Posted on 03/22/2011 3:50:08 PM PDT by iowamark
Women of a liberated generation wrestle with their eager-to-grow-up daughters—and their own pasts
...In a few years, their attention will turn to the annual ritual of shopping for a prom dress, and by then their fashion tastes will have advanced still more. Having done this now for two years with my own daughter, I continue to be amazed by the plunging necklines, built-in push-up bras, spangles, feathers, slits and peek-a-boos. And try finding a pair of sufficiently "prommish" shoes designed with less than a 2-inch heel...
A woman I know, with two mature daughters, said, "If I could do it again, I wouldn't even have slept with my own husband before marriage. Sex is the most powerful thing there is, and our generation, what did we know?"
We are the first moms in history to have grown up with widely available birth control, the first who didn't have to worry about getting knocked up. We were also the first not only to be free of old-fashioned fears about our reputations but actually pressured by our peers and the wider culture to find our true womanhood in the bedroom. Not all of us are former good-time girls now drowning in regret—I know women of my generation who waited until marriage—but that's certainly the norm among my peers.
So here we are, the feminist and postfeminist and postpill generation. We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn't), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don't know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily. We're embarrassed, and we don't want to be, God forbid, hypocrites...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I asked a Danish friend if people weren’t at all concerned about how such constant exposure to sex and nudity (which, essentially, is what we are exposed to in our culture today-—women really do often wear very little clothes) might affect the children. My friend’s response was something along the lines of “by letting kids see nudity from an early age, they’ll be less curious about it and less turned on by it later.” Like . . . that’s a good thing? Emotionally dulling is a good thing?
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#183 on the list = Denmark
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=da&v=25
The USA is at #153, and the Red States are what keep that high.
Hubby and I were discussing this while watching "Red Eye" the other night. One of the usual lady guests was on, and she must have been going out on the town right after that taping, because she was wearing a dress with the most decolletage I've ever seen on a chat show. Hubby asked if I thought it looked a little slutty, and I said that was par for the course for cocktail and formal wear these days. I wouldn't wear it, but you're hard put to find a dress for a woman, for a formal occasion, without that kind of neckline. The only exception might be "Mother of the Bride or Groom" dresses, but even some of those get a little risque, in my opinion!
But I've also noticed that many news anchorettes wear tops that are WAY too low for my taste. I can see how guys might have a hard time paying attention to what they're saying! I've even seen women at banks and in ostensibly professional positions dressed like that. It is UN-professional, as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you for your service, FRiend.
Old Navy has high-rise (”classic fit”) jeans for women. They appear to have non-low-rise jeans for girls on their website.
My only little girl (asfter 3 boys) in still in my belly and dressed just fine for now... But I am going to have to keep talking to her about tsnius (modesty) from age 3 on, how she has to dress, because it’s going to be so tempting for her to dress like her friends...
A huge, huge point in the article is how none of the adult women EVER wished that they had spent MORE time experimenting with sex when they were younger. This is a VERY important point to tell young girls. Mostly they will later REGRET all those crazy things. Nearly every girl will be attractive to a horny boy. It is NO ACHIEVEMENT on the girl’s part. I don’t think young girls dying to get boys after them know this.
Neither did I.
We have trouble now buying decent clothing for the 6 YO gdaughter. The shorts are mostly Daisy Dukes and shirts show belly and have spaghetti straps, making them look like little hos. For SIX year olds!
Oh, excellent! I’ll have a look there next time I’m in that area. (The Old Navy is near the PetsMart, a regular destination!)
We’ve lost any sense of modesty or propriety in this country. I see sloppy bare dress even in church. True, God wants us to show up for worship but there is no longer a sense of respect or honor. Is it out of ignorance or just not caring?
Take a look at the People of Walmart site to see what I mean. Or the so-called “First Lady.” We’ve lost our minds.
There is one! It’s uptown somewhere, but I could plan a visit there along with a trip to the Boy Scouts store.
If the store doesn’t have what you want, you can order online and if you don’t like it just return it to the store.
I discovered the smart thing. When my daughter wears something I consider too low-cut, I remark “Hey, you have boobs.”. Then I stare at them. She gets the message.
There is NOTHING creepier than your dad noticing your boobs.
Mexico is 101
We have a 17 yr old daughter. We have always just said, “no”. She knows what we allow and what we don’t.
Bravo!
Their bodies, themselves. Women’s lib - coming to a country near you.
I have to step back from time to time and admit I admire the Muslims’ take on this whole matter.
And don't think it wasn't appreciated....
We bought the gdaughter boys cargo-pocket shorts. Have a good 7 inch inseam and she loves the pockets. We didn’t tell her they were boys.
In the shirts, they have little overshirts to go over the trampwear. We bought some of those overshirts to go with the shorts. Made some cute outfits.
We are also in Arizona and our activities tend to be in the scrub (geocaching), so she must wear long pants when we do that, anyway.
Good article! I don’t think girls need to be trudging around looking like Mennonites on a bad snood day, but fer pete’s sake...what I see teenagers and pre-teens wearing here in my tourist town is practically something that should be on a pole-dancer poster outside a XXX place on 42nd Street. Well, the old grungy 42nd Street, aka, porno central.
And their attitude towards themselves is obviously that if they haven’t been sleeping around since they were 12 or 13, they’re not really successful as females. I think a lot of this comes from white-promoted rap and rap videos and the desire of whites to be “hip” in black terms, which means having absolutely no moral standards and living on looks alone.
As Jesse Jackson said in one of his early lucid moments, what goes around comes around. White promoters cynically promoted the worst elements of the black environment, leading to a black world where women are “ho’s” or nothing, and leading to a white world which wants to emulate it, and now we’re all, black and white, wondering what the heck is going on and how we’re going to regain our sanity and our lives.
And of course our limp, dysfunctional Christian and Jewish religious “leaders” have nothing to say.
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