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Re: Ten Things I Want to Tell Teenage Girls
Yea, see, the bolded is why you're probably not getting it. Spend some time with girls age 13-18 and suddenly the post takes on a whole different light.
I will admit some of it is phrased badly, but I never took the first post to be "dress in low-cut tops and you're asking to be raped". It was "Look, if you dress in low cut tops, don't be surprised if some of the attention you get is from bottomfeeders." And that's true, age 13 or 63.
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Right, but this is to teenage girls, so I am assuming it is not addressing the workplace stereotypes we face as adult women.
Although I like when you get fiesty! lol
i'm pretty sure i'm getting it.
ETA: point being, i have SEEN plenty of teenagers, even though we're not besties. they don't all dress like wannabe porn stars, but many do. i think it's ill advised. but i also don't think it means that they're destined for a life with a run-around husband, consoled only by overspending at sephora and spray tanning.
yeah, i see that. but i think it starts early. i remember in high school being on the receiving end of a headpat "oh, that cville, she gets so upset" from a (male) science teacher. i was kicking the ASS of freshman biology, so so sorry mr. ah0le that cutting open a fetal pig bugged me, but that was wholly beside the point. guess what? my friend andrew ralphed in a trash can that day because he too wasn't down with slicing into pig intestines and that went uncommented upon. you know?
Indeed. This is the one that bothered me most. Absent elaboration or qualification, I actually think this is sh*t advice.
I don't like it. It's all too utopic. It doesn't speak to the girl who is wearing a low cut shirt because she wants attention- not only from boys, but just anyone who will give her the time of day.
It's easy to tell a teenager that they are beautiful, and not to buy into the beauty industry, but when all they want to do is fit in, this isn't helpful.
We need to do less of telling young girls what to do and more empowering them to make their own decisions- and giving them the confidence to be themselves.
meh. its ok.
Teens and clothing is a whole nother ball of wax. Either they have a parent who already allows or doesn't allow certain clothing, or they don't and they don't have the $$ to spend on nice clothing. Pile on to that a chitty sense of style and a changing body - I don't how the average girl is supposed to come off looking polished.
And god forbid a girl have a bit of cleavage - talk about slut-shaming.
I guess I shouldn't admit that after the earthworm, I decided I would bat my eyelashes on days I wore a low cut shirt so I would get a partner that would do all the cutting for me. : )
Seriously though, that would have pissed me off. I see what you are saying.
I never took that to be the author's point. Not sure why you did.
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"To be more specific, you will attract the kind of boys that like to look down girls? shirts. If you want to date a guy who likes to look at other girls? boobs and chase skirts, then great job; keep it up. If you don?t want to date a guy who ogles at the breasts of other women, then maybe you should stop offering your own breasts up for the ogling."
followed by the rant on the beauty industry. seemed like a pretty clear connection to me. the entire thrust of this post is "you're trying to be a hottentot, but it's counterproductive to being a real person and getting real and honest and good rewards from life." i will concede she did not use the words "marry" "sephora" or "spray tan." i was taking creative license.
ETA: i want to be clear here. i do not think it's great to wear some of the revealing clothing that i see out there. i wouldn't have been let out of the house like that, and i wouldn't let my daughter out of the house like that. hell, i won't even buy my 2 year old daughter ANY shirts with words like "princess" or crap like that on it. i thank god that i was in high school during the grunge era and oversized clothing with docs was what was hip. i don't disagree with the underlying message, i disagree with what i perceived to be a shaming, doomsday tone. the fact that cjoy has confirmed the jesusy bent of this blog as a whole only underscores that for me.
It's also about not confusing attention with admiration. It's harder to tell if a boy likes you for you when your boobs are the first thing a guy notices.
But I'll go out on a limb and say I'm really pretty sick of the idea that just because a girl's outfit isn't a reason to treat them like shiit or rape them, that there shouldn't be a standard of dress and that some outfits, clothing choices, etc are too sexual and shouldn't be worn by women.
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Particularly for teenaged girls.
I think "Follow your gut" is more appropriate than follow your heart. Follow your heart leads to some Twilight shiit absent the sparkly vampires but double the co-dependent borderline abusive relationship with an immature douchewagon.
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This is how I read it, too.
Rant on the beauty industry? What? Of the 10 points, only THREE addressed beauty or fashion (#1, #2, and #10).
The rest were "Quit your passive aggressive bullshyte on FB", "If you say "I hate drama" you actually show how much you love it", Weird conflicting advice on "Don't follow your heart" but "don't be afraid to be emotional", "Don't smoke, it's bad for you", "You really should care what people think about you", and "Don't play stupid to get what you want". Which most teenage girls (and guys, frankly) need to hear at some point.
But ok. Rant on the beauty industry. That's fine.
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The last thing teenaged girls need to be told is not to be afraid to be emotional. That's all they are.
What we need to tell them is to be careful with their emotions. It's alright to have emotions and even to show them at times but it's also important to be careful with how and when you choose to express those emotions. And to be careful about using them to manipulate people.
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It just comes across as a sophomoric attempt to preach to teen girls. And why are all these types of feel gooderies always directed at girls? Where are the "hey teen boys, don't stare at the boobs"? The message is: hey girl, you are probably doing everything wrong.
