This ties in at least in my thinking to an interview that was on NPR today. Now as a disclaimer I only heard like 10 minutes of the beginning of the interview, but I found the book online so I have looked at that as well. Wendy Shalit wrote "Girls gone Mild" as a follow up to an earlier book about how many young women are becoming more modest in their dress and attitudes. She emphasizes that this is a good thing, but that the pressures for children, like young children, to become sexual beings is overwhelming. Wendy talks of young women who do not want to be open about their sex lives with their parents and that their parents then condemn these women. She also seems to believe, at least to my understanding, that there is a growing number of women who are virgins in to their late twenties and even thirties. This book is of course hailed by the Conservatives as the best book ever. My issue is not with really anything she says, that we do pressure little girls to be too sexual too early and that you should wait till you are older to have sex rather than 13, but... My issue is with the conflicting information, according to many Conservatives, it would seem that everyone is having sex and that there are a select few that are so pure that they can wait and yet Shalit talks about a growing movement toward this more modest desire. She also blames much of this on a generational gap, that baby boomer parents who lived through the '60s and the sexual liberation movement some how push their children to have sex at an earlier age and that their children are now rebelling.
Maybe I am wrong, but it would seem to be that an over generalization of parents is dangerous and likely wrong. I do not know too many parents who are encouraging their teenage daughters to have sex. I am sure there are parents who want their daughters to be safe and hence help provide birth control and also talk to their daughters about sex and the dangers. I know I know, this is of course encouraging these women to have sex, I mean really why would you discuss sex if you didn't secretly want you child to have sex and get pregnant at 14. It wouldn't be because you are trying to make sure you child is safe if they are having sex. It wouldn't be because you feel that by having an open relationship with your child you might be able to discourage them from having sex. Nope, of course not it is because you want your child to have sex. And remember people since this is of course the non-Christians or not good Christians who are having sex and getting pregnant than of course these people will just tell their daughter to have an abortion as all people who are pro-choice are baby killers.
I found this t-shirt on her website, WTF
I actually do think you are emotionally repressed if you are so worried about what other people think of you that you have to wear this t-shirt.
Really isn't modesty what Islam is preaching when they make women wear a burqa so maybe we should just have all women wear a burqa to prove their modesty. I am all for letting people wear what they are comfortable wearing, so if you want to wear more modest clothing more power to you, but condemning people because of clothing choices just seems immature and wrong to me.
Finally, why is that we focus so much on women in this dynamic. Somehow, men are not expected to be modest. We are expected to want to have sex 24/7 and women are supposed to be the sensible ones who are able to control their own and men's libidos as well. I know that the pressure is placed on little girls with the belly shirts and the bikinis and such, but shouldn't we as a society try to tackle these issues. This seems to herald a time when women wore "more practical" clothing and stayed at home. It also heralds a time when women were not supposed to be sexual beings and that men had to bring it out of them. This thinking is still very true today, where women are not supposed to have sexual thoughts and men have to bribe, cajole and threaten women to get them to want to have sex. I just think that the more we become prudish about sex the more people are going to try and figure out ways to do it and have sex on the sly because they are not supposed to.
I am not sure that post was totally coherent to anyone other than me and for that I sort of apologize. Also, I am not sure why again I am on a bit of a soap box about women and clothing issues, anyway...
2 comments:
You know, it's not every guy who would post about women's clothes and the social aspects of their clothing choices so you get big points for that.
Kids, as you know, really reflect their upbringing, the values they are taught, they mimic their parents actions and words. As a teacher, you know that kids will tell nearly anything to a trusted teacher.
Somewhere along the line, though, kids have to begin thinking for themselves and when they do, they incorporate their family's values or reject them. Most pick and choose, which is entirely human.
So a mom lets her daughter wear provocative clothing at a young age AND talks to her about the need to wait to have sex until she is ready to handle it. Some would think that the two things don't go together, but they do and most moms I know operate that way. Let the kids keep up with the culture, but arm them with knowledge so that they are not ignorant of reality.
Good post, Boxer!
Thank you DCup that means a lot coming from you. Not only do I really like your blog, but you are a mother of girls (and the boy spawn) so if you think that what I am saying has merit than I guess that it does.
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