I guess you could say I grew up with illusions of being a feminist. I believe that women should have equal pay. That women can be successful in supporting themselves, and that we should be proud to be women. I marched right along the feminist self righteous movement. This is a hard topic to explain my views. I think a lot of feminist blame to much on the church and conservatives. They want to assign thinking that is NOT going on.
The best example of this is clothing. Today I read an article about some feminist mother being outraged that a note was sent home from her sons school about their end of the year pool party. In the note girls were required to wear a colored tshirt cover up. She went crazy. It became about body shaming. It became about the worlds responsibility to teach their sons to "not look". It became well stupid. Look. I get it. There are plenty of little girl swimsuits out there that are age appropriate. They cover well and are very cute. Then there are some swimsuits out there that don't. Lets be honest here. Walk into any store selling swimsuits and you will see what I'm talking about. And parents buy these inappropriate suites for their girls and then say "the boys just shouldn't look". Ummmmm. WHAT?
A few things I want to point out here.
1. This is not about body shaming. I grew up going to a summer camp that required tshirts be worn while swimming. And we did not have coed swimming.. This is not about teaching girls to be ashamed of their bodies. It's about teaching girls to respect their bodies and only share their private areas with their husbands. Not once in my life have I ever been ashamed or embarrassed about my body. Are their parts I'm not particularly fond of... well, yes. But it's not because some churchy told me to cover up. And honestly they are not the parts that I share with my husband....
2. Yes. Lets tell the boys not to look, and while we are at it tell the girls too. I hear more rude, crude, and frankly nasty sexist comments from women than I ever hear from men. Lets say that little Suzie didn't get the cutest most in fashion swimsuit this season. Trust me. It's not the 6th grade boys that notice. They could care less. Girls still have cooties. The people noticing and commenting are the "popular girls" or "mean girls" as today's times call them. They will do a play by play about how ugly the suite is, how ugly Suzie looks in said suite and how "noooo boy is going to want her with her wearing that ugly suite!"
3. The boys who are noticing your 12 year old girl in a bikini are not boys. They are men. Your little girls friends fathers. That's right. Your allowing your little princess' private bits to be analyzed by grown men. Just saying "don't look" is irresponsible and delusional on parents parts. Men (well everyone) are wired to look. IT'S WHY WE HAVE EYES! Men are especially wired for this. On the conscious level they are looking at the parts they find pleasing. On a subconscious level they are looking at the parts that say "put your baby here! I'm going to make some great babies!!"
Girls do it too. We look for the signs that say "hey this dude is successful! He's going to be a great provider for my babies!"
For the love of everything Holy (and I say that because this system was created by God. It is Holy.) STOP with the just don't look junk. I want my son to find a wife that is pleasing for him to look at and I want my daughters to find husbands that only want to look at them.
4. Teaching girls its ok to dress immodestly is teaching them to NOT value their bodies. Do you think teen girls are wearing booty shorts because they are comfy? HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE SHORTS WITH THE CHEEKS FALLING OUT? These girls are walking around with atomic wedgies! They are wearing them because girls know boys like to look at dat booty. Boys LOVE it! But you know what? Boys are looking at dat booty. NOT that girl. They are not learning to value a woman. They are learning to value a nice young butt.
Girls. I'm not saying you need to walk around in a burka. But you do need to cover those private bits. Wear modest clothing, not because your embarrassed by your body, but because you value it and your self worth. Boys don't run around looking for a show. Look for the modestly dressed girls, because a woman that respects herself will respect you.
