TW For Slut Shaming, References To Rape

[teleens_journal]

Parents, Don't Dress Your Girls Like Tramps, writes columnist LZ Granderson at CNN.com.

HIghlights:

• LZ Granderson: Some parents dress their young girls in provocative outfits
• Retailers have encouraged this behavior by marketing inappropriate clothing
• He says it's OK to blame retailers, but it's parents who are ultimately responsible
• Children need

Comments

[teleens_journal]

All of this - thank you for expressing it better than I did.

[strong_delicate]

I cringed at the suggestion that this 8 year old was the sexiest person in the airport or whatever he said. *shudders*

[maynardsong]

Me too. I saw it coming and ughhhh she's EIGHT why was it relish and not being unnerved that I was getting in the first few sentence???? D:

[strong_delicate]

I get what he is saying, but like you pointed out...poor execution.

I hate the title of this article. He makes some good points about the oversexualization of young girls and points the finger to parents and other adults for allowing it to happen. But the title does reek of slut shaming. The word tramp? Yeah, no thanks.

[maynardsong]

And while I'm sure he didn't ~intend it that way, I couldn't get past the very first paragraph that made it seem like he's describing a hot adult woman but predicted that it's actually a prepubescent girl. Just, ugh. Gives off pedophile vibes.

[bestdaywelived]

I absolutely believe that young girls should not be wearing sexy clothing. I do not think that it should be marketed to young girls, or even created for them. Let kids be kids.

THAT BEING SAID, I think it's really fucked up that a grown ass man feels okay calling someone he assumes to be 8 years old trampy. WTF. A child dressing provocatively is still a child, douchebag.

[teleens_journal]

Exactly.

[heymeghann]

At that age, little girls don't even know what it means to be slutty. It's safe to assume that we all played dress up in our mom's makeup and clomped around the house in her high heels. Is that slutty? Not at all.

Articles like this frustrate me.

[gretchystretchy]

Someone (a middle-aged woman who is friends with my parents) posted this to Facebook yesterday and was like "Amen! This guy is right on."

My comment: "To me, the problem lies less with parents and more with our sexist, patriarchal culture that sexualizes young girls while simultaneously infantalizes grown women. Either way, women and girls are being sexually objectified, which is a problem.

I definitely could've done without the slut-shaming, though. Regardless of clothing choices, sexual activity, or whatever else, referring to any woman or girl as a "tramp" helps no one."

One other person commented, agreeing with my sentiment, but 10 other people "liked" the link. So. =/

[teleens_journal]

When I posted it to my FB, I said essentially the same thing that you did... And wound up having to get into an argument with another woman over how words like "tramp" have multiple meanings and that "slut" was being reclaimed, *headdesk*.

[tamerterra]

...Reclaiming slurs doesn't mean applying them to people who don't even know what they mean yet, ffs.

[teleens_journal]

IAWTC

[phoenix_anca]

I read this a few days ago. So creepy - both the parents and the author.

[teleens_journal]

Exactly - the parents should be better about letting their kids be kids and the author was disgusting for saying that an 8-year-old was both 'sexy' and dressed like a tramp.

[teleens_journal]

Excellent points all. I realized when someone brought up that wearing a midriff top not being 'sexy' on a prepubescent child I really put my foot in it when it comes to my whole 'let kids be kids' argument.

For that, I apologize.

FWIW, I think that allowing a kid to dress pretty much however they like, so long as her private areas are covered, isn't harmful unless some idiot like this author comes along and calls her a 'tramp' for it. It's rather like that young boy who was photographed with pink toenails recently - he didn't care or feel bad about it until there was a HUGE national uproar about it.

Kids emulate adults and shaming them for it is both wrong and silly. All of this requires a deeper examination of why anyone would call someone a 'tramp' in the first place, rather than focusing on what she was wearing to 'make' him call her that.