Why Do Many Young Girls Dress Like Whores?
Everywhere you go these days, photos of some girl's naked boobs or thong-strangled ass burst out into your field of vision. From the pages of My Space and reality TV shows, to ad campaigns and music videos, girls as young as 11 years-old, all the way up to young women in their 20's - are being portrayed as whores. While I would like to blame this phenomenon a patriarchal stranglehold on the media, it saddens and perplexes me that a large cross-section of today's girls and young women advertise themselves on their web pages as being "hot" and liking to "party."
For some reason, girls as young as 11 are plastering their faces with layers of Jon-Benet Ramsey-style make-up and snapping digital photos of themselves dressed in bikinis to upload to their web sites. College girls, succumbing to the fantasy that letting complete strangers watch their every move is somehow going to make them loved and famous, think nothing of getting undressed and masturbating in front of a web cam in their dorm rooms. And let's not forget "Girls Gone Wild." Apparently, there are endless supplies of teenage and twenty-something party girls who clamber to show their tits, and make out with their best girlfriends on camera (for free!!!), full-well knowing they will be viewed by thousands of horny guys around the world looking to jerk off to a $7 DVD.
What is it about growing up in the late 90's and early 2000's that has caused this generation of girls and young women to portray themselves in a style that used to only be employed by professional hookers and porn stars?
Back in my day (and yes, I'm thrilled I'm finally old enough to employ that time-honored cliché), being "hot" barely crossed most girls' radars. To be fair, most young people - both the girls and the boys - were aware of who was "pretty" or "cute," and there was a certain pressure to conform to a certain look or clothing style. In my early teenage years, that style was Izod shirts, button down oxford shirts, and Levi's corduroys, along with Nike sneakers and feathered haircuts. The girls and the boys, for the most part, dressed alike, and androgyny prevailed. I'm not sure if this was a result of my generation having come of age after the social movements of the 60's and the 70's, when there was a conscious rejection of the Barbie doll housewife image of the 1950's, but it's highly unlikely that I, or any other kid at that time, was aware of how our choice in clothing de-sexualized us. But even when the "Flashdance," Michael Jackson, Valley Girl, and New Wave crazes influenced girls to start dressing in a more feminine way – wearing mini-skirts, or off-the-shoulder Jennifer Beals sweatshirts, and later, big pouffy skirts and Goth wear ala Madonna – these more feminine outfits didn't trump the fact that us girls coming of age in the 1980's (at least as it seemed to me), cared more about who we were, and what we could do as people, than we did with how "hot" we looked.
It's now obvious to me that we were the first generation of young women who were fully able to reap the rewards of what the feminists had worked so hard for in prior decades. Though I certainly wouldn't have understood it like that at that time, I had no further to look than in my own home - where I watched my stay-at-home mother spend her every waking moment cleaning, cooking, carting us kids around, and waiting on my father - to notice the difference between what I was being taught in school, and what opportunities had existed for a woman who was a couple of decades older than myself. In my school, an idealistic post-1970's curriculum was practiced, in which both the girls and boys were required to take wood and metal making classes, as well as cooking and home economics classes. There was a newly installed girls sports program, and the girl's soccer and field hockey teams were more popular than the cheerleading squad. And as soon as I got to high school, I was very aware of the need to get good grades in school so that I could get into a good college. The mantra that seemed to be drummed into my brain from grade school onward was: make something of yourself.
In many ways, today's girls are making something of themselves. It's been well documented that universities all over the US boast more female than male students, with girls out-performing boys in almost every concentration. It's a given that young girls and women indulge in a plethora of sports and hobbies. Women have flooded the workforce, and there are plenty of women who have achieved success and positions of power in many fields. But with this kind of progress, I am that much more baffled by the fact that Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton get daily media coverage, and young girls and women feel like they need to look like whores in order to sustain anyone's attention for more than five minutes. Why is this happening?
I have a couple of theories. One is that these girls are living their lives as a post-post-post-feminist reaction to women of my generation, who for the most part, played down their femininity in order to be taken seriously in both the classroom and the workplace. Is it possible that today's young ladies think that things are so equal in society right now that they can both be taken seriously in school, or their fields of profession and be overtly sexual so that they will still be popular with the guys? Is this why, too, so many women my own age don't want to associate themselves with the term "feminist," and don't bother to speak up and wield the power they now possess in order to stop media outlets and mainstream movie studios from still exploiting and showcasing women's bodies and sexuality in order to sell products? Have these women ever stopped to wonder why, in our so-called evolved, enlightened society, mainstream magazines (outside of mags targeting gay men) never feature cover photos of guys striking a come-hither pose, displaying their cocks, and mainstream movies don't show full-frontal male nudity?
