What's supposed to be interesting here is that the parents have to grapple with the feminist ideology that the girls use in their defense. The kids are "claiming autonomy over their bodies and calling out clothing restrictions they see as sexist."
Hey, I did that half a century ago! To the school authorities, not to my parents. My parents supported my individuality and freedom.
Anyway, it's always questionable whether a vocalized argument accurately aligns with the real reasons for a person's behavior, and I'll cherry-pick some things in the article that show an awareness of this aspect of human speech and behavior:
Sydney Acuff, a 17-year-old senior at Blair High School, started wearing more revealing clothes last school year after a breakup with a boyfriend who was “very controlling and very manipulative,” she said. “I wanted to rebel against him. That was one way I did it.” She stopped wearing bras and started wearing “a lot of semi-see-through tops, a lot of camisoles,” Sydney said. “My midriff is almost always showing to some extent.” When she was coping with the breakup, she noticed that she was posting more selfies on social media. “Am I doing this because I want to, or am I doing this because I know these people are going to make me feel good for a certain amount of time and then I’ll go back to feeling sad?” she reflected. “That’s something I have to be careful with and have to be mindful of.”...
“My friends and I, our generation, we consider ourselves feminist,” said [Sydney's] mother.... “I would think things like that would be the opposite of being a feminist. Her mother, Sydney argues, views the issue through “a very second-wave [feminist] lens” peppered with “internalized misogyny.”...
These trends are “basically just meant for skinny girls who can pull those clothes off,” [Khushboo Rathore, another 17-year-old at Blair] said....
“The question I have is whether that’s really coming from the inside out, or whether that’s influenced by this rape culture that’s sending the message that your power comes from your looks and you have to put it out there in a way that’s sexy,” [another girl's] father said. “How much of that is really them?”The question to me is not "Is a crop top empowering for girls?" but how can a young person build the capacity to tell the difference between what she wants and what other people want her to be? It's hard — even for a fully grown adult — to truly perceive that these are 2 different things and to understand that the difference matters. It's easy to see that a midriff is or is not visible, but hard to see whether the girl truly knows who she is. Confronted by her parents, she can insist that she is free and strong, but they've got to know that they don't know if she is free and strong on the inside.
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Uniforms. My girls loved their Sacred Heart uniforms. Plaid skirts. Money saver.
Sex appeal equals power; thus has it ever been, and it's not because of "rape culture."
Serious Question:
Professor, Do you think teenaged girls should be allowed to go to school, wearing nothing but
5 inch heels
Stockings
Garter belts
Demi cup bras?
What about Topless? Bottomless? You, like they did in your Dad's Playboys that you read?
Is there (in YOUR mind) ANY limit to how slutty a teenaged girl can dress for school?
...but how can a young person build the capacity to tell the difference between what she wants and what other people want her to be? It's hard — even for a fully grown adult — to truly perceive that these are 2 different things and to understand that the difference matters.
Says the woman who insists that she wore miniskirts - as a young person - only because of what she wanted and most certainly not what other people wanted.
I can't wait for the pendulum to swing back and all these kids will be wearing fur coats and drilling for oil.
Cheap attention is cheap attention. Girls have to figure that out sometime I suppose. And if boys are distracted by nipples and bare skin everywhere, they should probably just be killed because Rape Culture.
My kids will be far away from this child-led idiocy but God help them all when they wind up in the same workplaces.
She stopped wearing bras and started wearing “a lot of semi-see-through tops, a lot of camisoles,” Sydney said. “My midriff is almost always showing to some extent.”
Biology wins again :)
P.S. Teenagers almost never deserve respect for the thoughtfulness of their positions (“calling out ____ that they see as sexist”). They are little animals who do everything based on feelings.
No underboob until they are eighteen, maybe?
I am Laslo.
Breasts get you looked at by boys. There's something in your brain about wanting that. So it's internal and depends on boys.
On the other hand, in the 70s, a hot secretary walked through the breakfast cafeteria with no bra and visible nipples and got a round of applause. My friend remarked oh no she'll be impossible to work with all day. He had to work with her.
Apparently independence runs into unanticipated reaction.
Today nobody cares. Too many breasts everywhere to make one more significant.
Democracy Dies in Darkness!
Boy. What's the over/under on how many comments this post will draw?
