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.

Sarah I agree that there is no point blaming individuals for following a trend. But I do partly blame the adult libfem women who tell these young girls that every choice they make is ‘feminism’ and that all of this will empower them. It won’t, as we are seeing. Women aren’t becoming more empowered in reality. This survey shows that 18-24 year olds are less likely to think that sex is something that both partners enjoy than pensioners:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/dating/men-want-sex-more-than-women-study-sexist-a9075751.html%3Famp

While I also don't like the look you're talking about, you don't need to use the language you did to discuss it.

As feminists, we can analyse things without attacking other women personally.

As the bewildered auntie of two 'sex doll' inspired neices I agree with you. My beloved neices certainly are not sex dolls and I'll punch anyone who says they are.

But because of current fashion, they closely resemble them. And it isn't empowering, in my view it's ghastly. They choose their own clothes etc so it's none of my beeswax but it makes me feel privately very sad.

I agree with you and really don't like the current look some teenagers are adopting. I would have worded it very differently though! Calling them trashy and sex dolls made me cringe.

It’s more about the harm that is done to women as a whole by an overtly sexualised image being promoted as the ideal

Yes, absolutely. It's not about short skirts, low cut tops or whatever. It's about young women feeling they have to look/dress/makeup in a certain way to be accepted.

The saddest thing is that a lot of this compliance will be coming from female "friends".

But OP - referring to teenagers as trash bags and whatever is just not on.

It's an unacceptable comment because you are calling young girls trashbags and sex dolls, not because you criticised a fashion trend.

They may be aping a style you dislike (I hate that look myself) but your language was objectifying and rude. They aren't trash, they aren't fuck-puppets for men. They are young girls and young women and referring to them is such a dismissive and reductive way is the antithesis of feminism.

NB - as an aside, I loved the VSCO thread, it was hilarious. Still can't work out how the drag queen getting whacked in the knackers fits with scrunchies and messy buns.

Why are you not addressing this on the actual thread to which you refer, OP? Why are you dragging further drama over here to FWR?

To be fair I dont know much about all these different types of feminism. Hell I never even considered myself a feminist. I guess I woke up one day just feeling to old for this shit and over the last yr or 2 it's been a case of slowly realising that most the threads I read are on this board without even realising and discovering alot of it is what ive always thought anyway.

All these different waves however, I cant say I know much.

All I can say is thinking back over the years of how things were when I was a kid and what I see now, well I can honestly say I feel there has been a massive dumbing down of society.

It's no wonder after years at school where everything is dictated to down to socks and hair bands, that by the time they leave the kids have no sodding idea how to think for themselves or question what they see.

We cant spend years forcing kids to be sheep then act surprised when unthinking sheep they become.

I guess I also cant blame groups of people who try and almost make it appear that being sheep was somehow a choice they made in order to regain some control and appearance of thinking for themselves.

But I also just think that because the beginnings of this formation of mindless drone society is sold in m&s that it's ok.

But I also dont think

Sorry

Thanks for your comments I was rude. It was a stupid comment and not intended to attack anyone... But it did. It was a woman attacking woman comment that I hadn't thought through. Idid address it on the other thread and I apologised on there too.

Yes I agree men must be in control, but there is an element of hypocrisy in women who choose to dress like that but assert it’s nothing to do with advertising themselves as a sexual object.

There’s a reason we have the expression ‘If it looks like a duck and swims like like a duck then it probably is a duck’.

On FB recently I saw a picture of a girl a friend had been tagged with, who looked like one of those human Barbie types. A few people had commented ‘Gorgeous’ but I was honestly repulsed. Take a look at Emmanuel Béart in Manon des Sources, and then after she’d had her lips done and see which you prefer. The natural beauty of many women in the world is astounding; I’ve never noticed in a positive way any woman who’s messed about with herself and more often than not, I’ve felt an inward sense of horror at their look.

Another topical thread - I recoiled reading in ‘This Is Going To Hurt’ the story about the girl who cut off one of her own labia to look more like the girls do in porn videos. Then there was a note to say a little while later a girl had superglued her vagina together ‘because her BF asked her to’. FFS while it’s true to say that men need to be in control, we need to protect vulnerable women like those from themselves, by eschewing any look that is, or comes close to, an over sexualised one.

Fully expect to be annihilated now.

FFS while it’s true to say that men need to be in control, we need to protect vulnerable women like those from themselves, by eschewing any look that is, or comes close to, an over sexualised one

How does one do that. When men fetishise and sexualised everything.

Prison jump suits
School uniform
Nurse and dr uniforms
Secretary style clothing.
And a gazillion more takes on general day to day wear.

There is not one thing that men will not twist and turn into some.porno fantasy.

So when are we gonna hold men accountable as oppose to policing the women?

Men are always responsible for their own behaviour. Always.

So when are we gonna hold men accountable as oppose to policing the women?

There seem to be two separate issues here.

One about men's behaviour and another about peer pressure amongst teenagers to look a certain way and the latter is as true of the vsco look as the heavily made up look.

Men's behaviour doesn't change regardless of what teenage girls do or don't do, do or don't wear. Teenage girls have no power over grown men.

