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Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That?

by Nicole Rodgers

March 31, 2011

I found this article really infuriating. Jennifer Moses is upset, but its not clear if she's upset about girls' clothing or perceived sexual behaviors, so she just conflates the two.

It's probably fair to say that most of us who are well-beyond our tween/teen years feel uncomfortable when we pass a 12-year-old with full makup, high heels, and a g-string showing.  Obviously there's a real tension that exists in a culture that profits immensely off sexualizing young girls but also pays lip service to the sanctity of childhood, and protecting adolcescents from a variety of perceived social ills.

But Moses' assertion that tween girl style means that promiscuity has hit a new low feels alarmist and unwarranted.  After all, dressing a like a "prositute" (as Moses puts it), doesn't actually mean one is acting like a prostitute;  and even if there is more "hooking up" and sexual behaviors have changed somewhat for younger generations (as they always do), I think we ought to pause before jumping to any assumptions about what that means.  I mean, c'mon, EVERY generation says that their kids' generation has hit a new low, and signals some sign of the apocolypse!  

And now the most annoying part:  Moses says that the reason she and other moms don't push back more on their daughters is because of "how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret."   Apparently, now they don't want to appear to be hypocrites by constraining their daughters in any way.  (Did no one tell Moses that all parents are hypocrites as times?)  Of these peers, she says: "I don't know one of them who doesn't have feelings of lingering discomfort regarding her own sexual past. And not one woman I've ever asked about the subject has said that she wishes she'd 'experimented' more."

REALLY?  They are all ashamed of their sexual pasts and none wished they'd experimented more?  Either Moses' friends aren't being honest with her or she really needs to expand her circle a bit.

Sigh.

Read the full article here.

-Nicole