Young paying the price for the old?

[Dahlly]

Could the young be identifying as ‘they’ as a protection mechanism against the overtly sexual world that the we have created? And can we really blame them? The Daily Mail has an article today about JLO introducing her daughter Emme, as ‘they’

Emme has a mother who is in her 50s, who is beautiful and extremely sexy. That’s her brand, that’s her day job. She will have seen her mother in hair and make-up everyday. Punishing her body to remain slim.

I can’t imagine growing up in that environment and not feeling completely inferior to this projected image of femininity. Particularly as a young teen.

By the looks of things, Emme now identifies as ‘they’. I think she knows she will never live up to her mothers image, so has removed herself from the ‘competition’ and removed her female self.

I find that so sad but in all honestly, in that position I could easily see myself as a young teen doing the same thing. Is Emme paying the price for her mother’s celebrated beauty? Are young girls using a non-Binary identity to protect themselves from this path?

*This isn’t a comment on JLO personally, her parenting or how she chooses to dress. She seems like a very supportive mother and she is an extremely astute business woman, who wants to promote female empowerment(There is another article today about her request of the female symbol pictogram being rejected for her super bowl performance!).

Article Daily Mail Article. JLO and Emme

I was a kid in the 70s - we had page 3 (which was rude and naughty) but can’t say I was subject to porn, silly reality tv ‘bikini clad babes’, mainstream tv pushing out pretty explicit materials, books in school about sex… it was more sexist than ‘sexy’.

I noticed a difference when I went to a work conference (after being out of the industry for a while) and instead of seeing women in suits, it was like low cut/short shirt, selfie ready faces, lots of pumped up lips/tattooed eyebrows and fancy nails. My young colleagues gossip about reality tv, clothes and makeup, and drag shows.

This kid is a product of current trends. Alway blaming other women/mums eh?

I don’t think it’s that driving this. We’ve always lived in a sexist and sexualised world, and if anything the decades we just lived through were better from that perspective than earlier ones.

I think this is a more an outgrowth of identity politics. Gender ideology affects (more than anyone else) young white middle class females, and has exploded in the last five years (after slower growth over the last decade). Why might that be? Could it be because people (particularly on the hard left - and I am ‘left’) spent the last few years blaming ‘Karens’ for everything and teaching those young white middle class females to internalise a self-hatred based on their own ‘privilege’? Identifying out of that group and into the ‘queer’ community may be a way for them to evade the feelings of guilt and self-hatred that society has inculcated in them. It allows them both to claim the status of ‘oppressed’ and escape the label of ‘oppressor’ (although because they’re thirteen year old kids that’s obviously a label they haven’t earned, it’s certainly a label that’s been placed on them) in a way that assuages their own sense of guilt for not being born into a less privileged group. That also explains why gender ideology is strongest in universities (middle class white kids) and industries where middle class white kids now progress (civil service, unions, politics, publishing, media, law).

@KittenKong

No the opposite. It’s about society celebrating one type of femininity.
I made clear this isn’t a reflection of JLO or her parenting but the world that celebrates/promotes/idealises/fetishises a narrow view of what a woman is. That we all play a part in.

I would think it's social media not the occasional mother - I think very few older mothers are as described

@achillestoes

I don’t disagree.

But I’m talking about younger girls- the 11-16 age where this seems to set in. When puberty kicks in and suddenly girls enter a world they didn’t know they were a part of, I mean that of the male gaze . The rejection of ‘she’ might be what they think will protect them from having to be this beautiful, sexy image.

And to go on, being a female ‘ally’ is the other way to identify out of your privilege. They’re not ‘allies’ so much as handmaidens, and if we use that term thoughtfully, it means ‘servants’. It’s competitive humility in action - look how small I can be, look how little space I can take up. But like every group, that group contains people who twist that ‘allyship’ into another form of the exercise of power: they find people to bully, ‘calling out’ and ‘holding accountable’ people who haven’t joined their self-flagellating group. It’s the best of both worlds for them.

‘But I’m talking about younger girls- the 11-16 age where this seems to set in. When puberty kicks in and suddenly girls enter a world they didn’t know they were a part of, I mean that of the male gaze . The rejection of ‘she’ might be what they think will protect them from having to be this beautiful, sexy image.’

I think it’s certainly part of it (and why young gay women find ‘shelter’ under the label of ‘trans’ or ‘queer’ or ‘asexual’). But overall I think the engine (the thing that’s driving those young women to be more easily indoctrinated) is that identifying in such a way makes you a better person. It removes you from an elite group (the ‘privileged’) and places you in a group that is so oppressed it’s beyond criticism - what a heady drug for an adolescent!

Hands up which of us hated getting boobs and the accompanying gripes and leers?

That would be about all of us wouldn’t it? But imagine being so gullible that believe changing your label to ‘he’ ‘they’ or whatever would protect you more than what we used to do - wear baggy tops and jeans, and sports bras, or dress as a punk/goth and hope it would scare them off.

