HAVE SOME SELF RESPECT & WEAR A BRA Recently Twitter was hashtagging away about telling a girl she's beautiful. Or pretty. Or is passable or whatever. Understandably counter hashtags came up with suggestions instead you tell a girl she's clever or interesting or comfortingly predictable. Both were well meaning. Both unintentionally hit the well-meaning-but-patronising mark. Girls get enough feedback and comments, constructive or not it would probably be more beneficial to suggest a #letagirlbe Twitter trend. The trend (not Twitter based, though live and well on that and other social network sites) for telling girls they are fine as they are and not to physically try hard is well beyond being nipped in the bud.
I suppose it goes way beyond the Hardy fantasies of the immaculate milkmaids. The image of the scrubbed Virgin Mary has to have come from somewhere. A fresh faced young woman who radiates health, wholesomeness and ideally caucasianess (Our Lady has long been depicted nursing a blonde Jesus with her extremely pale bosom) has long been held up as the ideal. She is both innocent and tempting.
I suppose it goes way beyond the Hardy fantasies of the immaculate milkmaids. The image of the scrubbed Virgin Mary has to have come from somewhere. A fresh faced young woman who radiates health, wholesomeness and ideally caucasianess (Our Lady has long been depicted nursing a blonde Jesus with her extremely pale bosom) has long been held up as the ideal. She is both innocent and tempting.
This is annoying on various levels. The first being, when it is suggested to you as an acne-dusted teen, that it's a freakin' hard look to pull off. That natural no make-up make-up look takes HOURS. Far better to feel physically confident thanks to some smeared Rimmel mascara and purple Barry M lipstick. You can't go into the office looking like that, you can - oddly - go to school looking like that. So do it now.
The second reason it's pissy for people to keep going on about natural girls is it's a fetishized image. Hence sexy school uniforms being a fancy dress favourite.
The third is plain old mind your own business. HASHTAG GirlsIJustWantYouToBeHappy. Surely that is the motto of most parents with daughters and indeed parents in general. But no, it seems time and time again it is #Don'tDisappointMe. Don't disappoint me by being one of those slutty girls, don't disappoint me by going out with one of those slutty girls. But mainly...don't be one of those slutty girls. You're so pretty!
The second reason it's pissy for people to keep going on about natural girls is it's a fetishized image. Hence sexy school uniforms being a fancy dress favourite.
The third is plain old mind your own business. HASHTAG GirlsIJustWantYouToBeHappy. Surely that is the motto of most parents with daughters and indeed parents in general. But no, it seems time and time again it is #Don'tDisappointMe. Don't disappoint me by being one of those slutty girls, don't disappoint me by going out with one of those slutty girls. But mainly...don't be one of those slutty girls. You're so pretty!
| The latest to be peculiarly applauded is a Mom who likes to social network with her family. Kim Hall of Austin, Texas wrote a letter to all the girls her sons know in her blog, Given Breath. "Last night, as we sometimes do, our family sat around the dining-room table and looked through the summer’s social media photos." | The family blocks them on social networks and the sons learn that some girls...well, they're just disposable. |
And boy howdy, Kim noted that a lot of her teenage sons (please see topless photo of them attached) friends are teenage girls. Teenage girls who photograph themselves. In their pyjamas. WITHOUT THEIR BED BRA ON.
Hall went on to note the girls poses were not very pyjama party themed. Or too pyjama party themed depending on your pyjama parties. "We think you are lovely and interesting, and usually very smart. But, we had to cringe and wonder what you were trying to do? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to say?"
That's a nice family picture, I want to be friends with the Hall family. Maybe come over to share some nutritious meal and then, before ice cream, look through their friends photos and laugh at them and contend for the meanest dig. Then BLOCK those ladies super hard because EW no bra.
I don't think I have read something so unkind for a while.
But wait, let's give Hall a chance to explain her judgemental attitude. You guys, she's a MOM of SONS. And she doesn't want to have to bother to teach them about different ways of aesthetically expressing yourself. Of not just having a past but being entitled to that, past - whether you have left it far behind or not. Of learning from mistakes. It's easier just to dismiss some girls as the wrong kind. The family blocks them on social networks and the sons learn that some girls...well, they're just disposable. They aren't "women of character."
It's funny how we seem to think we can force teenage girls to respect themselves by laughing at them - see latest case in point, hot pants Dad. It's peculiar, it's mean and it's certainly not leading by example. Teach girls to respect themselves by teaching others to respect them.
Squeamish Kate
Hall went on to note the girls poses were not very pyjama party themed. Or too pyjama party themed depending on your pyjama parties. "We think you are lovely and interesting, and usually very smart. But, we had to cringe and wonder what you were trying to do? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to say?"
That's a nice family picture, I want to be friends with the Hall family. Maybe come over to share some nutritious meal and then, before ice cream, look through their friends photos and laugh at them and contend for the meanest dig. Then BLOCK those ladies super hard because EW no bra.
I don't think I have read something so unkind for a while.
But wait, let's give Hall a chance to explain her judgemental attitude. You guys, she's a MOM of SONS. And she doesn't want to have to bother to teach them about different ways of aesthetically expressing yourself. Of not just having a past but being entitled to that, past - whether you have left it far behind or not. Of learning from mistakes. It's easier just to dismiss some girls as the wrong kind. The family blocks them on social networks and the sons learn that some girls...well, they're just disposable. They aren't "women of character."
It's funny how we seem to think we can force teenage girls to respect themselves by laughing at them - see latest case in point, hot pants Dad. It's peculiar, it's mean and it's certainly not leading by example. Teach girls to respect themselves by teaching others to respect them.
Squeamish Kate
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