My other theory is that some women of my generation, who were at best, encouraged to be protective of the self and her own interests, and at worst, encouraged to view motherhood as a situational ball and chain, are now the mothers of these pre-teens and teenagers. The mothers of now are so caught up in their own lives and their own dramas that they cringe at the notion of being a responsible parent, or a disciplinarian. Often, these mothers try too hard to indulge their daughters, and to be a "pal," instead of being "uncool" and establishing boundaries and instilling values. Also, the sheer number of divorces in this country means that there are many children who are missing one parent, and more often than not, that parent is a father, not a mother. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to see a correlation between a generation of girls without fathers, and the lengths that they will go to attract and secure male attention. Also, the fact that older women who are prominently featured in the media are cutting into their own skin, getting major plastic surgery done in order to "look younger" and appear more attractive, aren't setting a good example for younger women. You only have to have seen one magazine cover in the past year featuring a naked, greased up Janet Jackson - who, even though she's a successful singer and entertainer, seems desperate to get everyone to view her as a sex symbol at age 40 - to see what kind of message younger girls and women are getting. It's a sad and pathetic double standard, when you compare these women to how how older men play themselves off when they're in the spotlight. I was blown away a couple of weeks ago when the newsman Mike Wallace appeared on "The Colbert Report," and, at 88 years-old with sagging skin galore, came across as sexy, because of his voice, his energy, his humor, and his intelligence. Would a set of rock hard fake boobs and over-strecthed skin on a woman who was scantily clad honestly garner her the same kind of reverence, attraction, and respect?
I would like to think that this is a passing phase in our social history, yet another creepy outcome of living under the backwards Bush regime, during a time when flagrant superficiality and intense greed is on display for our young people wherever they look. I would also like to think that this problem - as I see it - of young girls and women exploiting their own bodies and sexuality to gain a sense of self and attention, is not as prevalent as it appears. I would like to think there is an angry mob of teenagers and twenty-something young ladies out there who are going to deluge my inbox with e-mails and tell me that these Paris Hilton wanna-bes are the minority, not the norm, and that they "don't do that sort of thing." But right now, I am horrified that these impressionable young women are buying into this joke of a stereotype that dictates: in order to be thought of as pretty or popular, you have to be "hot" and willing to show the world your pussy.
For some reason, girls as young as 11 are plastering their faces with layers of Jon-Benet Ramsey-style make-up and snapping digital photos of themselves dressed in bikinis to upload to their web sites. College girls, succumbing to the fantasy that letting complete strangers watch their every move is somehow going to make them loved and famous, think nothing of getting undressed and masturbating in front of a web cam in their dorm rooms. And let's not forget "Girls Gone Wild." Apparently, there are endless supplies of teenage and twenty-something party girls who clamber to show their tits, and make out with their best girlfriends on camera (for free!!!), full-well knowing they will be viewed by thousands of horny guys around the world looking to jerk off to a $7 DVD.
What is it about growing up in the late 90's and early 2000's that has caused this generation of girls and young women to portray themselves in a style that used to only be employed by professional hookers and porn stars?
Back in my day (and yes, I'm thrilled I'm finally old enough to employ that time-honored cliché), being "hot" barely crossed most girls' radars. To be fair, most young people - both the girls and the boys - were aware of who was "pretty" or "cute," and there was a certain pressure to conform to a certain look or clothing style. In my early teenage years, that style was Izod shirts, button down oxford shirts, and Levi's corduroys, along with Nike sneakers and feathered haircuts. The girls and the boys, for the most part, dressed alike, and androgyny prevailed. I'm not sure if this was a result of my generation having come of age after the social movements of the 60's and the 70's, when there was a conscious rejection of the Barbie doll housewife image of the 1950's, but it's highly unlikely that I, or any other kid at that time, was aware of how our choice in clothing de-sexualized us. But even when the "Flashdance," Michael Jackson, Valley Girl, and New Wave crazes influenced girls to start dressing in a more feminine way – wearing mini-skirts, or off-the-shoulder Jennifer Beals sweatshirts, and later, big pouffy skirts and Goth wear ala Madonna – these more feminine outfits didn't trump the fact that us girls coming of age in the 1980's (at least as it seemed to me), cared more about who we were, and what we could do as people, than we did with how "hot" we looked.
