You’ll have to pardon me for thinking here (after all, I’m just a girl, what do I know?), but wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to sit the boys down for a talk and tell them to cool it? Not only would it save the parents of every girl in the district from having to revamp their kids’ wardrobes, but it would prepare the boys for what will happen when they walk out into a dress code-free world where women walk around flaunting bare ankles and even, gulp, showing their knees!
I don’t have a son; I have a daughter. In my house, she’s being taught to wear clothing that makes her feel comfortable and is “classy,” but that’s as far as we will go. We aren’t going to teach her that she needs to change herself to keep boys in line because, frankly, that’s not her job.
Granted, I think skinny jeans are hell inventions, but that’s just because I’m OLD AS FUCK, and cannot wear them. Are we done with this trend yet? I mean, can we please? This trend, and the 5-inch platforms, and the way every fucking dress lacks sleeves? IT’S COLD OUT EIGHT MONTHS OF THE YEAR I NEED SLEEVES.
(I’m not saying girls should cover up, I’m saying I want to cover up, and find it difficult because we are in a short, tight, slutty place in fashion right now and when you’re poking 40 with as short a stick as I am it’s either boobs OR legs, not both.)
But it is not in any way my job to wear anything so as to make men behave a certain way. Men are going to behave the way they’re going to behave. My wearing a burkha isn’t going to make somebody who’s about to be a creep stop creeping. Instead of putting your daughters in convents maybe teach your sons that girls are people.
A.
Boy, do I ever hear you on the dresses without sleeves, skinny jeans and platforms. But especially the dresses. I want sleeves, too. GIVE ME SLEEVES. Even a cap sleeve will do.
Anyway, this all reminds me of when I was talking to a Muslim client of ours (I am a paralegal)about women covering up. He said, “well it’s so men will speak to women as an equal; so they won’t always be thinking of the woman’s body.” And I said “well, don’t you think it’s a bit insulting to men to imply they are incapable of looking at a woman without thinking of sex?” He didn’t really have an answer for that.
Regarding shoe trends, from what I saw at DSW the other day, though platforms are still plentiful, I have a first-hand account of normal pumps coming back around, as evidenced by the offerings along the heel aisles. 🙂 I’m too much of a klutz, let alone too curvy to make the platforms a stable/flattering footwear option, so seeing normal soled shoes was a great thing.
Skinny jeans.,,to me, those would be the ones that have a control panel to nip in my womanly curves a touch so as to not prompt unwarranted ‘when are you due?’ comments… And as to actual ‘skinny jeans’ for ‘skinny girls’…blearggghhh.
Skinny jeans actually work on my lanky, hipless, 45-year-old-self, so I love them, but damn, I hear you on the sleeves. Where I live, it’s frequently too cold for bare arms in the height of summer, much less the rest of the year. Kind of tired of covering up everything with a cardigan, just give me some damn sleeves.
A friend and I once respectfully asked a co-worker about that pentecostal thing with the long dresses and the boots and stuff (we didn’t phrase it that way, but really what’s with the boots?). He said that Paul said that women should be modest etc. and it was nobody’s business but his what his wife looked like underneath. He wasn’t disrespectful or contemptuous, just explaining the setup.
Wonderful Christians that we are, we kind of ruined it by asking at the same time “Who’s Paul?”. Oops, nothing like showing our ignorance, should have figured that out right away. Plus it was hard to continue the conversation because the only thing I wanted to say was “Oh, yeah, that shit. He started this whole thing. What an asshole.”
Nice guy, he became a minister himself after his wife divorced him.
Jeans are blue denim five-pocket Wrangler knockoffs called Rustlers that sell for about $15 a pair because I’m too damn fat to fit into the $12 ones. I wear a belt I got from Sportsman’s Guide to hold ’em up ’cause I don’t have a fanny.
Shirts are Wrangler work shirts I only have to buy once every five years or so … or Dickies ones, that last longer and hold a crease but don’t breathe as well, being partly plastic (poly-cotton blend). Saves a boatload of ironing. Sox are cotton, and unmentionables are best left unmentioned. I wear boots ’cause I can get ones that fit my (been broken and healed to different, very wide, sizes) feet without hurting.
I haven’t bought a skirt since 2008 … oh, wait. Yeah, I bought some second-hand ones, for the material, to make over into something else, last year. And some milsurplus dress shirts, for a Star Trek convention…