Feminists - come and talk me through what women wear

[TarkaTheOttolenghi]

So I have a 15yr old dd. Yesterday she was wearing a very low cut dress (so low you could see the small bow in the centre of the plunge bra she was wearing) - she does have rather large norks.

So I said to her that she probably needed a little cami or vest top under the dress. She said ‘ha! Call yourself a feminist mum!’ and rolled her eyes at me. At which point I guppied a bit and left her to it.

So, obviously, the feminist in me knows I should be able to wear what the hell I want, free from judgement or unnecessary attention.
The experienced adult says to me that if I am a 15yr old girl with large norks, a very low top and short dress, I AM going to get unwanted attention. As a parent, I hope to help dd avoid this if at all possible but also to make sure she knows that she does not have to tolerate behaviour like that and that the fault lies with the person making the comments.

So is it not feminist of me to suggest dd doesn’t wear a top that low?

Norks is one of those words I’ve only ever heard women on here use, I never use it at home and have never heard a man use it.

Jeremy Clarkson a couple of days ago on Top Gear/The Grand Tour/whatever it's called this week called two large jugs that Hammond bought at a boot sale 'norks' - carefully positioned in the boot of the car to look like a pair of breasts

I'd caution people against sharing stories of teenage breasts on here

Agree.

This is probably the most sensible comment.

I think you can have a conversation along the lines... women should be free to dress any way they like... but unfortunately we haven't reached a point where this doesn't make you susceptible to unwanted male attention

And I agree with Tinsel......

I make a point of never ever watching anything with Jeremy Clarkson on it so I’m afraid I wouldn’t know he used the word norks.

I literally only used it because it’s commonly used by other women on mumsnet and those getting outraged about it but not actually commenting usefully to the issue being discussed on the thread can just bugger off!

@erythronium - I will definitely do that. Really good point.

Those cautioning discussing of teenage breasts - I have anonymously (name changed for this thread) mentioned my dd’s breast size because it was relevant to the discussion at hand. It’s not a discussion about teenage breasts in any way. It’s a discussion about the way to approach the issue of women’s clothing with teenagers and I don’t think anyone, myself including, has sent the discussion in any inappropriate way.

This has turned into rather a strange thread so I think I will leave it here. Many thanks for those of you who have helpfully discussed strategies about addressing this issue of female clothing with my dd.

"Ask her why she thinks boys and men don't dress like that if she's bringing feminism into it."

Yes, this.

I really dislike the idea that somehow women and girls get a free pass in their choices while at the same time we say that fashion, advertising, and pornography all sexualise women inappropriately, in ways that impact them negatively.

If I as a grown women, knowing this, want to embrace that, or someone like Beyonce makes it her trade, we are hardly in a position to complain when a man notices it .

Now - a teen girl may or may not be very aware of the sexual element - some are, for some it's just what is fashionable. But telling them they can wear anything, with no sense that their choices may deserve real thought, that there may be outside influences affecting their choices, is not pro-woman. That's just cheap choice feminism.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as have teenage girls. They think that going out in a bra is ‘empowering’. No, going out in a baggy t-shirt, hair scraped back and feeling bloody wonderful is empowering. Knowing how damn great you are is empowering. Not wearing a wonderbra as a top because the Spice Girls banged on about ‘girl power’ 20 years ago (as instructed by the middle-aged men of the music industry).

She wants to feel sexy. It’s normal. We are sexual animals. Being a feminist doesn't mean you have to be above such things.

She’s 15 Lady69.

I've always hated the expression "you can wear what you want" and I agree with you entirely.
I don't toe the feminist line of "wear what you want".

Like it or not, we have to learn that our choices, including our clothing choices, might have unwanted consequences. “Doing (wearing) what you want” cannot be a guiding principle in life.

like @darkatendoftunnel, I’m more conservative in this area. I didn't pull any punches when my daughter was a teen. I simply said no to certain clothes; there were no gentle conversations or tip-toeing around "your choice, of course" and because she respects me she accepted my rules.

For me, "wear what you like" was never an option. It was "dress appropriately for the occasion". That might be a bikini on the beach; in an Asian country (we went to India often) it was a salwar kameez or long skirts and tops with sleeves. Other guidelines were, "don't follow the crowd”, and "think about the WHY". Why do you want to look sexy?

