I made a gross and vile comment, please can someone explain why I was gross and vile?

[Mammatino]

Hi, am a bit nonplussed. I've commented on a current post about the trend for vcso girls. It's young girls who are very minimal make up, beachy and save the planet types. (ish). My comment was that I thought it was a better trend than the current trend for overblown, over made up, trashy sex dolls that many young girls seem to follow. Was I vile and gross because it sounded like I was attacking a young woman's right to choose? When teens are finding an identity I would be much happier with minimum make up, planet savers, photographing sunsets than girls just highlighting (through make up and surgery) their breasts, bums and big lips. I just want to know what I've done that is gross and vile, incase it is a lack of education on my part. I've posted on feminist chat as I think it's a bit of a female identity thread and that's where I've crossed boundaries? Maybe the posters I offended like this look and I've been personal calling them trash bags (so not well thought out on my part). The thread is still active in current aibu if you want to check my context and I have posted there asking why.

Yeah I'm not going to live my life worrying about what will five men hard ons. Which for some men would not be tight clothes and make up anyway.

It's not my responsibility to control them. Thanks.

ArnoldWhatshisknickers I've been trying to explain this to my kids but they don't get it. I wasn't a rebel but I liked doing my own thing and rejected all the girly stuff that made all the other girls look the same, but my kids are horrified at the mere suggestion of doing something that makes them stand out from the crowd. And it's a big crowd - their school has 1500+ kids in it. Which makes all the identikit presentation so much more obvious.

PPs seem to be assuming that girls who wear the slut/trash bag style have made a free choice to wear it, and the choice should be respected.
But choices are not made in a vacuum!
My loathing of that style is predicated on the fact that it is conforming to the patriarchy. It is buying into the male fantasy of a sex doll, and reinforcing that vile anti feminist presentation of women as a societal norm.
My distaste towards girls who do that is strongly linked to my perception of them as class traitors.
And I suspect OP maybe feels the same.

bab

Yet seemingly it's ok to send them in to school in what is one of the top google porb searches?
Made to wear that from 4 sometimes even 3 onwards yet then are somehow letting the side down when they wear tight clothing outside if school?

Yeah its men that need sorting out. Not the girls.

I also understand where your coming from.
And to be honest I don't think the young girls that do the crappy makeup will give a shit.
I really hate the caterpillar eyebrows .
What the hell is that about.

I think what you might have been getting at is that the 'sex doll' look arises from pandering to the male gaze

As them girls are entitled to look however they want, you are entitled to your opinion however offensive. Yes, it was mildly scathing, but also true. Personally I think the world and all this PC madness is batshit gone even madder. Half of the posters who are calling you all sorts are probably putting up a front they probably call everyone cunts in real life.

Babdoc yes, I think it’s wrong to characterise it as a free choice. The point is that this type of clothing is depicted as being attractive to men and girls are basically told that unless they conform to the ideal, they are not attractive to men. It’s pretty hard to withstand that sort of peer pressure and most people tend to follow the crowd rather than be individual.

At the same time, it’s also unrealistic to pretend that people don’t react certain ways to certain clothing. We know they do and we know what judgements are made about it. As feminists, we also know what fuels and supports the patriarchy. Therefore, it grates a little when people say that sex-work, page 3, extremely provocative clothing, choosing to be a ‘traditional wife’ etc are all feminist choices and should be celebrated. All of those things feed into patriarchy and female oppression and are ultimately harmful. It’s not the responsibility or fault of individual women and we should avoid individual blame. But it sure as hell isn’t feminist and it’s legitimate to point out that a woman’s ‘choice’ to be a glamour model for example is not helpful to the liberation of women as a whole.

