13 year old dd accused me of not being a feminist

[HenryIX]

Dd went to a party last night. She came downstairs dressed in tiny cut off shorts. She has worn these often, with thick tights underneath. Last night she did not have the tights on.
It was cold last night, but also, she was dressed like a 17 year old, not a just turned 13 year old.
My first words, without thinking were ' You aren't going out dressed like that!'

So it got me thinking, I do believe a woman should be able to dress as she wants. But she is not a woman, she is a child.
Where do I draw the line, what age should I let her choose how to dress?
And more importantly, what do I say to her when she wakes up today and is grumpy that I didn't let her wear what she wanted?

Sparrowhawk, they end up at that sort of party by colluding with their mates and lying to their parents. Clearly you never pulled that kind of stunt.

Other times it's just that their parents aren't paying attention or even, sometimes, there at all. A lot of girls in care become victims of sexual exploitation and abuse.

You sound quite naive sparrowhawk tbh. I don't have teenagers either but I teach them and you learn a lot that way.

Again though Being, the issue is the lie rather than the clothes. No lie, no problem.

I agree that some teenagers lie and evade parents Prawn. How will preventing them from wearing certain clothes change that?

Naive about what Mistress? I think the idea that preventing girls from wearing certain clothes protects them is extraordinarily naive.

Sparrowhawk, you come across as someone who either was never a teenager or who, at the very least, was a terribly cautious, well behaved one. Did you never go out dressed in outrageous revealing clothing and suss out how much trouble it can get you into?

Sure, we aim for a feminist utopia in which it makes no difference what you wear, but in life as she is lived a 13 year old girl whose shorts reveal her butt cheeks will find a walk alone in town one evening a fairly educational experience.

Sigh.
Have you answered the point about appearing older to older boys? Oh yes you did, by saying they could ask and of course the child would reply truthfully.
No one on this thread thinks not wearing shorts means you won't be raped. You don't need to keep making that point we get it.
Wearing the shorts can make you appear older which brings further complications that are hard to deal with at just-turned-13, and does appear sexualised as part of your bum is on display, and I think we can all agree that arses are generally viewed as an intimate area.

Not 1 person on this thread said that covering up prevents rape not 1 sparrow you keep saying this as if that is what we are talking about.

It's just that growing up female in a way that minimises the likelihood of abuse and rape is not primarily about clothing.

It is about trusting and supportive relationships with adults, about forming strong relationships with your peers, and about being able to balance the natural wish to experiment and explore with an awareness of the need to to keep an eye open.

From the point of view of parenting it seems best to steer between two extremes. Trying to over-control and dictate what a teenager wears is simply likely to result in them leaving the house with a second outfit. On the other hand parental indifference and neglect may well end up with a teenage girl encountering 'Too much. Too young'

"Do not tell a girl that covering herself up will help prevent rape - it is not true"

Has anyone on this thread actually said that?

Sparrow you continue to tell us how we should educate our daughters for the world we want them to live in and not the world we actually live in. Me telling my daughter that exposing as much of her body as current popular wants her to do will not remotely help her along in the actual world we live in.

You will not get any argument from me that education for boys is more crucial here than girls, rape is pertrutrated by men and boys who sometimes have no notion of what consent means it if they do they disregard it. I for one am terrified about the affects of the porn industry, the music industry and all mainstream culture has on boys.

The answer to this is not having young girls dressed in clothes designed for adults. Clothing does have sexual connotations. How you have escaped the idea that women sometimes want to dress to increase their sexual attractiveness (particularly female role models like Kim kardashian and her ilk) and that this is feeding down into popular culture is a mystery to me?

'Sparrowhawk, you come across as someone who either was never a teenager or who, at the very least, was a terribly cautious, well behaved one. Did you never go out dressed in outrageous revealing clothing and suss out how much trouble it can get you into?'

I wore short skirts, yes, but I was never taught that doing that could get me into trouble, and it never did. I was raped twice though, in my twenties, by friends, while wearing, in once case, pyjamas and in the other case a pair of jeans and a jumper. I've also been flashed while wearing work clothes, groped while in school uniform, and forcefully propositioned while out with my children. In all cases neither my age nor my clothing had anything to do with it.

'Sure, we aim for a feminist utopia in which it makes no difference what you wear, but in life as she is lived a 13 year old girl whose shorts reveal her butt cheeks will find a walk alone in town one evening a fairly educational experience.'
We don't aim for a feminist utopia. We aim for the bare minimum human right of being able to walk down a street without being harassed. I cannot believe that we are still teaching girls to be fearful and cover up rather than tackling the actual issue.

'Sigh.
Have you answered the point about appearing older to older boys? Oh yes you did, by saying they could ask and of course the child would reply truthfully.'

A girl may appear older no matter what she's wearing. If she chooses to lie about her age, that's a different matter entirely. I don't know why you're putting the two together. My best friend, at the age of 13, could pass for 25 and she never ever wore anything revealing. What was her mother to do? Keep her at home in case she lied when someone asked her her age?

