Feminism and the Case of the Shrinking Costume

This is going around the interwebs today:

The Evolution of Girls' Halloween Costumes

I've made it a policy not to engage in debate with the friends of acquaintances, but when the friend of a friend commented on Facebook that feminism, secularism, and sex positivity were to blame for this phenomenon, I decided to come here to discuss the many ways she's wrong.

Patriarchy manifests itself differently in different cultures. In theocracies, it may come with the expectation that a woman remain completely modest in dress and behavior, norms that may or may not be enforced by law. In our capitalist society, however, patriarchy manifests as the idea that our bodies - and our sexualities - are commodities to be bought and sold, cheered on and exploited by the standards of the male gaze.

The common theme is that our bodies are not our own; they are controlled by a system of oppression, or sometimes even by another human being directly. Whether we're being forced to cover ourselves against our will or made to believe that our only worth comes in being sexy for another person's enjoyment, it's all patriarchy, and it's all intensely detrimental.

So the sexy costumes. I have friends who enjoy them immensely. But you know what? They're grown adults who have chosen - though likely through a lifetime of socialization - to don very skimpy outfits on Halloween, at parties, etc. Most of them wouldn't be caught dead in a Halloween store's $10 faux corset, but at a glance their wardrobe choices appear similar to the costumes I tend to roll my eyes at. Which is to say, I don't exactly cheer on the practice, but I do respect it as a means of self-expression, a reflection of our patriarchal society though it may be.

It gets hairy when you start parsing "choice" and "autonomy" with the knowledge that we do not exist in a vacuum, that all our behaviors and choices are influenced by the way we've been brought up. But what we can probably all agree on is that the availability of these ever-shrinking costumes - and the disappearance of other options - pollutes the minds of girls from a very early age. If from a young age a girl consistently sees nothing but outfits that highlight her chest and fall far above her knee, how can we even begin to hope that she will be able to express her sexuality autonomously as an adult?

Make no mistakes... the sexualization of young girls is not the result of feminism, secularism, or sex positivity (ideals that all deem autonomous decision making and healthy sexuality of high value). No, childhood sexualization comes, not surprisingly, from our culture's version of patriarchy: a capitalist view that sees bodies as objects to be bought and sold.

Newsflash: Kids are sexual beings

I'm sure it's some facet of human nature to jump to conclusions.  No where is this more apparent than in the mainstream perception of the American Teenager.

Think about it: from the perspective of someone who gets all their perceptions from Oprah, 60 Minutes, and a load of segments on both local and national news, the American teenager is a walking moral crisis.  Drugs, sex, pregnancy, and low self esteem are staples of your News Hour Special on what could very well be your teen.  So freak out already!!  (Anyone remember the "rainbow parties" trend that all teen girls were apparently taking part in?  Oh yeah.)

None of this is to say we do not have something of a crisis on our hands when it comes to teenagers having unsafe sex and using dangerous drugs.  The lack of decent sex education, paired with a compulsory "sex is bad" mentality, has led many American teenagers to engage in sexual relationships before they're ready.  Add to this the fact that many young people lack the knowledge to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs, and yeah, we got ourselves a problem.

However, your average sexually-active teenager is not Jessi Slaughter.  They are not drug fiends, they are not sleeping with a new partner every week, and they are not a part of some "epidemic of immorality" that needs to be remedied with even more repressive stigmas against one's own body.

I'll say this bluntly: kids, even young children, are sexual beings.  They have impulses that are normal, natural, and valid.  This is something that I'm sure I'll have more trouble saying when I have a little one of my own, but every parent needs to come to terms with this fact.  No amount of Bill O'Reilly ranting about how he had a baseball mitt and not a girlfriend at age 16 can adequately challenge our nature as human beings, nor can it effectively remedy the trend of many teens engaging in risky sexual activity.

When feminists speak out against the sexualization of young girls, we are often lumped in with puritanical movements that are basically just anti-sex.  The "Parents Television Council" comes to mind.  However, unlike the PTC and others, feminists decry media efforts at imposing sexuality on young girls while still supporting a young woman's right to become a sexual being in her own right and on her own terms.

