This is a blog inspired by the fact that I
was wearing a top today that I inadvertently bought a couple of sizes too big.
You may be reading this and thinking that that’s a pretty poor start. But wait.
As I glanced at myself in the mirror, I realised that this top which barely went
past my underwear, would just about be considered a legitimate dress for some
girls.
Maybe now that I’m twenty years of age, I’ve
become old and doddery, but I look at the way that teenage girls dress, and I
find myself wondering what on earth possesses them. Putting aside for a moment,
that these girls all look practically identical – foundation caked on, short
skirts, and most likely a top which reveals most of their cleavage, I don’t see
how this is an attractive look. As someone to whom I was talking last night
remarked, “it’s an underwear extravaganza”.
I’m not from the school that says this look
is problematic because it means this girls are “asking for it” by the way they
dress and act, but I do think that it is concerning.
Why is it concerning you may ask?
Well, let me tell you.
1. Photos of these girls posing are
plastered on their facebook pages (usually by them). As we all know, if it’s
there, it’s there forever. Imagine having these photos of your fourteen year
old self thrown back at you ten years later.
2. I often want to go up to these girls and
say to them “honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you forgot to put on
pants”. Forgetting to put on pants is obviously a concerning conundrum in which
to find oneself.
3. Just who are these girls trying to
impress? Why is the perception that appearing ‘available’ makes an individual
cool? It is this last point that is the most worrying for me, as I can’t seem
to be able to discern where young women who have barely hit puberty are
receiving this message, but it is indicative of a broader societal issue.
I think this is the crux of the matter –
that we are teaching young women that their physical appearance is the most
important thing (I dread to imagine what these girls eat or rather, what they
don’t). Moreover, our society is sending the message that wearing skirts so
short that the world can become your gynaecologist, validates you.
I am nostalgic for the days when parents
would say “you’re not leaving the house dressed like this” – what do the
parents of these girls think, anyway – or when people who conducted themselves
in the way that so often accompanies this style of dress, were considered,
well, to be members on the fringe of society.
I haven’t even started on the behaviour typical
of the individuals who dress like this. Underage drinking, clubbing and sex are
all par for the course. And while I can hardly say that I went until my
eighteenth birthday without a drop of alcohol touching my lips, I know that I
can count the number of times I was seriously intoxicated before I was over age
on my fingers (in honesty, I can still
count the number of times I have been seriously intoxicated on my fingers).
Anecdotal evidence that I hear would suggest that it is not considered abnormal
for a girl of sixteen to frequently go clubbing, and get seriously drunk.
Am I the only one who is deeply concerned
by this?
If this is the way that children are going,
then when the day comes for me to be a parent (and oh god, what a terrifying
prospect that is), I think I’m just going to lock them up for their
adolescence. It’s much easier than worrying that they will think that this sort
of behaviour and conduct is admirable or indeed, desirable to emulate.