'Do not tell a girl that covering herself up will help prevent rape - it is not true"

Has anyone on this thread actually said that?'

There has been a lot of talk about 'sending out signals' which is code for 'inviting rape' in my experience. So what if a girl 'sends out signals'? If she says no to sex, she says no, no matter what she's wearing.

'Sparrow you continue to tell us how we should educate our daughters for the world we want them to live in and not the world we actually live in. Me telling my daughter that exposing as much of her body as current popular wants her to do will not remotely help her along in the actual world we live in.'
So, are you saying that in the world we actually live in, educating our daughters about covering up will help them? In what way? By preventing them from being harassed/raped?

There has been a lot of talk about 'sending out signals' which is code for 'inviting rape' in my experience

Can I just state categorically that this is NOT what I mean by 'sending out signals' (not that I usually use that phrase). It's about sending out the message you are an adult woman (legally) and above age and up for those type of social interactions available for adults.

Rape is never ever ever about clothing, and I never dress my children to 'avoid rape' because that is not possible and there would be no justification for ignoring their lack of consent on the basis of clothing whatever their age and whatever context they were in.

This is a red herring.

Of course females have to navigate what it means to perform femininity (including hypersexualised culture, often signified by certain types of clothing) just as males have to do the same with masculine norms, clothing and behaviour, all of which act as social signals. I still think there is more pressure on young women than on young men in this regard, and given the earlier puberty, this has to be negotiated earlier (when the child is further away from legally being an adult) than for boys in general.

Always very struck by a story I was told by someone who worked in the field of trauma on a training day. I was working for an organisation that supported rape and abuse survivor.

A man who was defending himself against a charge of rape, argued that he had simply 'befriended' the woman he had targeted, because she'd seemed pretty and nice. He'd offered to walk her back from the club and then they'd had entirely consensual sex in the park.

The CCTV footage from around the club and the streets showed that the woman had thrown up and that her hair and clothes were covered with vomit before the assault.

The truth being that it's not about the 'attractive' clothes you are wearing. Impaired resistance in relation to (spiked)drink and drugs - even if that means you stink and look a total mess - is more likely to make someone feel they can get away with attacking you.

So sorry to hear about your experiences Sparrow That is horrific. However rape is not the only issue here Sparrow. I am not only talking about rape. I am talking about staging a push back against sexualising children prematurely.

'Can I just state categorically that this is NOT what I mean by 'sending out signals' (not that I usually use that phrase). It's about sending out the message you are an adult woman (legally) and above age and up for those type of social interactions available for adults.'

Say I'm a scientist and I wear a white coat. Someone reads that signal and thinks I'm a doctor and engages with me as though I'm a doctor. Is that a huge problem that can't be solved? Should I stop wearing my white coat?

'I am not only talking about rape. I am talking about staging a push back against sexualising children prematurely.'

You are the person who's sexualising children 2cents. You are the one who looks at a 13 year old in shorts and thinks sex.

That is a really unfair comment

Sparrowhawk, you get my first

Fucking short shorts with the arse on show are sexualised clothing not because I say so because they fucking are.

Show me the young boy wearing them and I will tell him the same. Of course young boys are not told to wear clothes of this nature because of the patriarchy objectifying women. I have a near teen girl. I have real worries on this, I do not just flit by to MN to share my wisdom of Socrates.

That was uncalled for nobody is looking at children and thinking of sex especially not 2cents the op thought her dds shorts were not appropriate as parents we do have a duty to protect our childrens childhood as long as possible. There is young girls all over social media behaving in an adult way using the words sexy and hot that in my opinion and plenty other parents don't think that is right.

We have to ask why are children sexulising themselves,

"There has been a lot of talk about 'sending out signals' which is code for 'inviting rape' in my experience. So what if a girl 'sends out signals'? If she says no to sex, she says no, no matter what she's wearing."

Absolutely.

I don't want my 13 year old dd to be in a position where she has to point out repeatedly that despite appearances to the contrary, she is 13. I don't want her to look like a 16 year old. I want her to be dressing and acting in a way appropriate to her age. I do not want her in a position where lovely, nice, gentle, kind 17 year old boys who absolutely take no for an answer might think she is 16.

I think that society as a whole is 'gendering' children more than it used to in the 1970s. So that parents may very much want their daughters to look like nicely dressed little girls. But then object when those same girls wish to assert themselves by looking like fashionably dressed teenage girls.

I think parents can try to help by modelling the idea that our human worth is not based on our appearance. However, the fact that the fashion/beauty/style/dieting pages of Mumsnet are very popular indicates that we have an uphill climb...

I think you are right marrianne although i was very much expected to be a girly girl in the 70s and 80s which i rebelled against. I had 90s children and i wasnt really into dressing them girly more practically they did seem to mature at their own rate but they seemed behind their peers as teenagers and were teased for not dressing in revealing clothes by other girls

Bertrand is your concern to protect nice kind 17 year old boys from lying 13 year old girls?