And of course, it's this positive outlook on sexuality, the right to be sexual in one's own right, that is apparently to blame for the supposed epidemic of teen girls getting their freak on at age 11.  And not, you know, a continued culture of attacks on women's bodies, the commodification of younger and younger girls as sexual objects, and a busload of dehumanizing clothes and music produced solely to make a buck.  To be sure, it is easier to blame the very non-mainstream idea that women own their bodies than to take on an entire culture of consumerism, especially when we're taught from day one that such a culture is "what makes this country great."  And besides, there's just no money in women and girls feeling content with their bodies and their wardrobes. 

All of this is to say that I read a great piece by the always-wonderful Heather Corinna.  A sex educator, Corinna's website Scarleteen is geared towards young people, providing insight and education on safe sex, peer pressure, relationships, self esteem, and other relevant topics. 

Her piece at RH Reality Check specifically addressed the things parents can do to help their kids to develop into healthy, educated, and informed sexual beings.  Have a read here.

While parents may (and absolutely should) insert their personal values into their household sex education curriculum, Corinna's list contains several concepts that even the most progressive parents may not think to include:

•  "Encourage active consenting and sexual boundaries" -- This is bound to be one of those difficult topics for parents to broach with their kids, as it forces them to admit that their kids are, in fact, sexual beings.  However, simply stating "don't do it unless you want to" and "be sure to use a condom" is probably not going to adequately inform a teenager about the limits of consent.  And if the confusion over what, exactly, Julian Assange is being accused of is any indication, we could all use a refresher course in consent.
• "Help counter sexualization and stereotyping" -- Again, simply reasserting your values or telling kids how to protect themselves against pregnancy/STDs is not going to cut it.  Teenagers live in a world bigger than their house... their school's social politics, television programs, messages in music, and the clothes they're encouraged to don all play a huge role in the sexual landscape teenagers are trying to map out.  If parents want their children to make truly informed decisions, they need to be ready to offer a perspective on this complex landscape. 
• "Dump 'The Sex Talk'" -- This was a new idea to me!  Instead of the awkward, "son/daughter, we need to talk" moments, Corinna suggests parents simply insert messages on positive sexuality into day-to-day childrearing, starting as young as the child can understand.  I can imagine this involves being straight about where babies come from (come on, people... the stork?!), short-but-sweet discussions on masturbation and privacy, and passing comments that reiterate messages about positive sexuality.  Always remembering, of course, that no amount of "you can talk to me about anything" comments will necessarily make the kid comfortable just showing up to ask a question.
• "Support outside help" -- The single most problematic trend in the politics of sex ed is parents distrust of other people educating their children about sexuality.  While we may trust others to educate our kids on things like nutrition and fitness(except Sarah Palin, of course), we simply cannot fathom that another person, possibly a perfect stranger, may know more about sex than we do.  Of course, while some parents may be very well-informed about their own sexual identities, it is highly unlikely that a teen will make the exact same choices as her/his parents.  S/he may be attracted to the same gender, s/he may choose to begin a sexual relationship earlier or later than the parents, or s/he might just have a completely different set of questions.  Or, {gasp!}, s/he might just not want to discuss certain topics with her/his parents!  Trusting that trained professionals can answer questions in those "I don't know" moments should put a parent's mind at ease, not cause a panic over whether or not the educator is going to tell your kid to run off and screw the next thing that moves.  And again, if personal values are reiterated in the home, the (very basic) factoids a kid learns in school are not about to negate them. 

 Now if I can maintain this credo when I have little ones of my own,  we'll be in business.

Bra Shopping

When it comes to women's bodies, in particular the breasts and butt, there's always some crisis that inherently keeps us from happiness: we're too large here, too squishy there, and somehow too small somewhere else.  Add to this the supposed "crisis" that 80% of women are wearing the wrong bra size {gasp!}, and an activity as basic as buying a new bra becomes a crash course in why feminism exists.

Once upon a time, I had a friend whose girlfriend had landed a job at one those Oprah-endorsed specialty bra shops.  He said to me something like, "You'd probably like this store.  Turns out most women are wearing the wrong bra size, and they help you find the right one."  Never one to hide my convictions, I remember launching directly into a rant about how the "wrong bra size" statistic is just another attempt at capitalizing on women's insecurities while turning the focus away from real women's issues such as poverty, abuse, pay inequities, etc.  I mean really!