So if “what she wants” is to look kinda slutty... is that a good idea justified solely because it’s what she wants, as opposed to what others want?
That’s a poor and incomplete decision matrix.
At some point it’s not as simple as what you want, or what you perceive others want. The clothes you wear and the skin you show (especially for girls) makes a very clear statement to both males and females about you. Whether you like it or not.
Teenagers who never learn this are in for a rough outcome, and that’s on the parents.
What's with this "crop top" crap? Why not just "free them puppies!!!"
Ah, kids. Flailing and floundering towards a brighter tomorrow while resolutely refusing to deal with today and yesterday.
I really liked the girl who reacted to breaking up with the manipulative and controlling boyfriend by effectively stripping down and suggesting, in my piggish male view, that she might strip off. What do her parents know? Nothing. They are so old. Teach your parents well, girlie.
I also enjoyed the feminist blather. That mom is so second wave!
I think I have seen this movie before.
So.....
The young girl breaks up with her controlling boyfriend. In order to get even..I mean empower herself, she begins to wear floozy see through clothing with no bra and flaunting her near naked body in a public and in an inappropriate location.
"HEY!!! Everybody!!! See my tits!!! Check out my body. I am sooooooo hot!!!!".
Take a hint, little girl. This isn't empowering. It is demeaning to yourself. You are doing what every insecure girl and beaten down woman does when scorned. Resort to sexual manipulation to make your ex boyfriend jealous and/or try to snag a new boy/man to make you feel better because in your mind, you are not a real person. Trolling yourself like new meat on the market.
You are acting like a sex toy and you think that THIS is your power.
Feminist says: “The hypothesis is that whatever is happening is happening for the benefit of men.”
Conservative says: “Feminism was invented by horny teenage boys."
“My friends and I, our generation, we consider ourselves feminist,” said [Sydney's] mother
Everybody's a feminist until their daughters reach high school age.
Standing and walking on tip-toes all day builds calf muscles and improves balance, plus you're displaying your special, impervious-to-outside-forces, status.
Stripping is empowering, too--that's why they all take drugs and alcohol.
"These trends are “basically just meant for skinny girls who can pull those clothes off"
Presumably, fat girls have a lot more trouble pulling their clothes off.
On the self and the others:
The simplest sociological view of the individual and his self is that he is to himself what his place in an organization defines him to be. When pressed, a sociologist modifies this model by granting certain complications : the self may be not yet formed or may exhibit conflicting dedications. Perhaps we should further complicate the construct by elevating these qualifications to a central place, initially defining the individual, for sociological purposes, as a stance-taking entity, a something that takes up a position somewhere between identificaiton with an organization and opposition to it, and is ready at the slightest pressure to regain its balance by shifting its involvement to either direction. It is thus _against something_ that the self can emerge. This has been appreciated by students of totalitarianism ...
I have argued the same case in regard to total institutions. May this not be the situation, however, in free society, too?
Without something to belong to, we have no stable self, and yet total commitment and attachment to any social unit implies a kind of selflessness. Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit ; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personality identity often resides in the cracks.
Goffman _Asylums_ ``The Underlife of a Public Institution'' p.320
Nothing says contempt for the male gaze like the Muffin Top. The discontinuity of the curve isn't a natural sexual signal. If only fat chicks knew their power.
No. Crop tops are not empowering on high school, or even middle school girls. They wear it to trigger male lust. But since their “goods” are being disclosed to the entire male population of the school, it isn’t the least bit selective, but rather promiscuous (by both definitions). Which naturally reduces their value to quality males as mates, since higher quality males instinctively prefer more selective females as mates, in order to minimize the chances of being cuckolded, from spending their precious resources raising some other males’ children as their own. Moreover, by so blatantly appealing to male lust, these girls force, through this lust, many males to view them as sex objects, significantly raising the likelihood of sexual harassment.
"The kids are "claiming autonomy over their bodies and calling out clothing restrictions they see as sexist." Hey, I did that half a century ago! To the school authorities, not to my parents. My parents supported my individuality and freedom."
Oh no, not that again.
Confusing short-sighted selfishness with individuality, my-way-or-I-pout with freedom.
Just to illustrate that feminism was and is the theory that women are special, I take it.
