Look and feel
[...] In her book “Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality” (Harvard University Press), Deborah Tolman, the director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University and a professor of human sexuality studies there, found that some 30 teenage girls she studied understood being sexy as “being sexy for someone else, not for themselves,” she said.
When the girls were asked what makes them feel sexy, they had difficulty answering, Dr. Tolman said, adding that they heard the question as “What makes you look sexy?”
Many women’s costumes, with their frilly baby-doll dresses and high-heeled Mary Janes, also evoke male Lolita fantasies and reinforce the larger cultural message that younger is hotter.
“It’s not a good long-term strategy for women,” Dr. Tolman said. [...]
So that's settled, then: Tuesday after next, I'm passing out copies of Stephanie Rosenbloom's New York Times article "Good Girls Go Bad for a Day" in my naughty-schoolgirl outfit.
(Not necessarily humorless editor's note: An earlier version of this post was titled "Look and feel, aka "You can't say 'Halloween' without 'all-new hoe.' " No garden tools were harmed in the creation of the post.)
Comments
Now I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do! Suggestions?
Dooood you hit a nerve.
It's wondering how I'll navigate my daughter through these murky waters that keeps me up some nights. We limit commerical televsion, involve her in sports and community works, and pray and fret and pray and fret....
She already knows that the "math is hard" line won't fly by Dad. She doesn't have to be a math genius but that doesn't mean she gets to bail.
Can't we just be beautiful & forget about being sexy?
everything related to sexuality, to me is supposed to be private. so why force ourselves to be sexy. I agree too that when I'm being sexy (when I try), it's for someone, when I'm being beautiful it's for myself.
The article made me wish the teenage girls mentioned in the study were growing up aware of beauty and sexiness for themselves, becoming what they wanted, growing up strong, confident, smart and cared-for: the way Barry's trying to raise his daughter.