It's about that time. Time for raking leaves, you ask? No! Time for another asinine article about how the end of the world is coming because girls dress like sluts. When I flipped open my Washington Post this morning, there is was, shining with the glow from so many points of "what's the matter with those kids today" thickheadedness.
Temptation to rip it to shreds was there, but two mitigating factors counteracted the urge. First, I had a whole lotta leaves to rake.
Second, I thought, well, I'm sure Amanda and Jill will take care of this garbage, while I am out taking care of the compost. And oh, how they did.
From Amanda, ever pithy:
On top of being reactionary, this article is also stone-cold stupid.
From Jill, an astute observation about how the article perpetuates the problem of blaming young women for bringing danger on themselves, and also how the article perpetuates negative images of men:
Posted by binky at November 20, 2005 07:20 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Gender and Politics | MediaBut what kills me about this paragraph is the statement that by dressing a certain way, young women are bringing danger on themselves. Where are the alarmist articles about the young men who are presumably the ones doing the damage to these girls? Where’s the cry to parents to teach their sons to respect women? Despite the fact that raising boys differently would probably eliminate most of the “dangers” this writer references, the burden is still put on young women — and the implication is, “if something bad happens to you, you brought it on yourself.”
No, he isn’t. He’s putting her in an even more vulnerable position — if something does happen with one of those teenage boys, she’ll internalize it as her fault for dressing in a particular way. When she goes out of the house and sees other girls dressing in more revealing clothes, she’ll become part of the group that looks at them and says, “You’re a slut.” Adolescence is hard enough on young women; when they’re already desperately trying to fit in and find their own identities, the worst thing one can do is encourage greater rifts between “good girls” and “bad girls,” and create even deeper insecurities in all of them.
And where is the dad who says, “Honey, I was a teenage boy once. I know that they’re capable of being reasonable human beings, and of treating women well. Don’t accept anything less than that” — and who tells his sons the same thing? Sexual equality and women’s physical safety simply cannot come from women alone. Shaming young girls about the way they dress isn’t the way to achieve anything.