Any parent that has argued with a teenage girl knows that they will throw everything and anything into their arguments to get their way, including feminist shibboleths they know will tweak their mother's consciences and crap about "empowerment" that will rock back their fathers (if any are in the picture).
She's dressing like that because she's lonely and wants another boyfriend and is displaying the wares, so to speak.
Too bad she isn't empowered enough to even be allowed to think that. Or maybe she knows but is savvy enough to know she certainly can't say it.
How would you like to be a sixteen year old boy trying to master the proofs of the Pythagorean theorem whilst sitting directly beside a sixteen year old girl in a see through camisole?
The Crop Top isn't for fatties. So I'll pass.
She should start eating more red meat. That'll show him.
"how can a young person build the capacity to tell the difference between what she wants and what other people want her to be?"
Yep, that is a good question. Of course, it is really not the focus since we've already got concepts such as "internalized misogyny", "clothing options that are sexist", and "rape culture", which are "what other people want her to be".
I find it ironic that such articles show no interest in "young person[s]" being mature in their thought, at all, and baldly proclaim the frame of dependence--on them of course, just not on parents. Spare me the hypocrisy.
Sydney ties the change in her apparel, the decision to wear more revealing clothing, to her breakup with a boy so no, not really an empowering move, just another example of how the patriarchy controls women even in the ways women try to overcome it. She's not baring her midriff as a message to other women.
Ah, it was a social issue to me in the mid-1960s when I had to tangle with the school authorities over miniskirts.
Althouse,
I sense an obvious gender bias on your part. You have been scarred by school authorities who wanted you to show less leg. However, you are well know to despise men wearing shorts.
As a shorts-wearing guy in Southern Arizona, I feel slighted.
Rebelling against an ex-boyfriend makes her submissive to him still. Controlling men pick their targets. It’s not random.
"So if “what she wants” is to look kinda slutty... is that a good idea justified solely because it’s what she wants, as opposed to what others want? That’s a poor and incomplete decision matrix."
Understanding what YOU really want, on a deep level, apart from what you imagine is going on inside other people, is a very difficult, lifelong endeavor, and you may not even notice this until you're in your 30s... or perhaps ever. For example, you're making me feel as though you didn't understand what I was saying. How old are you?
"by so blatantly appealing to male lust, these girls force, through this lust, many males to view them as sex objects, significantly raising the likelihood of sexual harassment."
Bruce Hayden, no matter how many times I tell my daughter this, she claims that her desire to wear very short shorts and very tight tops to school is for "comfort." I look forward to her 30s, when she blushes every time she remembers how she wanted to dress as a 17-year-old. (Fortunately, her school IS draconian about dress code, even though it's "not fair" and "penalizes the girls because the boys can't control themselves." To these regular objections of hers, I agree, "Reality does suck, doesn't it?")
But here I must add: my daughter is an intelligent, lively, funny, fun, engaging person whose company we, her friends, and her teachers thoroughly enjoy. Sadly, hormones don't care about any of that.
Lot too long ago, wearing sexually revealing clothing was considered as creating a sexually hostile work/educational environment and a form of sexual harassment.
My daughter is a freshman at UW Madison. I went to the football game last week. I was seriously amazed at the fact that all the female students were wearing tube tops, halter tops, and crop tops. She said that’s what’s in style. As a 50 year old man I was kind of annoyed with it. As a 20 year old man I would have loved it Then you post this. It made me laugh
Cue bloodhound gang
Ballad of Chasey Lain
Operating a nubile teenage body is as fraught as operating a powerful motor vehicle. It’s just that the kinds of damage are different, mostly. I don’t have an answer, but I know that the brains of teenagers, boys and girls, are not fully developed, especially in the areas involved with the appreciation of the consequences of their actions.
So I am an old fuddy duddy then, and GASP!, I think the Harper Valley PTA was right, even if they were hypocrites, they were adult hypocrites with an understanding of the consequences of their actions and could take responsibility for them.
SHOULD students be required to wear Clothing to Highschool?
SHOULD THEY?
I dislike the idea that see through and revealing clothes are "empowering". Sure the girls will have "power" over the boys they are taunting with their sexuality. But what kind of power is that? I approve of dress codes that limit revealing clothing for both girls and boys.
Maybe the girls are not old enough to understand the way (heterosexual) boys really think. I didn't realize until I was in my 30's or 40's that men and boys think about sex all the time until they reach middle age or older. Sure "rape culture" or whatever, but it's all hormones and normal brain activity.