I'm more conservative in this area, and to whatisthisfuckery's excellent questions would ask who exactly decides what is considered 'attractive clothing' for women and girls, and why is it important for women and girls to be attractive-looking over comfortable anyway.

Exactly. DD respected my rules because she knows I am speaking from a position not of blame, but of hard experience and I want to spare her hurt.

I did some very stupid things when I was in my teens, including hitchhiking in South America and getting into vehicles with strange men, who indeed made passes at me and I was lucky to get away unraped.

In a perfect world we could, indeed, wear what we wanted and walk around with our boobs hanging out if we so wanted. In the real world we do need to apply caution and good sense. This is what decades of living in the real world has taught me; I went from life on the really wild side as a teenager and young adult, to the woman I am now: still staunchly defending women against predators, but knowing that they are out there and we have to look out for ourselves, and protect our younger ones who lack our experience.

Sticking a label on yourself and saying "I'm a feminist, I can do this, it’s my choice!" will in no way deter a would-be predator, and there are a lot of them about. OP, your daughter probably feels your doubts and so she challenges you. I think that many of us mothers are just too nice; we want our daughters to be free while they learn to make their own choices.

It just doesn’t work well. I had the dubious luck of having just such a mother. She was a feminist before that was even a thing and literally let me do whatever I wanted. I was just lucky that the world around me was conservative back then, which helped to rein me in, but I was wild anyway. It was a disaster and I learned the hard way, but it almost broke me. That’s why I am the way I am, and it did give me an authority when it came to helping my daughter navigate the stormy waters of adolescence! Yes, I made lots of mistakes but I was very (calmly, reasonably) strict on sexual matters. None of this “if you are going to have sex at 15 then just be sure you use condoms.” Some things simply weren’t up for debate.
But that’s another subject entirely.

She wants to feel sexy. It’s normal. We are sexual animals. Being a feminist doesn't mean you have to be above such things.

We are a lot more than animals, a lot more than sexual animals. We have the power of discernment and self determination, and the power of self-discipline.
If we were just sexual animals we would behave like animals, and women would just be having sex with all the men who wanted to have sex with us.
But because we are more, we can put those men in their places.
I learned quite early that I didn't really want sex. I wanted to love and be loved, but few men wanted that.

Echo what the others are saying here... it's that pesky is/ought dilemma in philosophy... "you can't get an is out of an ought". While we should be able to wear what we like, go where we like, act how we like etc, it is not currently safe to do so. There's a difference between moral responsibility and pragmatism for risk mitigation. 100% of moral blame always lies with the perps, but if you can swerve the risk in the first place, it is wiser to do so. As feminists, we keep fighting for that world, and in the meantime, education, awareness and self defense training have important roles to play. I went to a krav maga demo class a while ago, and the first rule is not to stand up to fight in the first instance, but to get the hell out of dodge as soon as your intuition tells you to do so.

I also feel it's a feminist issue about why women feel influenced to dress in such a way in the first place. If it were so "empowering", men would be doing it do to maintain their grip on power. The fact that they're not tells us what we need to know about power dynamics around social dress codes.

I'm a bit surprised at the reaction to 'norks'. I've only ever encountered it on Mumsnet and had always assumed it had been adopted specifically because it wasn't a term favoured by men and therefore didn't carry any sexualised baggage. If Clarkson uses it then I stand corrected (although the other possibility is that he's a secret Mumsnetter).

This is timely for me, as I was alarmed by the shortness of a teenage girls skirt the other day and I ask myself what the feminist position is on this. Somewhat relieved I don't have a daughter.

I think the suggestion to discuss why women dress this way and men don't is really interesting. I think I'd rather give a 15 year old food for thought for years to come. I also think a lot of women's preening (hair, make up, clothes etc) is more about how they are seen by other women than how they are seen by men.

I also thought norks was standard Mumsnet lingo.

My instinct would be to try and protect her from the unwanted attention by covering her up but I know the reality is that it doesn’t matter what she wears there will be unwanted attention. It’s better to equip teenage girls with plenty of confidence and some basic feminist analysis I think. I wish, I wish, I wish I’d had some feminists in my life as a teenager. If you think you can have a conversation with her about what it means to be sexy without reinforcing negative stereotypes I’d go for it because it’s definitely worth a try to encourage comfortable, practical clothing. I hate to see girls flopping around in badly made, flimsy, low cut, short stuff not because it’s bad for them to show their flesh but because I think we short change our girls as a society if the norm is to wear outfits that are impractical, uncomfortable etc. And often just plain silly. I love the way that since punk it’s been possible to wear jeans, t shirt, boots or converse and look sexy but still be able to ride a bike, climb over a wall, go up a ladder, stand on your head, whatever.

