Stop Pretending: Dressing Sexy Comes at a Price

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | April 4, 2004 | Miranda Devine

[Law]

Good on Sarah Freeman, the 20-year-old Melbourne assistant store manager who refused to wear the provocative T-shirt her employer provided for her.

Westco Jeans had issued staff the skin-tight, V-neck T-shirts with "Stop Pretending You Don't Want Me" emblazoned across the chest. The accompanying memo instructed: "NO T-shirt equals NO work. Any team member that does not dress correctly will be sent home."

Freeman was sent home last weekend for refusing to wear the T-shirt after a customer made lewd comments and stared at her breasts. "I said, 'Hello'," she told The Age newspaper, "and he said hello to my face, and then he had a good look at my chest and said, 'Well, hell-o', and I ran away."

After a public outcry, the company withdrew the T-shirts. "If you put slogans like that on a T-shirt," federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said, "you can't expect your staff not to be harassed."

But not so long ago such a statement would have been denounced as politically incorrect prudery. Perhaps Freeman's courage in standing up to Westco, and the support she attracted from the community, signals a shift back to female modesty.

For decades feminism has told women they have the right to wear whatever they like, no matter how sexually provocative, without taking any responsibility for the effect come-hither clothing has on men. Woe betide the male who has mistakenly equated flashed breasts and vast tracts of exposed flesh with sexual availability.

The fashion industry long ago declared war on female modesty, and is relentlessly sexualising girls as young as eight, dressing them up as a mini Nicky Hilton, giving them a jaded, sexually wise image at odds with their dewy skin and innocent eyes.

Last week, in a community where alcohol abuse is a source of much suffering, an Aboriginal girl of 12 or 13 in Redfern was interviewed by Four Corners wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Buy me a drink and I'm yours".

But, far from empowering women and allowing them to "take charge" of their sexuality, this loss of innocence has led to their degradation. It has put them at the mercy of men's basest appetites.

Female modesty in the past forced men to behave respectfully towards women in order to achieve their ultimate goal of having sex.

But with sex available on a platter, on call, why should men bother with the niceties? And how are they meant to calibrate their own behaviour when the signals sent by women are so confusing?

Modesty also gave women an easy excuse to fend off sleazy men and an opportunity to be judged on deeper qualities than sexual accessibility. In her 1999 bestseller A Return To Modesty, young American author Wendy Shalit argued that modesty was a protection device for women and that the public display of nudity destroyed female erotic power.

"From sex education in [primary] school to co-ed bathrooms in college, today's young woman is being pressured relentlessly to overcome her embarrassment, her 'hang-ups', and especially her romantic hopes," she wrote. "Meanwhile, the problems young women struggle with grow steadily more extreme: from sexual harassment, stalking and date rape to anorexia and self-mutilation."

There is a lot of talk about the problem of fatherless boys. But what about fatherless girls? One of the things fathers do better than mothers is protect their little girls from sexual predators.

But instead of being protected, many fatherless girls spend puberty fending off the advances of their mother's boyfriends. Old feminists derided modesty and chastity as patriarchal shackles, but patriarch is just another word for father.

devinemiranda@hotmail.com

[rrrod]

"I like the one on the left." nooooooo i saw her first!!!!!!1

[Capriole]

Just as a matter of interest, a friend of mine did her master's thesis on anorexia through the ages. She found documentation that it existed in sixteenth-century Europe. So it's not new and doesn't have a lot to do with our so-called culture of skinniness.

[Law]

...I need to stay where I can occupy a market niche...

In Maryland a lady such as yourself must occupy a very small market niche indeed.

[Law]

Worth repeating to all sexually liberated women who are mystified that their lovers won't commit to marriage:

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

[pctech]

Good for that courageous young lady. I wish more teenagers and older ladies alike had that kind of courage. I know my daughter does!!!!

[TheBigB]

Bottom one is Christina Aguilera. That was actually in her relatively-innocent looking days. Today, God alone knows how many bacteria are buzzing around her at any given moment.

[ArrogantBustard]

False Dilemma

[TheBigB]

[Capriole]

Now that you have deduced one of the great mysteries of life will you:

1. Spread the word widely to new generations of women?

2. Decide on new window treatments?

I already put up new window treatments so I guess that means I have to spread the word widely to new generations of women. Sadly, the message is not getting through even to my own daughter.

[fml]

It is worth dressing modestly to find a true gentleman.

From a brunette to you blondes, dressing modestly is the key to being happy and secure in your own skin. Self worth and confindence is what a true genlteman finds sexy and irresistable. Anyone can dress trashy, it's just more classy not to.

[Stu Cohen]

I like the one on the left.

ROFLMAO!

Thanks, I needed that.

[Law]

I already put up new window treatments so I guess that means I have to spread the word widely to new generations of women. Sadly, the message is not getting through even to my own daughter.

That is sad. Does she attend a government skool? If so, that's likely the culprit.

[Arrowhead1952]

Pert near, but this gal's were at least 40 or bigger.

[Quilla]

I like the one on the left.

ROFLMAO!

OMG, I thought y'all were talking about post #68. LOL!

[xsmommy]

this thread is so funny!

[beachn4fun]

[Twinkie]

Well, actually the bottom lady is my Aunt Grace
and the picture was made in the early 1970's.
At the time, Aunt Grace was 24. She is now 54
and middle age spread has set in. Aunt Grace
got sick of doing without her piroghis, married,
settled down, makes and eats piroghis regularly,
and now weighs 260 lbs. The girl at the top is
still only 24 and weighs maybe 115 lbs. OK. You
can talk to Aunt Grace, but don't let Uncle Hulk
catch you.

[MEGoody]

But, far from empowering women and allowing them to "take charge" of their sexuality, this loss of innocence has led to their degradation.

Bears repeating again and again and again . . .

[Quilla]

Freepers are so funny. I generally freep from the office and all through the day I laugh at the cleverness that pervades this place. Sometimes I have to get a hold of myself just to answer the phone - like yesterday - reading this thread. By post #9 I was in tears.

[xsmommy]

OMG, i missed that one, thanks! i am worried sometimes that security will come up and cart me out of my ofc to a loony bin, because i am guffawing aloud! oh wait, yesterday it was the one from the Sydney Herald about hubs trying to act like kids so their wives won't want to get pregnant. did you see it? if not i will search the link for you, i was howling!