How dare that father raise his daughter in a rape culture? I presume one of the tell-tale signs of rape culture is allowing such skimpy clothing as crop tops. He really should emigrate to a place more respectful of women. Saudi Arabia perhaps.
but how can a young person build the capacity to tell the difference between what she wants and what other people want her to be?
By trying on different outfits seems like one way...
Here, it's all explained in this helpful educational video.
Since humans are social animals, and reality is socially constructed, the purported dichotomy between what a person wants and what others want him or to be is meaningless.
Since humans are social animals, and reality is socially constructed, the purported dichotomy between what a person wants and what others want him or her to be is meaningless.
"Understanding what YOU really want, on a deep level, apart from what you imagine is going on inside other people, is a very difficult, lifelong endeavor, and you may not even notice this until you're in your 30s."
I think you are projecting. If so , then postulating being brought up to be a independent teenage girl by your parents and fighting for miniskirts seem to be the wrong way to go.
In your case , you screwed up on your major in college, you screwed up on your first marriage and ended up being a lonely single parent for over 30 years.
That playboy magazine your father so proudly displayed in your house screwed you more than you realize.
Progressivism dies in darkness.
I personally support teenage girls wearing crop tops- I like seeing midriffs and underboob.
This will be declared "empowering" until it's declared "fat shaming".
Sydney is looking for love.
Reality bites.
DBQ, you are invaluable.
rhhardin, there were times I thought you might be a bit over the top. I repent.
And, finally, if you want to see how wide the gap between progressives and reality is, read this. And the comments.
All of them.
That, right there, is a voyage to the depths of Insanistan.
Yep, no doubt about it. Eliminating gender roles Will Fix Everything.
[Mark @ 0904: Lot too long ago, wearing sexually revealing clothing was considered as creating a sexually hostile work/educational environment and a form of sexual harassment.
Wearing it is just fine. A picture of it on your desk? Hades awaits you.
It doesn't seem very feminist to change your look in order to get a reaction out of your ex-boyfriend.
"this rape culture". Ok, whatever you say, honey.
So we are agreed that this is a female issue? That for some reason, no doubt socially constructed, boys don't want to go to school in see-through jockstraps?
“For example, you're making me feel as though you didn't understand what I was saying. How old are you?”
Old enough to have understood this point 40 years ago, when I was 20. And to have later explained how important that is to my 3 adult children while they were growing up. Thanks for asking though!
What was unclear about it? Here’s a shorter version: deciding how to present yourself to the world requires asking yourself a few more questions than just knowing whether it’s because you’re being true to yourself or because you’re bowing to peer pressure and outside expectations.
The real problem here is that this unfortunate young person, like most unfortunate young persons in our school-crazed society, is trying to turn into an adult while surrounded by children. Under normal conditions, children learn to become adults by interacting with adults, who value various competencies. But western societies haven't been normal for at least a couple centuries.
Schools were, in fact, invented to help children turn into adults. The problem is, they were invented by German nationalists, to turn children into the kinds of adults German nationalists had a use for. Which was factory workers and soldiers. Even so, they worked pretty well, because the adults controlled social interactions so closely that children lived in a world run by adult standards, even though they were surrounded by other children. Then the adults stopped being adults, and wanted to be children too. Now the schools are shitholes. It is abuse to send your children to one of those places, croptop or not.
"how can a young person build the capacity to tell the difference between what she wants and what other people want her to be?"
That's pretty simple, actually. Just imagine that everyone but you died, yesterday. What would you do today? Wear a croptop to school?
The more complicated issue is that what we want to be is very much wrapped up in how we want other people to see us, and treat us. And it really doesn't help if the only people you ever interact with are hormone-addled, immature and ignorant.
The Simpsons covered this brilliantly with the phrase, "So rebellious in a conformist sort of way."
Decades of defaming, drugging and ridiculing boys by the feminazis, and I'm supposed to give a shit about this?
But these days, the school authorities "rarely call out dress code violations."
They did five or six years ago, at least in Kentucky where my daughter's school dress code included instructions to not wear a top that showed your collarbone or tank tops that showed bare shoulders. From what I observed girls wearing when I visited the school, I don't believe the rules were enforced uniformly among the students.
