I'm getting this off my chest before I have to work on tomorrow's Happy Monday post. I can't be in that woman centred, positive, happy feminist space until I've spewed this all out...
I'll skip the tedious back story and cut straight to it. It has come to my attention that there are nightclubs for children!! I can't get my head round it? These under-18 nights are run in ordinary nightclubs, finishing at ten thirty, ready for the real crowd to arrive. These are nightclubs where parents can dump their pre-pubescent broods and leave them dancing and imbibing soft drinks in some under-18 approximation of that adult ritual of getting plastered and flirting with the opposite sex. (Same sex flirting clearly still not acceptable). Is this some sort of social training?
My friend's daughter proudly showed me her photos from the last junior club night in Bolton and I do not know how I stayed upright. The photos were of her and a group of girls (they're THIRTEEN YEARS OLD) all fake tanned, wearing pink bra tops and hot pants. I thought I was looking at women in bikinis. Wearing big fluffy boots, full make-up and body piercings. They look like adults. They look like very "sexy" adult women on the pull. And the boys? Well, surprise surprise they look like small, hairless men. They wear clean shirts and pants and smart shoes. They probably splash on a bit of Lynx (and yes, I know all about that appalling Lynx Mynxes campaign, I'll get to that another post) and have a shave of sorts, but they are fully clothed and not at all sexualised. There's absolutely no chance of any of the boys being mistaken for someone over 18. The girls on the other hand, could quite easily and disturbingly pass.
What is this about? How can I critique this behaviour without sounding like I'm woman bashing? I want to say it's all about training young girls to be sex objects. I want to say where are our girls going to end up? I want to cry for those girls who find self-worth in looking and behaving like this and I want to cry for those who don't fit in and won't buy into it and are bullied and humiliated. I want to make it clear that it is a PATRIARCHY to blame for this sexualising of our girls. I want to do SOMETHING. But I'm so disturbed by what I learned that I am having trouble sleeping.
3 comments:
Some will insist you're woman-bashing, but that's a load of crap. The sexualization of 13-year-old GIRLS is simply sick. And yes, it's a system you're pointing at, not individual girls.
Oh, off to take something for my stomach.
I'm hearing you.
I know all about what it's like to be this age and not fit into the accepted feminine standard and being cast out for that, but things seem a hell of a lot worse these days.
It's so disturbingly blatant these days that our society just wants to train our girls to be nothing more than sex objects. And they can be and deserve to be so much more, I mean, generally speaking, they do better in school than their male peers, but they are being told that to be successful is not via your brain, but your objectified body.
I'm glad you get it. I didn't fit either, but then, I didn't care...much. Pippa x
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