn't as a direct result. It made no difference whatsoever. In fact they didn't even need to be looking at me, because sometimes I got it over the phone - the local kids knew I had to answer the phone, I was unofficially part of my dad's business answering service, and had to declare I was on my own if that was the case, and then it started.

It has nothing to do with what you look like, and everything to do with these kind of men enjoying the power trip they get from humiliating women.

That said, I don't like sexualised clothing, in either children or adults but particularly children, because it contributes to our over-sexualised culture. This idea that women are only valuable as sexual objects and insofar as men like looking at them. It has to be stopped, and so I will not be dressing my dd in these clothes and will always encourage her not to because I do 't want her to think of herself as nothing but a sex object, whether 'her sexuality is budding' or not.

Funny as well how male sexuality can be 'budding' - it never bloody stops ime - without the need to 'express' that in their clothing, too, isn't it? Because it isn't our own sexuality we're expressing with sexual clothing, it's men's, and their need to express ownership of us. You said it yourself upthread I think - you like the way your dh likes you wearing sexual clothing.

I said I won't be telling my daughter that her clothes might cause her to be assaulted because that isn't true

Callin despite being told by you that I never agree with anything on FWR I have consistently said , when this is raised, that what a woman is wearing or where she is, is never a cause or contributing factor or justification for rape.

Captain the "she must have been asking for it" mindset is vile yet you seem happy to perpetuate it.

In fact (attempting to think as I'm going along as usual, ta for the opportunity to clarify my thoughts), it would then follow that otherwise-more confident types would experience a rise in harassment when wearing clothes, because one is thereby 'playing the game', allowing men to look and be titillated, complicit in the idea that women's bodies are there for no other purpose than male gratification. Most men are reasonably decent types, they will only go for those playing the game.

Nevertheless the root cause is not the clothes, but the fact that one is complicit in the power game. We all end up complicit sometimes, we all have to live in the world as well as make it and it's a huge bloody confusing mess.

It may even be that when you go out in your normal clothes, you are subconsciously more relaxed, more yourself, knowing that you're not rendering yourself vulnerable to crap, and so they leave you alone. The worse kind of men do not want to bother confident relaxed types who will shrug off their harassment, they want to go for vulnerability and exploit it, hit where they know it will hurt. With stranger rape of course, that doesn't bloody matter, it will get through anything and they just go for the first person unlucky enough to cross their path.

"when wearing clothes" - I mean clothes designed to be sexually appealing. Lol.

you like the way your dh likes you wearing sexual clothing

So? Everyone in touch with themselves likes to feel desired by someone they also feel inclined to desire, that has no gender boundary. It has nothing to do with youth 'empowerment via sexuality' which is what Madonna effectively sold to girls eager to 'discover themselves'. The fact that declared feminists/culture lapped it up at the time as a good thing was brutally sad IMO.

"Boys buddies sexuality is not expressed through their clothing" Lol whoever posted this doesn't have an 11 yo ds.

Jesus Captain, you have a really low opinion of men don't you? Men are perfectly capable of not raping anyone, rapists choose to rape and saying that men who say they do so because a woman was dressed a certain way are liars. Rape isn't about sex. It's about controlling women. Policing the way girls dress so that they don't get themselves raped/groped means that rapists/sexual assaulters are exerting an undue level of control over you and your children before they've even offended against them. Your view about girls/women dressing a certain way meaning men can't help themselves is victim blaming toward the female in question and derogatory toward the majority of men who manage not to rape or grope anyone no matter what they wear. It's also a fairly repulsive view to hold.

I feel slightly uncomfortable with the way little girls all wear tight t shirts, short shorts. Leggings.
Boys, mostly, wear wider, more baggy clothes.

I wonder what society is trying to tell them all. What roles we are telling them they are due to live, as adults.

Women's bodies are to be revealed, so they are easy to see, to be judged. Men's are fine to be hidden, it's not important to know what they look like, because they have other things to offer?

I'm not sure what the message is. But there must be something in it.

"Evryone in touch with themselves likes to feel desired by someone they also feel inclined to desire, that has no gender boundary. It has nothing to do with youth 'empowerment via sexuality' which is what Madonna effectively sold to girls eager to 'discover themselves'. The fact that declared feminists/culture lapped it up at the time as a good thing was brutally sad IMO."

You're confusing - I think - the private expression of individual desire with the public display of desirability. The first is private between two people, the second is men showing off their ownership of it to other men.

"Whoever posted this doesn't have an 11 yo ds"

True, but I see enough of them and teens around in public. Please tell me that you are not for one second claiming that the pressures governing male appearance are anything like as much as those surrounding female. It isn't male clothing that provokes threads like these all the damn time, and no one ever remarks on the clothing of male rape victims.

School uniform is a case in point here.

Many girls get hassled / shouted at / leered at / & etc when they are in school uniform. This is true whether they have rolled their skirts up or whether they have stuck to the letter of the uniform policy.

Why is this? Is it because school uniforms are intrinsically "sexually provocative" clothing? Well obviously not, they are based on ideas around smartness, what is deemed to be appropriate attire for children in a learning environment. So why do all these girls get hassled and worse? It happens because they are school girls because a concerning large number of men are attracted to girls aged about 11-16 (and up obviously!) and so teh school uniform denotes - this is a child who is in the age range you fancy, they are likely to be naive, not know know how to handle it if you do or say something, they are less likely to tell anyone than an adult woman, they might well get really embarrassed and flustered and isn't that great fun. The men do it because they are girls of that age, not because of the uniform.

And then there are hosts of websites for porn featuring very young women dressed as schoolgirls, adult women will dress as a "sexy schoolgirl" on a night out (probably without thinking too deeply on it!) and so forth. The uniform is a part of this. Why? Well it's not the clothes is it, it's the child in them that is of interest and that's what the uniform is denoting. Although like I say, most people going to a "school disco" night probably aren't thinking on it too much! And if they did, some of them might think twice.

Plus, what are the rates of sexual abuse of children and harassment assault etc in countries where women have to cover up much more? Are they less? Are the women safe from predatory men by dint of eg clothes which cover all their body and their hair? Of course they aren't. Tahrir Square springs to mind, and what happened to so many women involved in those protests and celebrations.

To focus on the clothes and "rules" around which bits of women's bodies may be displayed are nothing more than a massive distraction technique to draw people's focus away from the problem which is predatory men.

"Everyone in touch with themselves likes to feel desired by someone they also feel inclined to desire, that has no gender boundary. It has nothing to do with youth 'empowerment via sexuality' which is what Madonna effectively sold to girls eager to 'discover themselves'. The fact that declared feminists/culture lapped it up at the time as a good thing was brutally sad IMO."

I honestly don't understand what you're saying here DWH - could you explain?

Again, well said Whirlpool.

Also I'm glad to find us in agreement Lass.