It's now obvious to me that we were the first generation of young women who were fully able to reap the rewards of what the feminists had worked so hard for in prior decades. Though I certainly wouldn't have understood it like that at that time, I had no further to look than in my own home - where I watched my stay-at-home mother spend her every waking moment cleaning, cooking, carting us kids around, and waiting on my father - to notice the difference between what I was being taught in school, and what opportunities had existed for a woman who was a couple of decades older than myself. In my school, an idealistic post-1970's curriculum was practiced, in which both the girls and boys were required to take wood and metal making classes, as well as cooking and home economics classes. There was a newly installed girls sports program, and the girl's soccer and field hockey teams were more popular than the cheerleading squad. And as soon as I got to high school, I was very aware of the need to get good grades in school so that I could get into a good college. The mantra that seemed to be drummed into my brain from grade school onward was: make something of yourself.
In many ways, today's girls are making something of themselves. It's been well documented that universities all over the US boast more female than male students, with girls out-performing boys in almost every concentration. It's a given that young girls and women indulge in a plethora of sports and hobbies. Women have flooded the workforce, and there are plenty of women who have achieved success and positions of power in many fields. But with this kind of progress, I am that much more baffled by the fact that Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton get daily media coverage, and young girls and women feel like they need to look like whores in order to sustain anyone's attention for more than five minutes. Why is this happening?
I have a couple of theories. One is that these girls are living their lives as a post-post-post-feminist reaction to women of my generation, who for the most part, played down their femininity in order to be taken seriously in both the classroom and the workplace. Is it possible that today's young ladies think that things are so equal in society right now that they can both be taken seriously in school, or their fields of profession and be overtly sexual so that they will still be popular with the guys? Is this why, too, so many women my own age don't want to associate themselves with the term "feminist," and don't bother to speak up and wield the power they now possess in order to stop media outlets and mainstream movie studios from still exploiting and showcasing women's bodies and sexuality in order to sell products? Have these women ever stopped to wonder why, in our so-called evolved, enlightened society, mainstream magazines (outside of mags targeting gay men) never feature cover photos of guys striking a come-hither pose, displaying their cocks, and mainstream movies don't show full-frontal male nudity?
My other theory is that some women of my generation, who were at best, encouraged to be protective of the self and her own interests, and at worst, encouraged to view motherhood as a situational ball and chain, are now the mothers of these pre-teens and teenagers. The mothers of now are so caught up in their own lives and their own dramas that they cringe at the notion of being a responsible parent, or a disciplinarian. Often, these mothers try too hard to indulge their daughters, and to be a "pal," instead of being "uncool" and establishing boundaries and instilling values. Also, the sheer number of divorces in this country means that there are many children who are missing one parent, and more often than not, that parent is a father, not a mother. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to see a correlation between a generation of girls without fathers, and the lengths that they will go to attract and secure male attention. Also, the fact that older women who are prominently featured in the media are cutting into their own skin, getting major plastic surgery done in order to "look younger" and appear more attractive, aren't setting a good example for younger women. You only have to have seen one magazine cover in the past year featuring a naked, greased up Janet Jackson - who, even though she's a successful singer and entertainer, seems desperate to get everyone to view her as a sex symbol at age 40 - to see what kind of message younger girls and women are getting. It's a sad and pathetic double standard, when you compare these women to how how older men play themselves off when they're in the spotlight. I was blown away a couple of weeks ago when the newsman Mike Wallace appeared on "The Colbert Report," and, at 88 years-old with sagging skin galore, came across as sexy, because of his voice, his energy, his humor, and his intelligence. Would a set of rock hard fake boobs and over-strecthed skin on a woman who was scantily clad honestly garner her the same kind of reverence, attraction, and respect?
I would like to think that this is a passing phase in our social history, yet another creepy outcome of living under the backwards Bush regime, during a time when flagrant superficiality and intense greed is on display for our young people wherever they look. I would also like to think that this problem - as I see it - of young girls and women exploiting their own bodies and sexuality to gain a sense of self and attention, is not as prevalent as it appears. I would like to think there is an angry mob of teenagers and twenty-something young ladies out there who are going to deluge my inbox with e-mails and tell me that these Paris Hilton wanna-bes are the minority, not the norm, and that they "don't do that sort of thing." But right now, I am horrified that these impressionable young women are buying into this joke of a stereotype that dictates: in order to be thought of as pretty or popular, you have to be "hot" and willing to show the world your pussy.
Labels: chat groups, girls, teenage internet use, tween fashion, whores
posted by The Raging Optimist at 1:05 AM
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