Although I have a 15-year-old daughter, she is home-schooled, so I was not familiar with this term "crop-top". I had to google it. There were a great many pictures of women, all of them young and quite attractive. Sexually attractive, to be precise.
When I was quite a bit younger, a fairly attractive woman asked me about the way men see women. I told her, "Imagine that you are very hungry, and there is a hamburger sitting on a plate in front of you, with a side of fries. But before you can eat it, you have to talk to it. Ask its opinions. Charm it. Get it to like you."
Presumably, fat girls have a lot more trouble pulling their clothes off.
Best comment.
"These trends are “basically just meant for skinny girls who can pull those clothes off,” [Khushboo Rathore, another 17-year-old at Blair] said....".
OK, I finally see some value in diversity. Anyone want to guess the pronouns of Khushboo Rathore?
Not allowing girls to show their naked bodies when, and if, they feel like it is sexist and controlling. Especially by the older women they threaten. Men are sure as hell not going to complain. Except maybe mullahs.
"Empowering" = Ego Validation
William said...
How would you like to be a sixteen year old boy trying to master the proofs of the Pythagorean theorem whilst sitting directly beside a sixteen year old girl in a see through camisole?
A-cup + B-cup = C-cup
I will stick my neck out here and state that there are some people who do not, or should not, have complete freedom of behavior because they are not competent. These include children under the age of 18, the severely mentally ill and drug addicted folks. These individuals need guidance and possibly custodial care. The 60's ushered in some really stupid court decisions that we're still paying for today. In spades.
Leftists are serious people tackling serious issues.
What's the current status of the Free The Nipple campaign?
"The reality terrifies Bryan Bloomer. In conversations about Sky’s clothing, his mind quickly spirals to fears about the porn industry, human trafficking and the dark corners of the Internet “trying to suck these young, beautiful women in,” he said. He worries about the modeling requests Sky received after performing in beauty pageants recently."
--
Probably shouldn't have given her a stripper name.
"A-cup + B-cup = C-cup”
Already got to you! It’s A-cup^2 by B-cup^2 = C-cup^2
It’s just not fair, and since we are talking about volume, shouldn’t it be cubed? I am not sure... My hypotenuse is acting funny teacher!
Season 3 episode 3 of Degrassi The Next Generation, an excellent Canadian show, hashed this out in 2003.
Although I have a 15-year-old daughter, she is home-schooled, so I was not familiar with this term "crop-top". I had to google it.
My 16 year old went to private school but the first time she used "Wife Beater" to describe a sleeveless undershirt, I had to look it up.
@Skylark
Basic Algebra !
but it was the flashing of their Pi that set you off on a tangent
how can a young person build the capacity to tell the difference between what she wants and what other people want her to be?
She should relentlessly evaluate her own instincts to discover what triggers them. While the same behavior comes from many different sources the individual can identify specifically what they are reacting to.
This is fantastic training for later life. This is exactly the same analysis everyone should use to evaluate politicians and other people in their lives. Obviously they can't take the final step to assuredly identify the motivation but they can link the impulse to the trigger which is a strong link when matched over many occurrences.
I'm so ignorant I thought "crop top" was a type of haircut. I am not kidding.
Wait until those girls graduate, get a job and find out that there's a dress code.
Around here Top Crop is a coop for blueberry growers.
I suppose it's empowering for anyone who grows them, to sell them.
I like local blueberries, now out of season for the year. Cultivated are good, wild are excellent.
In wintertime, I think the ones from Chile are the best.
Cultivated are good, wild are excellent.
Yes, wild blueberries are smaller and not as sweet. Better, IMO.
I'm so ignorant I thought "crop top" was a type of haircut.
Me Too.
It took me an hour to remember the term "tube top." I wanted to link the funny song about them from the 90's, but it was nothing like what I remembered, which must have been part of a Kids in the Hall sketch.
I know of a place that the deer don't seem to visit even by late July. This year the berries from there were very sweet indeed since they'd had plenty of time to ripen.
It does take a while to collect even a small amount, but they're a treat.
"Yes, wild blueberries are smaller and not as sweet."
I disagree. Small breasts on a girl are amazing, too.
Just never heard them referred to as 'wild blueberries' before, but I kinda like it.
I am Laslo.
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