Moreover sometimes there's value in making mistakes.
I like #10.
But I think I agree with a PP who said that it is more effective to tell girls what they can do as opposed to what they shouldn't be doing.
Overall, I think it boils down to respecting yourself, and knowing that you are beautiful, intelligent and that you control your own future.
I wish I could go back and tell my HS self that it really doesn't matter what other people say, do or think.
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is there a reason you're so defensive here? i get a different tone from the post than you do. my response was to a portion of her post. which i said. you asked where i got that idea, i showed it to you. point #10 was long and focused on how there's a whole industry trying to tell you that you're not enough. i'd call that a "rant."
it's okay to disagree with me, but you started out telling me that i don't get it because i don't spend time with teenage girls. i think there are things in the OP that i can certainly "get," even absent spending time with teenage girls. for one, i don't live in a bubble. and for another, i used to be one.
boys don't read good
I don't know, I do think there is a disproportionate amount of magazine and blog "advice" directed to girls but I personally wouldn't hold back telling my female younger cousin some of this stuff because they haven't published anything for boys. I also gave my share of unsolicited advice to my younger male cousins. I don't take it as girls are doing everything wrong but I do think that boys are more likely to get this kind of information from sitdown talks than from magazines or blogs.
I don't like that #1 focuses on low-cut shirts to the exclusion of everything else. And I agree with NB that I hate how these types of things are said to girls and not boys. But I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to get girls to think about how their manner of dress, hairstyle, makeup, etc., affect others' perception of them.
Yep. It makes me think of the pants & shorts with the writing on the butt. Listen, if you have writing on your ass, I'm going to stare at it. And I'm not sexually attracted to women. But it's just there. If it weren't supposed to be looked at, then it wouldn't be there. So I guess my thought is - if you wear words on your ass, don't be surprised that dudes are staring at it.
I've been watching a lot of Mad Men lately, and this whole discussion makes me think of Peggy Olson. She doesn't dress like Joan because while she isn't opposed to receiving attention from men, she wants to be taken seriously in her job. If she sauntered around the office trying to look sexy, people would only pay attention to her looks, but not her work. And while that might be unfair, I don't see the harm in explaining to a 15-year-old that life is unfair.
Ditto Pamela. I also don't have a problem with it. You are going to attract jerk azz jerks who like to act like jerks and view you only as a piece of meat to get you in the sack.
My H and I love going to concerts. I normally dress all cute that I get a few head turns, but never do I look like an entry from hot ghetto mess. My H's comment was "I love that you manage to pull together a wardrobe that looks great without revealing too much. I have always loved that about you. It was the one thing I noticed right away while we were dating."
I'm not really fan. I don't know why, but maybe it's just the tone or the bad (IMO) outweighing the good.
I don't think all the points are off or wrong, I just think, overall, it's not worth a read/share/whatever w/ any teenage girl I know.
And I'm probably immediately turned off by the first point. As someone with large breasts and long legs, I've had my share of growing pains and trying to find clothes that were age appropriate and fit. I always felt ashamed of my height and chest b/c my mom was short, petite and small chested and had no idea how to help me with those growing pains. Something like this would have just made me feel bad about myself, and trust me, I was not dressing slutty as a teenager. It just would have highlighted the issues I already had and the things I already worried about and judged myself for - the things that made me feel uncomfortable and awkward every day of high school.
I hope that I am able to guide my daughter through those growing pains... I see how tall she already is, and I know that she's going to be tall when she's a teenager. I hope that I am able to instill a sense of pride and confidence in her for those things instead of making her feel like an awkward freakshow.
I'd like to invite you all to come to springtime in my high school. You'll be changing your tune about the low-cut shirt message and then adding a corollary about short skirts.
Girls have no flucking clue that they look like baby prostitutes. They aren't mature enough and don't have the thinking skills to connect the bigger issues you guys are discussing here - they don't even understand consequences yet. So presenting the message as "hey, quit dressing like a hooker so boys don't treat you like a hooker" is actually a very effective way to express the basic, unsophisticated ideas about appearance and self-worth and self-esteem you are all talking about.
Regardless, this is written for a 15-year-old girl. I wouldn't expect it to be any more than what it is in terms of content or tone. If it was written for grown women, I'd be on board with ripping it to shreds, but for a high school girl, these messages are important right *now*, which is all they are thinking about anyway.
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THIS.
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Don't! We need input from an actual mom with a real life teen!
Also, I will say, I do like uniforms for high schoolers. I wore uniforms and I think it was a good thing for me and my awkwardness (despite some pant fit issues b/c the length didn't work for me so I as stuck with skirts).
Obviously I wore regular clothes frequently too - I just think it was nice to have to wear a polo shirt and skirt every day for school and not have to worry about the neckline of my shirt or whatever. It made at least one thing clothing related easy.
.....and this type of thinking reinforces the erroneous notion that rape is something that happens because someone is so turned on they "can't help them self" as opposed to the violent crime it really is.
I'm a huge fan of uniforms in school - my kids are/will be attending private Catholic school - but OMG, some of these girls' skirts. I can't believe the administration doesn't call their parents and tell them to get over to the uniform store and buy a longer skirt that covers their damn thighs. A mid-year growth spurt shouldn't excuse that mess!