Men get hard ons from looking at females in school uniform.
I might get sexual thoughts from looking at young, toned, well groomed men wearing tight shorts and slim fit tshirts. If I attacked one of those young men would it be their fault?
It's hard when you have big boobs and an hour glass figure, it really is.
I was cat called as a child by sick men.
I was also stopped in the street at 50 by some delusional saddo, telling me I was gorgeous after he had wolf whistled me.
I was wearing work clothing!
Stop blaming females.
They can wear what the fuck they want.
There's also a thread on aibu about a woman being criticised for wearing a smart dress, cardigan and flat shoes to work.
Unbelievable.
It's a trend it will pass.
One day teenagers will ditch the scary eyebrows.

i agree with you OP. I worry a bit about the girls following the hyper sexualised objectified fashion. I think its really damaging even if it is their choice.
I wouldnt treat them with disrespect or think it makes them a lesser person or anything, but its clearly preferable for obvious reasons for somebody to put their focus outwards, rather than focussing so heavily on appearances and image

I think girls and young women wearing short skirts is neither new nor something to worry about.

My mum wore skirts so short that she had to have matching knickers, in the 1960s.

You struggle to understand why calling young girls "trashy sex dolls" is a vile thing to say?

Getting a stiffy over children is paedo behaviour regardless of whT they wear.

No it isn't.

When I was a teenager, baggy clothes were fashionable. (Actually they are becoming so now- my 14 year old has numerous items of clothing that would have not looked out of place in the early 90s).

I still was catcalled from the age of 12 or 13 wearing a long beige mac and brown clumpy shoes. Because some men are pigs, regardless of what women and girls wear. We should focus on tackling toxic masculinity.

@Mammatino I don't think expressing an opinion should be considered anti-feminist, especially as you did not mention any names. Neither does it rob anyone of the right to dress as they please. The choice is still there. Why can't a more senior woman express a view about young women's appearance? It does concern us as a body of women that young girls and our daughters stay safe.

bunslinger I beg your pardon?

i think its pretty vile to pretend that its harmless and A-OK for young women to spend hours doing stage makeup, inject their lips with fillers in their teens. The term trashy sex doll isnt nice, but what is going on now isnt short skirts. Its gone way past that. Its porn culture

What bunslinger??

You dont keep kids safe though by dictating what they wear.

Women and children are abused and raped wearing track suits. Wearing pyjamas. Wearing hot pants. Wearing anything and everything.

It's not what you wear. It never was.

branleuse and of course it’s not only clothes now. The Love Island image promotes fillers and Botox and plastic surgery. That’s no better than the surgery promoted by TRAs. Girls are told that they will only be attractive if they get a load of shit injected into their lips. Yep, pretty sure it’s okay to call that out as being sick and wrong.

SarahTancredi it’s not really about risks of sexual assault. The risk of being raped by a stranger is pretty low- much more likely that it’s someone you know and doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. It’s more about the harm that is done to women as a whole by an overtly sexualised image being promoted as the ideal, especially since that also seems to involve making physical alterations to healthy bodies. If that image wasn’t seen as the ideal or as sexually attractive, I doubt many women would make the ‘free choice’ to emulate it.

I agree that society as a whole has a lot to answer for with the messages it sends to girls.

I just hate that they are seen as traitors in some way for doing something whilst we send them off to school quite happily in uniform to be used as buffer zones for boys who cant behave and to sit in the same class as their rapist.

It's too late by the time they leave school and discover love island. ( urgh I never watch that crap)

We have already failed them by then

I hate the 'pornifed' look that a lot of teenage girls seem to go for. I don't judge them for it, I don't think it implies their sexual availability at all, it's just a look, but i think it's sad that they go for a look that is so far removed from their own individual, natural beauty. I mean crazily high heels, tight clothes, heavy make up, false lashes and nails and hair extensions, it must be uncomfortable and time consuming, while their male counterparts are slouching around in comfortable, weather appropriate clothing. So I get where you are coming from op.

Or what Pota2 said.

The idea that these girls are viewed as sex dolls is problematic but true. Calling someone a sex doll is objectifying them, removing their agencies. But explaining the comparison in my opinion is OK. Instead of "you are a sex doll trash bag" I would have said - "when you altered your face so extremely with make up and fillers and filters, you no longer look like a real, human woman. You look like a sex doll, a perfect, passive, submissive robot. You may not be like this in real life, but the reality is that more people see you on line these days than in real life. This image of young women is fuelling the dehumanising of women. If we are subhuman it is easier for them to rape us, beat us, remove our rights".