The issue of peer pressure amongst teenage girls, and it seemingly leading to greater conformity, more mental health issues in the age of social media is something else entirely. Previous posters have suggested the vsco look is preferable as it is more natural, does not lead to cosmetic surgery and I agree with that to an extent, but it can still lead to the same pressure to conform, bullying, mental health issues that have occurred with other trends. The underlying dynamics of navigating adolescence on the internet remain unexamined.

The underlying dynamics of navigating adolescence on the internet remain unexamined

I think it remains unexamined because its impossible for everyone to completely reexamine what we are telling our kids and why. That things we have introduced "for their own good" have become the very reason why they are the way they are

Everything from how behaviour is managed at schools.

To what us supposedly expected in the work place.

To overly academic curriculums with no room.for any kind of questioning or personal development.

For a comment lack of valuing people in all jobs. If you are a cleaner or a shelf stacked or a care worker etc you beneath people. Somehow the fact these people are they reason people in high powered jobs got there is lost.

We.no longer value so much in people. How do you teach girls in particular that they matter when it's their responsibility to keep themselves safe , when their only roll in school is to shut up take the behaviour if the kid next to you dont appear to be too bright so the boys dont think you ate better than them ( in fact the entire exam process has been re designed so that boys can cram a years work into a months revision and do better than girls who studied fir hours over their coursework)

And when these battered bruised submissive girls leave the system they are still under so much disapproval.

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?

Your comment was vile and gross. You were attacking young women.

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.

They must dress very differently in your area then. I never see girls wearing anything like that. Ripped jeans, baggy sweater and trainers is the norm here. Oddly, pretty much what I was wearing 30 years ago.

I’m reality though my teenage dd gets more hassle from males when she is dressed casually.
She wears joggers, hoodies, no make up, hair not done, glasses on , and trainers for college. She says she is sick and tired of men staring at her. She has had comments when she had been crossing the road going to dance college, followed off the bus etc etc.
It is getting her down,
Now when she goes out with friends to a do and they go to town on hair, make up, high heels, short skirts etc etc nobody hassles them!
Seriously perhaps people feel more intimidated when she is dressed up.
Men should just fuck off and stop intimidating females.

I also remember one vile bloke spitting at me when I was a young woman and threatening to hit me. My crime? Politely declining his advances whilst sat on a park bench in a busy city.
His mate had to pull him away after he raised his fist to hit me.
I was wearing a jumper, baggy jeans, flat shoes and no make up.
I will always remember it.
I hope the fucker suffered a terrible fate.
Anyhow clothing and being attacked by males =unrelated.

My daughter is 17 and what would be classed as one of these 'sex dolls' and the saddest part is that she's switched on and has a very feminist outlook - she recently out-argued a guy on Instagram about abortion and bodily autonomy. She showed me her posts - they were pretty much what I would have said.

It breaks my heart to see her walk out of the door with a skirt barely covering her bum and make-up that has taken her over an hour and a half to put on - huge eyelashes, thickly painted on eyebrows, foundation, highlighter, God knows what else. She looks like a completely different girl without it all.

But what do I say to her? I said to her recently 'you know you're beautiful underneath, don't you? You know you don't need all of that?'. And she said 'no, you might believe that but I don't'. How do I tackle that? Society and social media leads these young girls to believe that their faces need to be perfect. Filters on Snapchat give the illusion that their faces are imperfect when seen in a mirror. Porn leads boys to want girls to look firm and toned and fully made-up.

The baggy trend is coming from Billie Eilish, the 17 year old singer - she wears baggy clothes and minimal make-up because she purposely doesn't want to be sexualised, yet as soon as she wears anything slightly revealing (I'm talking showing her midriff) she is targeted by men online.

I'm completely at a loss. Girls are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I grew up feeling fat and frumpy, with my Mum telling me I couldn't wear certain things because I was too big for them, or outright laughing at some of the clothes I chose/hairstyles I tried. It meant that in my teens/20s/30s I dressed like her - and she was already dressing like she was in her 60s. I actively try not to be like her towards my daughter and I think we have a much healthier relationship for it, but reading this thread has made me think I've still been a failure as a mother.

Sounds like you’ve learned a lot op. Well done for being open to changing and taking on board what people are saying. We need more of this in the world.

It is pornofied and it does look like trashy sex dolls.

I wouldn't call teens in school class traitors, many aren't aware enough to be thought of that way. Some don't really even get how sexualised it is, and even if they do many don't see the larger issues.

What makes me angry is that adults who know better tell them all this garbage about expressing themselves and looking however they want, without teaching them about the context of their choices. And it also ticks me off that the boys in the school are expected to somehow not notice the hyper-sexualisation and connection to porn and somehow, even though they are also kids, it's not supposed to affect them when they see all the young women around them performing that - in fact its somehow their fault if they are.

Calling any woman a trash bag is horrendous. You seem to understand your mistake, so move on from it.

My 14 yr old daughter and her friend were crossing the road while wearing their Catholic school uniforms. One man leaned out the window requesting a threesome. He also asked if they would “ take it up the bum”. They were both scared and humiliated.

I follow a couple of young women on instagram and I think they do look a bit trashy. They both have black drawn on eyebrows, lip fillers (which they pout) I don't know why they think it looks attractive but it could be because they follow the Kardashions or some other reality stars. Luckily my daughter is older and only has the drawn on eyebrows and nothing else.