Though I can't say I blamed my friend for assuming this was, in fact, a legitimate women's issue.  He wasn't exactly well-versed in feminist ideology, and from the outside, many of these specialty stores and brands model themselves to look like champions of women's advancement.  Indeed, to take the plunge into any department store undies section is to be inundated with co-opted feminist language: "Empower yourself with the new styles," "Comfort without sacrificing beauty," "Right on, Sister!", etc.  It's the garment equivalent of the old Virginia Slims ad, "You've come a long way, baby."

Yes, there's nothing quite like bra shopping to reaffirm your hatred for the the fashion industry.  Like big pharma, the people who decide what we put on our bodies are wizards at creating problems they subsequently manufacture products to fix, products that are neither easily replicated nor cheap.  They have underwear that encases your thighs and buttocks like sausages with tags that promise to "stop unsightly jiggling."  They have tanks that squeeze in your tummy while simultaneously pushing your boobies up towards your chin.  There's undies that pad your butt in the "right" area while squishing in the "extra" in another, then there's undies that don't hold much of anything at all but instead just help you floss your buttcrack.

A little further in, when you get to the actual bras, you have more choices to make: bras with wires, bras with molded cups, bras that won't show under t-shirts, bras with chutzpah, minimizer bras, maximizer bras, bras with weird little pockets of fluid in them, bras made of lace, bras that cover everything, bras that don't cover anything, strapless bras that glue themselves to your skin, bras that make your boobs look like torpedoes, bras with something called "nipple protection," the list goes on and on.  And all I wanted was a new bra.  Something comfortable that I can wear under anything.  That, and something with my two uncompromising rules for a new bra: nothing with hardware, and no chutzpah. 

All these options and barely anything fits my two little requirements.  See, I have an ideological problem with underwires.  It's not so much that they're uncomfortable, as apparently that's another one of the tell-tale signs that you're not wearing the right size (sure, let's blame the women for picking out the wrong size and not the company that uses child-labor to make a defective product).  It's not even so much that you can't put them in the dryer.  The problem I have with underwires is what they tell us about our breasts.  They're metal for crying out loud!  It's almost like they're saying, "Your boobies are so out of  control it takes hardware to hold them upright and keep them still."  Which is completely false, as I've had many bras that do their job without anything but stretchy fabric and a good design.  But they're not easy to find, as I'm a D cup.  You can usually find a nice, underwire-free style in the AA, the A, the B, sometimes even the C, but once you get to that D cup, BAM!  Your tig ol' bitties need some metal.

Then there's the chutzpah, by which I mean the padding that sits at the bottom of the cup.  Once my no-hardware rule has significantly narrowed down my options, the chutzpah seals my fate.  See, for some reason, the only way bra designers think you can go without hardware is by adding the under-padding.  It's like one replaces the other.  Sure, you can go without that uncomfortable metal, but you're gonna need that extra LIFT so we can all see your pretty, perky, lifted boobies.  Um, no.  My boobies don't need chutzpah, especially not with these D cups.  That shit's a health hazard... any extra and I'm liable to put someone's eye out.  There's nothing wrong with women wanting that extra lift, but when did chutzpah become the norm in bra design?

So went my shopping venture today: walking around the "intimates" section (I hate that word), squeezing the bottoms of each bra, feeling for hidden hardware or chutzpah, and not being surprised when it was present.  I did finally find what I wanted, but not without some digging.

When people characterize feminists as "bra burners," the only reason I scoff is because I know the origin of that stereotype and its negative connotations.  I don't take offense, however, to the notion that a feminist (or any woman) would want to burn a bra, hers or someone else's.  I want to burn half the bras on the store's racks, too... they're horrible reflections of women's self-hatred and are highly indicative of the way consumer culture breeds these issues.

The decision to go braless is a personal one, though not one I can comfortably make for my curvy self, nor can I bring myself to don a padded piece of hardware.  Underwire and padded bras are obviously preferences that are comfortable for many women, and my disdain does not lie in their decision to go that route.  I just can't get over the normalcy of those features, features that tell us there are things about our bodies that need to be "fixed," not for our personal comfort but for the way it looks to others.  And like so many "fixes," the problems are usually fabricated so a solution can be marketed.  Far from the feminist language they co-opt, women's undies comprise yet another industry that feeds off our constant need for improvement, not for personal comfort, but for that age-old impossible standard of beauty.