@KittenKong

In fairness to your point that I’m blaming mothers , that wasn’t my intention at all. It’s society I’m reflecting on.

But to remain fair I will also highlight Emmes father who is now dating a very young, very beautiful and sexy woman. Someone much younger than her mother and actually closer in age to her!

@achillestoes I agree. You make some very interesting points!

I opted out of the ‘cutesy pretty’ girl culture thing when I was a teen because I was tall and lanky, and not pretty (so I thought but looking old at photos I was absolutely fine).

So I wore chunky ‘boys’ clothes and had my hair shaved, I wore crazy makeup or ballgowns and DMs, of 1950s tailored suits (mens and women) and antique jewellery. I guess that was the beauty of the 80s - you could have fun dressing up.

I think she's a kid growing up in the online social media world and the gender ideology fad. She's finding her own style and nothing wrong with that. She's a child experimenting.

Remember Shiloh Jolie Pitt. She grew up in the spotlight and was fawned over by the gender ideologists. At 16 her style has changed. When she was tiny she wanted to be like her brothers. and dressed like them and her Dad. Now she is more like her Mum.

Is emme shiloh 2.0?

This is nothing to do with jlo and everything to do with people so hung up on labels they obsess and look fir evidence of labels for others instead of I dunno, leaving these kids alone.

There are lots if reasons This is potentially happening many of which involves make behaviour. But of course its the mums fault for being beautiful 🙄

No JLO is an extreme version granted. But she is a celebrated beauty, all girls see this. But now there an easy ‘opt out’ for girls that don’t want this to reflect their identity

We found rollout won’t style and experimented - but didn’t make demands of family and society, bully everyone, and risk pretty dangerous behaviour (beyond drinking waaay too much and chemically straightening your hair which I wouldn’t recommend…)

Flipping Nora, my phone has a mind of its own…

“We found rollout won’t style and” - we found our own style and experimented

My generation of women wore jeans and t shirts when students, and despised girls plastered in make up as being “tarty” and desperate to please men! We certainly didn’t role model a vacuous image of female “beauty” to our daughters.
You are attacking the wrong target, OP.
It is the current generation of teen girls who post ridiculous selfies on social media and spend hours on make up and primping before going out. And the current generation of teen boys who are hooked on violent porn and choking their girlfriends while demanding anal sex - is it any wonder that young girls want to opt out of womanhood?
Add in social contagion and the trans rights propaganda, and you have a perfect storm.
But definitely not one of their mothers’ making.

I think you have a point. Age 11-14 was about the peak of sexual harassment for me and my friends, flashers everywhere. You're right, they won't be able to opt out of that. And i agree the comparisons to unfeasibly perfect glamorous girls and women could well be a factor - even if a girl doesn't want to look like that, she is mocked for it and I think identifying as NB makes that mocking taboo- I think girls in secondary school would get an easier time as NB than just 'not playing the glam game'
Young girls transitioning to opt out of sexual objectification, older men transitioning to get themselves a bit of sexual objectification! Might not be the whole picture but I'm convinced it's part of it.

Do they see a beautiful women they will never look like.

Or do they simply see men and boys rating her body and the bodies of other women out if 10 and listing all the obcene things they'd do to her?

The trouble is 'they' can identify as they, non-binary or queer or any of the other labels. 'They' will still be female.

Thinking about this, I didn’t “glam” up at all when I was that age. I thought I would look ridiculous if I even tried to be like (what I perceived as) “everyone else” and I would be laughed at. As I got older I got to a place where I became more comfortable with my place in the crowd, realising most people don’t care, and also how I was most comfortable representing myself. For these kids who really are being noticed wherever they go, as kids with famous parents will be, it must be so hard if they feel in any way as I did.

Party it's a trend.

But partly it's just that being a women isn't that appealing - and now an alternative has emerged..

High beauty standards might be part of the lack of appeal but I think it runs much deeper than that, that being a women seems harder work than being a man, and you are subject to way more criticism, and still a second class citizen.

This is a really interesting point of view.

I remember growing up and feeling like my self worth as a female was based solely on my looks. I remember wondering why girls couldn't thrive in spaces that were dominated by boys. E.g playing instruments, comedy and sport. These were the things I was most interested in doing and hated that I was never taken as seriously because of my gender.

Perhaps identifying as 'they' does allow people to detach from the stereotypes.

Seems to be the go to:

mothers are to blame 🙄

Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.
Mothers aren’t perfect beings.

I think it’s a fad. Teenagers like to think they’re special and different. Having everybody dance around your gender identity and pronouns is a great way of doing that.

I’m not entirely convinced that sexual harassment / objectification / pressure over appearance is any worse now than it was 20 / 50 / 70 years ago. There are just more public figures being lauded for how brave and special they are for transitioning, and young people (and plenty of older people) fancy a bit of that too. All the trans / non binary people I’m vaguely acquainted with are a bunch of attention seeking drama llamas; gender identity and forcing everybody around them to adopt a language and ideology is right up their street.