T.I.T. WearIn the fashion world, have young girls become tramps-in-training?
Updated Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007, at 6:14 PM ET
In her song about the brutal passage from androgynous childhood into sexualized adolescence, folk singer Dar Williams croons: "Now I'm in this clothing store/ and the sign says 'less is more'/ more that's tight means more to see/ more for them, not more for me." Emily Yoffe's recent shopping excursion with her pre-teen daughter elicits much the same dismay at a culture that equates female attractiveness with bodily exposure.
Mothers identify with Yoffe's plaint and vent their frustrations en masse. For mom of teen, even with an abundance of fashion savvy and resources, filling Lolita's closet with nonsuggestive clothing has become "a true dilemma," even more so on fairyqueen43's limited income. For young girls who fail to conform to skinny norms, such as Melissaru's "well-proportioned" but slightly round daughter, the ongoing quest for decent-fitting clothes "makes her feel just awful about herself, and more than one shopping trip has included tears."
Lest we dismiss these maternal reactions as generational, the ranks of the scandalized include younger women, too. Twenty-one-year-old Nukapei inventories the tweener section of a women's clothing shore: "Khaki skirts high enough to show off panties when the girl bends over (and some even before), plunging necklines, midriff-baring tops, and of course the ever-present snarky graphic tees. I wouldn't want my 18-year-old sister wearing this sort of thing, much less if she was 10 or 12!" Another big sister of identical age expresses shock and indignation at the seemingly widespread phenomenon of younger girls who "dress like total skanks."
Denouncing the cultural trend toward tramp training, encouraged by "popular Bratz dolls" and "sexy clothes" marketed at an ever-younger female demographic, a wary 25-year-old mother wonders with some dread what her 2-year-old daughter's fashion choices will be in 10 years.
As a former teen consumer of risqué attire, mochajasmine offers some reassurance to these jittery parents a decade after the fact: "For what it's worth, I am anecdotal evidence that these shopping choices do not lead to tweenhood delinquency, promiscuity, and death."
Plus ça change … remember the 80s? Baci does, in vivid detail:
Satin hot pants and a satin jacket worn with Candie's slides? Tight, pegged jeans (yeah, they did have high waists, though). Tight, girl-cut t-shirts with shiny glitter mottos on them?
Everybody acts like this is all new stuff, when in fact I distinctly remember quite slutty fashions from my own girlhood, and pressure to wear them. I pretty much didn't--my parents would never buy me that stuff.
Indeed, in the history of fashion—or so claims Palabra—one can go back much further to "the very suggestive and ostentatious Rococo period" to discover similarly skimpy cuts for women and girls.
Redbeth77 accuses Yoffe of reading sexual innuendo into clothing where there is none, such as the pussy cat logo for Baby Phat (shortygurlang traces the etymology of the brand name for us here). As far as Victoria's Secret is concerned, "I see nothing wrong with my daughter wearing their Pink line." Adriannasanchez also tells reluctant parents to dispense with their Puritanism and get with the new fashion program.
EarlyBird turns a critique of oversexualized teenage clothing into an overreaching indictment of Western culture and its promiscuous ways. More nuanced is grantoe's observation that the whole debate is "indicative of a deep neurotic split in our American psyches" regarding our hypervigilant protection of children (especially young girls) from sexual predators and our simultaneous sexualization of them.
Discover more about the fascinating world of girlwear in the Fashion Fray. AC … 6:10pm EDT
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