Posted on 02/16/2004 10:17:33 PM PST by kattracks
You may have noticed that many young women wear less, and more sexually provocative, clothing in public than they did a generation, or even 10 years, ago.
It is easier to notice, however, than to explain.
But explaining it is crucial to understanding what has happened to men and women in the last 40 years and where male-female relations are headed. Women exposing their bodies in public is a big deal. Playing with the sex drive, the most powerful force in nature, is far more dangerous than playing with fire. Even if one welcomes this development -- and for the record, as a male I am turned on, while as a man I am turned off -- it begs for explanation.
I will offer at least five reasons that may be less obvious but more important than the valid ones usually given -- peer pressure, women buy what stores sell and the sexual revolution.
The first is "equality."
By equality, I do not mean the belief that men and women are equal human beings, a belief that all decent people hold. Rather, I mean the feminist and politically correct definition of equality: sameness. Men and women have come to be regarded as the same, not simply as equals.
Thanks to feminist doctrines that pervade education from kindergarten through graduate school, men and women increasingly believe that the sexes are largely identical. Therefore, the arenas wherein women can feel and demonstrate their feminine distinctiveness have narrowed appreciably.
By showing more of their bodies, women can announce that they are women. There are other ways young women can publicly demonstrate their distinct female identity -- for example, by wearing feminine clothing and other feminine behavior, being a wife, being pregnant and being a mother.
But those ways are increasingly ignored, deferred and discredited. Among egalitarians, being a wife is no different a role than that of husband, and motherhood is no longer regarded as distinctively female. Husbands and fathers are supposed to play identical roles, and because of the movement for gay equality, mothers have been declared unnecessary -- two fathers, most well educated people now contend, are every bit as good for a child as a mother and a father.
So, for the young woman for whom marriage, pregnancy and motherhood are remote or even undesirable given the anti-traditional education she has received, her primary vehicle of proclaiming she is a woman is literally to expose the fact.
A second, related, reason is the death of femininity.
In the past, expressing one's femaleness was done through expressing femininity. In addition to the female roles of wife and mother, there were numerous ways of doing so. One was, of course, dress. But in the name of equality and comfort, distinctive female dress -- such as dresses and skirts -- has been largely abandoned. A young woman who wore a dress or even a skirt and blouse to a college, let alone high school, class would probably be considered stranger by her peers than one who wore a see-through top.
Today, instead of women wearing feminine clothing, they either wear essentially male clothing (such as pants and pants suits) or flesh-baring sexually provocative clothing. Feminine attire -- i.e., clothing that is very female but not very revealing -- is rare.
Femininity was also expressed by sexual reticence. Again, such a notion is laughable in much of contemporary society. The idea that a man made great efforts to be allowed sexual contact with a woman rendered women feminine in men's eyes. They are different from us -- they are feminine. Women who act as sexually available as a man -- through their behavior or their dress -- are not perceived as feminine, since they are perceived as being male-like.
Likewise, the myriad ways in which men treated women as women -- such as opening doors for them -- all declared that women were feminine, i.e., different from masculine. That is why many feminists opposed men opening doors for women -- it reinforced notions of femininity, a value that feminism has sought to extinguish.
So, femininity is largely a dead concept. Ask most young women -- or men -- what it means, and you will get either a blank stare or a hostile reaction.
Thus, many women are now saying: "I am a woman. And I will declare it in one of the only ways left to me -- I will show you my female body."
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Those of us who did can remember what we thought about dress and sexuality even before puberty. This society is so sex-saturated that even little kids learn to think everyone is doing it all the time, everywhere, and that no one cares for anything else. And I grew up before the myriad "grow-your-penis" and Viagra ads! Imagine what my little sons must think!
On the cover of every women's magazine, no matter how formerly staid, screams a headline like "How to Have the Orgasms of Your Life" or "What Your Man Really Wants in Bed." What are the girls and women wearing in the magazine? Often not much. Appearing SEXY is more important than appearing pretty.
The hip hop culture is as bad as anything else. Can you imagine any songs today about holding hands, dating, or even falling in love? They are all about sex. Dating, to meet a suitable marriage partner? Ah ha ha ha ha!!! Yeah, right!
Girls still want guys to like them. And girls still want to be accepted by the other girls. They have no idea that guys could want anything other than sex. Girls will push out of the group anyone nonconforming. They used to push the slut out of the group. Now they will push the inexperienced girl out as hopelessly backward.
And last but certainly not least, the fashion designers must take some blame. It is extremely hard for busy people of middle income to take the trouble to find pretty clothes for their daughters that aren't immodest. You need to possibly rely on catalogs because you won't find much at the mall. And because all the girls in her peer group are dressed as sluts, your daughter in her feminine, modest clothing won't fit in. Thank you, clothing industry.
The world is screaming to young girls, to paraphrase George Michael, "WE WANT YOUR SEX!" (Ironically, he doesn't.) No one is telling them, as you wonderfully put it, that they are special and unique and worth the effort.
Curious minds....
It's true men are very visual. Dressing provacatively won't do me much good because I'm not thin. I'll have to work harder than other girls who are thin and pretty to overcome that visual aspect. I don't work all that harder though. If a man wants to chase after a Britney Spears-type well that's what he'll get :-)
I would actually disagree. I would say although the father generally sets the sexuality for the daughter ( through a number of ways) I think the permissiveness has come through the mothers. How many times have you seen the mom walking with the daughter in the mall and they are dressed basically alike, from halter tops to navel peircing? With more women divorced these days they are out trying to attract men when in previous generations they were mothering because sexual attraction of a mate had been done.
Now the daughters watch the mothers get ready for dates and bring those dates home. They are modeling what they see.
wimps and barbarians!
bookmark
76 - "We have a total of 12 grandkids"
Apparently those long, cold, lonely, winter nites in North Dakota are not so lonely. Youall seem to take full advantage of 'indoor sports'.
That said, snuggling together for warmth has been known to lead to other things.
If you want that at a warmer latitude, (without having to plug the car in so it will start in the morning), just set the thermostat down a couple more degrees....
It starts earlier than that. One of the reasons I hate to go shopping for clothes with my duaghter, I see the 7 and 8 y.o. dressing like they belong on the street.
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