More interesting than the article is the response it got on Reddit. Here’s the top comment. It’s pretty long, but here’s a small sample:
I think this commenter went a little overboard in his criticism. As I posted in that topic, I think it’s nice to say you’re in favor of “sexual expression,” but the reality is that no one is going to be comfortable with seeing a twelve-year-old girl’s underwear. And I can’t blame a school official for trying to enforce this reality.
Additionally, since this type of dress code will be enforced when these girls go to work, someone should be teaching them what is appropriate to wear and what’s not. Otherwise, if they don’t learn from their parents, they’ll learn after they get fired, or after they don’t get hired for dressing too inappropriately for an interview, or they’ll never learn at all because no one is going to bother telling an adult how she should dress.
I know that historically men have gone overboard with controlling sexual expression, but we should still have some limits right? As long as there will be real social consequences for inappropriate sexual expression, shouldn’t we teach young girls what’s appropriate and what’s not.
Or is there a valid reason for going against what society says is appropriate? Should schools or parents start teaching girls something different about expressing their sexuality?
I’ll say that at least in my role in school I do try. However due to the nature of the culture it tends to be more “You can’t say that to her” or “You may not touch her without her permission” than “You can’t wear that to school.” In fact I tend to take boy’s sexual misbehavior much more seriously than girl’s outfits. I’ve only once had to ask the principal to step in for a girl, but I’ve gotten boys expelled.
I teach middle school age children. One key thing I find is that they want to have complete freedom over their actions, but often do a very poor job of foreseeing possible negative consequences and are even worse at dealing with them when they occur. I’m not talking about sexuality here, but merely things like horseplay and homework. We need to help young adults learn what is appropriate for the circumstances in every respect and that goes for boys and girls alike. If they need help selecting proper dress for school then yes that should be part of it and that too goes for males and females.
Reddit is typically eye-rolling here…a site built around lonely adult males posting borderline child pornography of teenage girls has a poster who mysteriously supports teenage girls wearing fewer clothes, with the amazing and un-contradicted claim that in “most civilized cultures” people disagreeing with this would go to prison.
It has been my experience that teenage boys are far less likely to wear revealing or sexually suggestive clothes as a means of sexual expression. That said, some teenage boys do choose to wear tough guy or ego-fulfillment clothing suggesting their affiliation with the gangster subculture, and there is a lot of suggestion out there that should be controlled. I would consider the gangster look for boys and the tramp look for girls to be roughly analogous controversies over teen clothing. My solution, both genders should be taught that even though it is may be wrong to judge a book by it’s cover, plenty of people subconsciously or consciously do, and they should be aware of how their image will effect how they are treated.
Indeed, that’s always been an insipid expression. Of course you should judge a book by its cover. Publishers go to great lengths to design covers that communicate exactly what type of book it is. That’s the only thing the cover is even there for.
The analogy for people who choose to present themselves to the world a certain way is not lost.
What the flying fuck are you talking about? That’s about as ridiculous as me claiming Wikipedia is built about lonely adult males writing child pornograpy.
This is what our world has come to: Establishing standards for decency and public behavior is considered a criminal act.
I’d rather live in a world where people are expected to improve themselves to meet the standard, than a world that permits anarchy and depravity under the veil of “Freedom” and “self expression.” That’s where we’re heading, if we haven’t already arrived.
There’s no absolute standard for any of this stuff. There was a time where just showing one’s ankles or just being able to see the rough outline of a woman’s legs was considered vulgar. Surprisingly, relaxing such standards has not turned men into wild animals (any more than they were already).
Frankly, in my own case, I wouldn’t care if everyone walked around naked. So I can’t bring myself to care about short skirts or thin leggings.
As for the article in the OP:
Has she considered that her lessons might just be boring as fuck?
I see I wandered slightly off-topic and went too broad.
I of course agree that schools should have dress codes. I would expect young people to try to break such rules. Big whoop.
Oh yeah, in addition to all of the “creepshots” and the “men’s rights” skin-crawlers there are also “rage comics” and all the other shit that appeals to intellectually stunted losers. Reddit is for dudes who smell like yesterday’s Cheetos consoling each other over how all the “vapid cunts” don’t like “nice guys” and your defensive reaction to this being pointed out (in a thread about a Reddit armchair philosopher trying to prove how teenage girls should dress) isn’t doing any favors for my opinion of that place.
Basing ones opinion of Reddit off of a few well publicized less-than-savory subreddits would be like basing ones opinion of the SDMB off of the BBQ pit alone.
Not really a good analogy. Even the Pit has rules (both written and unspoken), because it’s a sub-forum of the SDMB. And, with very few exceptions, nobody spends their entire day posting here. Every board on the internet has a “flavor” associated with it. Reddit’s flavor is like stale cheetos, mountain dew that lost its fizz after the can sat out overnight, with an undercurrent of dirty socks and loneliness.
Moreover, there is social pressure associated with all SDMB sub-forums. Unlike on Reddit, socks are prohibited here and content is actively moderated. On Reddit, vast numbers of (mostly anonymous) pedophiles have united in amoral echo chambers at the drop of a hat–on *far *more than one occasion. It’s very likely that many of those pedos maintained a minimum of 2 online identities: one for Reddit proper, and at least one sock account for the dark side of Reddit. How could you possibly begin to determine how many “normal” Redditors don’t participate? You couldn’t. So the entire membership is tainted with that possibility.
While there’s nothing about the Reddit software that *encouraged *this to happen, there was no mechanism in place to prevent it, either. Being a more lawless, user-driven community than any other message board on the internet has its disadvantages. One of those is poor PR.
Reddit’s flavour, in so much as it has one at all, depends upon the subreddits you frequent. If it seems to be full of paedophillic Cheeto fans then you are in the wrong subreddits.
As for the reddit described by condescending robot, it is so far from reality (I can at least understand where rachellelogram is coming from) I find it implausible he or she has ever even looked at the site.
In fact that comment equates visible underwear with nudity, and apparently for all ages in all contexts.
Obviously this comment can only come from someone who has minimal participation in human society, and perhaps also a loose grip on sanity. Not worth more than a :rolleyes: in response.