But why do young girls (and older women) want to look sexy?
Sexy means sexually attractive, surely. Why do women want that?
What's the difference between beautiful and sexy?

I just read this:
“because it was obvious to me that femininity, as written by men and performed by women, was the exhausted phantom that still haunted the early 21st century”.

Written by men, performed by women.

have you seen the 'getting ready' scene from "Crazy ex girlfriend", I think it's the first episode? Shows the girl waxing, preening, squeezing her body into whatever, etc while the guy just lounges on the sofa.

I think the point above about how comfortable men are in their clothing and how they can sit how they like, go upstairs without worrying who's looking from below, never have to pull things up, down or across, not worry about their makeup, the cut of their clothes, whether they are showing not too little and not too much, blah blah - so they can focus on having fun, building relationships, whatever. This is so important.
And the comments about who makes it so that women (think they) want to spend time and money on this stuff - I think both women and men do that, but we certainly don't do it in a vacuum.

Finally - yes, we ought to be able to wear whatever, and mostly, we can now. But clothing is an unspoken language, and it sends messages - in this case, the message is like "hey! check out my chest!" . In the short term, most of the messages attached to certain clothes are unlikely to change. So it quite bluntly invites people to check out her chest.

I would try and explain that she us a beautiful young woman with a figure 4han men will desire. So she can and should be able to wear what she wants and what makes her feel good, however that is likely to attract unwanted attention and may end up making her feel more uncomfortable.

Maybe discuss personal boundaries and safety. Don't be on her own, carry a rape alarm, don't get too drunk - I know she's 15 but plenty of 15 year olds drink, set up quick dial numbers on her phone...

It's tough because you want her to be self confident and wear what she likes but are aware of the possible dangers 😕

I don't watch The Clarkson how-to-fuck-up-the-planet stuff and so I too have only heard the word norks on here and this is the first time I have noticed pushback regarding that word. Not a big fan of it now that the JC connection has been made.

OP, if you are still reading, might I suggest that your daughter goes out dressed exactly how she wants but agrees on her return to have a sit down with you to discuss the unwanted attention she inevitably received over a nice cup of tea? Your talk could embrace feminism as well as dorks who like norks. And the rather brilliant point (made earlier upthread) that straight men and lesbians (mostly) do not dress that way. Why would that be? You could tell her about the male gaze etc.

Conversations like this always make me wonder how it would be if teenaged boys suddenly decided that codpieces were a cool fashion item. Not, likely I know, but still...... We have a very different conversation about boys wearing low-slung jeans and showing their butt-cracks, but why? Few really seem to understand sexual attraction and how it works. Yes people should be able to wear what they want, but society doesn’t tolerate walking down the street naked and our culture complains about the burkah. There are all sorts of sensible nuances in between. ’You’ll get stared at if people can see your bra’ is not much different from ‘You’ll get arrested if you walk down the street naked.’

By the way, my sons get unwanted attention from women of all ages when they wear the kilt. Up to and including bottom pinching and a lift-up to see what they’re wearing underneath and the occasional ‘upskirting’ so it’s not just men who dish out this treatment. Some women are no different from the men wha are being complained about.

Not RTFT but we are where we are in the world where teenage girls are now and they are still massively fetishised in mainstream popular culture, let alone porn, so let’s be real about that. Social media no doubt exacerbates. I remember stuff I wore back in the day and it makes my toes curl. A key point is that ‘fashion’ is what’s being sold to girls and girls also dress for each other and it’s not always really about attention from boys or men.

The point is that ‘fashion’ for girls and women or just looking current or nice or whatever... is massively sexualised. I didn’t read it like that when I was a kid because to me it was just what looking nice at that time looked like, or I wanted to be wearing the latest thing that my idols wore. Or wearing my my musical subgroup’s look. Fuckability was not what I was aiming to communicate.

I had pretty much an identical situation with my friends dd of the same age. Didn’t involve boobs or feminism.

It went

“That top is no good with a plunge bra as you can see your bra do all the work and it detracts from the neckline, have you got a a bandeau style bra or tit tape?”

Boob tube was added and it looked great.