Adrastos sends me this, to raise my blood pressure today:Ladies, you must cover up, so that boys are not assaulted by the sight of your bodies:
Tiffant Phan, a junior, says that Assistant Principal Randi Damesek stopped her for what she felt was an entirely appropriate outfit.
“Ms. Damesek took one look at me, sighed, and asked me what I was thinking when I went out of the house that morning. All I wore was a long-sleeved button-down, which was secured by a navy skirt and accompanied by floral cutout tights; I didn’t intend for it to be inappropriate in the slightest. At the moment, I was confused because I specifically made sure that the skirt covering my patterned tights was past my fingertips. She told me that the whole outfit was bad and that I looked like I was ‘going out for a Saturday night, not going to school.’ I think we all know what she was implying.”
First of all, whenever some older person is going on and on about how gross children are with THEY TITTAYS hanging out all the time these days, I have one of these thoughts:
1. It sucks no longer being 20. I look at girls wearing things now that I would never have had the guts to wear when I was their age and thin, and think, damn. I’m 36 years old, and right now it is down to showing off boobs OR legs, not both, and we are in a weird place with fashion right now that makes that almost impossible. I had a fancy party to go to last month and had to have something made because everything was so horrible. I am wearing like three ratty t-shirts from Lands End this summer, and waiting for things to get better for adults.
It sucks looking at stuff in stores remembering how I wasted the years when I could wear a strapless dress and not feel like I was in some sense kidding. However, that bummed-out feeling does not give me leave to life all the young ladies out there who DO wish to take advantage of the current fashion trends available to them, and wish that they would cover up so that I could feel more secure about the state of my upper arms.
2. Could anything be creepier than some old person telling you how hypothetically, JUST TOTALLY SAYING FOR EXAMPLE, this is how some other old person might look at you if you wear what you’re wearing? I can’t think of anything that would make me feel more threatened than being called into the principal’s office and forced to listen to some thoughts that JUST MIGHT MAYBE be going through someone’s mind when they looked at me. Is there a person on EARTH who doesn’t realize how that sounds?
3. Way to teach girls that being admired is terrible. I’m not saying every male gaze is admiring, or that girls should be flattered by being creeped on by creepy creepers, but by saying “you shouldn’t make boys look at you” you are also saying that when any boy looks at you, even if you like him and he likes you, it is dirty and wrong.
Being admired for your beauty or even lusted after is actually a nice thing, when the luster/admirer is someone you feel the same way about, but we go out of our way to make women paranoid about it such that accepting desired affection becomes this horrendous minefield of “am I a slut because my boyfriend of six years likes my tits in this halter top?”
4. NOBODY IS MAKING BOYS LOOK AT THEM. Boys are looking because boys are taught that leering is hilarious and women are not fellow people but aliens from another fucking planet whose customs are strange to us all. Girls are not distractions by existing, any more than boys at practice are distracting the young impressionable females. SHOCKER, yes, high school girls have sexual urges as well, but somehow we never get into a national shit-fit over making baseball uniforms into burqas so that young misses won’t sit there and sigh over asses and shoulder muscles.
5. The kids be fuckin’, even if you put them all in Little House on the Prairie costumes. The species has continued through all manner of horrible fashion, short-tight and otherwise. I make burqa cracks, but women wear those and yet people still procreate. People will screw each other no matter what you make them wear. Also, people who are predators will attack no matter what you wear or how you carry yourself. These things cannot be mitigated by turning school into a reverse fashion show with prizes for the least sexy thing worn by a student that day.
6. OH MY GOD, just shut up. Isn’t it hard enough getting kids to learn math and literature these days? Get back to work.
A.
Thank you. This crap is the first step to an American burkha-ville run by jealous old farts. I AM an old fart and female and I am inspired by seeing youthful beauty in any gender. I am sick to death with seeing other old farts trying to shame them into misery.
I’m pretty sure that if you visit the ruins of Pompeii you will find drawings where a father bemoans the fact that his daughter’s toga is too tight. Pretty sure the drawings in Chauvet show a mother trying to put another animal skin over her daughter’s too-revealing garments.
Same as it ever was. God aren’t we tired of having the same conversation over and over again, as a human race?
They used to make us kneel on the floor to prove our skirt was long enough to prevent it interfering with teacher and boy brain functions.
School uniforms are the only thing I have ever seen that protects girl children from this kind of harassment and abuse of authority. Even that is not 100% effective.
Southern Beale is right on the money, though the daughter in question was probably wearing a too tight or too skimpy chiton. I think white eye makeup was considered “fast” too.
I don’t think school uniforms are all that effective. Google “school uniform porn”. You could have the girls all wearing Michelin tire man suits, and all the boys would grow up with tire girl fetishes.
Hell, when I was in high school (mumblesomething years ago), my mother would FREAK if I even THOUGHT about putting lace bits in my hair (a la Madonna at the time) – as if THAT was going to make me a slutty whore. She also (tried to) discourage me from wearing my friend’s denim jacket w/the arms cut off… So, I’d wait until I got to school to put those items on…anything ANYTHING to distract from the horrid (and I do mean DETESTABLE) clothes she generally bought for me on the occassions she shopped for me and not with me.
But the fact I was on the dance/drill team and kicked my legs over my head every Friday (or Saturday) night wearing a short skirt…was NOT considered a problem by her…sigh.
Oy vez MARIA!
Let’s meditate on this classic bit of wisdom from the Most Concerned Dad of All Time, Joe Simpson:
“Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she’s sexy in both. She’s got double D’s! You can’t cover those suckers up!”
This topic and Southern Beale’s quote just reminded me of this…
Great post, A.