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It goes further why just protect children and not "protect" adult women like the Taliban and Saudi Arabians do?
I hate when people bring up extreme Islam in these types of discussions. It's as if there are no other choices other than the strict often violent rules of the Islamists or absolutely no standards of decency at all, with no middle ground. I don't know when we stopped developing the ability to employ critical thinking skills in our society but this sort of all or nothing reasoning is a prime example of why they are so important.
As far as the topic of the thread is concerned, I think instead of a strict rule it should just be left up to the teacher's discretion. It's hard to tell where exactly to draw the line but you can usually tell when someone is taking it too far. I also disagree that if girls should wear t-shirts than boys should too. Boys don't have breasts. I'm not sure I agree with the t-shirt rule but it is ludicrous to suggest boys and girls are the same when it comes to anatomy, even above the belt, and to make the rules with that assumption in mind.
I hate when people bring up extreme Islam in these types of discussions. It's as if there are no other choices other than the strict often violent rules of the Islamists or absolutely no standards of decency at all, with no middle ground. I don't know when we stopped developing the ability to employ critical thinking skills in our society but this sort of all or nothing reasoning is a prime example of why they are so important.
As far as the topic of the thread is concerned, I think instead of a strict rule it should just be left up to the teacher's discretion. It's hard to tell where exactly to draw the line but you can usually tell when someone is taking it too far. I also disagree that if girls should wear t-shirts than boys should too. Boys don't have breasts. I'm not sure I agree with the t-shirt rule but it is ludicrous to suggest boys and girls are the same when it comes to anatomy, even above the belt, and to make the rules with that assumption in mind.
Yes, males and females have different anatomies.
Boys don't have to wear cups or underwear underneath their trunks. They don't have to wrap soggy cotton material on top of their swim trunks. (Because that would be ridiculous.) as far as the girls might expose something argument...The boys might have an erection or their swim trunks might slip off/be pulled off during horseplay(I have never seen either happen, but I've never seen a girls swimsuit expose genitalia or nipples either.) I' have actually seen plenty of male butt crack whilst swimming. No one shames them. Geez.
Why do girls have to cover their natural tween bodies whilst wearing swim wear that is designed for swimming? Why do we send them a message that their bodies aren't appropriate? No one tells boys their bodies aren't appropriate and must be covered up. It's ridiculous.
A swim suit is designed to be appropriate attire at a swimming pool. At eleven, twelve, and thirteen the parents are buying swimwear for their child. A parent can decide what is appropriate for their child to wear. It should be a parental decision.
At what age are girls and women allowed to wear something that has been designed for swimming? 18? Should we have them return to the suits that were really "bathing dresses"?
I've seen the kids on the swim team for this age at schools, and they wear appropriate swimwear without having to hide their bodies. No genitalia or breasts are seen hanging out. Some girls have more breast tissue than others. Some boys and girls choose to wear T shirts out of the pool. It's personal choice. No one is teased or made to feel embarrassed. They are all sizes and shapes, and they learn how to deal with seeing each other in swimsuits.(It's mixed gender teams)
Last edited by Meyerland; 05-20-2015 at 11:00 AM..
I think it's an exaggeration that the girls at this age would feel ashamed of their bodies if they were required to wear t-shirts. However, I'm sure the enraged parents would do their best to ensure they do feel this way.
This is ridiculous.
Multiple points to be made:
1) Yes, the parents should be buying and dressing their kids in appropriate modest swimwear.
2) THE SWIMSUIT MANUFACTURERS should be making and selling appropriately modest clothing for the kids! When my daughter was a young pre-teen, I remember having a heck of a time finding shorts that weren't Daisy Duke length to show off her underwear, and I ended up putting leggings on under her dresses and skirts a lot because they were so short they'd flash you. Don't even get me started on the 5th graders in the cut-off t-shirts...
3) A person should be able to walk down the street stark naked without being molested. I'm not saying they SHOULD. But the way a person dresses does NOT give somebody a right to act inappropriately or non-consensually with them.
4) All or none. All wear cover-ups, or none do. Don't start teaching kids early on that gender inequalities are ok.
A little background:
I am hardly a prude. I used to go to fetish events and made some of my own costumes / outfits.
I was raped once when I was a teenager and told that well, with the way I dressed with that short skirt, I shouldn't be surprised. Again, see point #3, and the line above. Nobody attacked me at the events I went to.
People should be able to control themselves. You realize that there are some people who get excited if a bit of ANKLE is shown? So where is the line drawn?
A funny school-related story:
I went to high school in a small midwestern town in the 80s. This was the Age of the Jams - those incredibly bright knee length shorts that were oh so popular at the time. It would get terribly hot in the last month or two of school, so the kids would all beg to wear shorts, but the school flat-out forbade it. On the other hand, girls would wear miniskirts to school that were WAY shorter and revealed much more than the jams ever would. I remember one of the popular guys on the wrestling team showed up to school in protest wearing a miniskirt - exactly as the girls would. They sent him home, but he became our hero. After his demonstration, they decided to allow us to wear shorts during the last month of school. Of course, there were more rules, but still. I always thought how awesome it was that this "jock" stood up for all of us and showed them the hypocrisy of their rule.
Also, again, TOTALLY not a prude...
But I would love to find some old-fashioned bathing bloomers. I'd put my daughter in that and send her to the event.
Then maybe the boys that can't behave need to be removed and shamed for not being able to control themselves simply because they are boys.
Tell me...do you think that if a girl or woman is raped she deserves it because she visually stimulated the attacker by existing in public? That is exactly where this 'logic'' goes.
Of course not, because rapists still have the ability to refuse. But the temptations generated by seeing a well-developed, nubile young lady strutting her stuff in a bikini are so strong that many men have a strong time rejecting them immediately. Not to mention the majority that probably don't... This can make for awkward conversations and behavior, not to mention feelings.
Put it this way: if you don't want your daughter to be seen as a piece of meat, don't show too much skin, at least in mixed company. But even then other girls may be tempted towards envy...
Of course not, because rapists still have the ability to refuse. But the temptations generated by seeing a well-developed, nubile young lady strutting her stuff in a bikini are so strong that many men have a strong time rejecting them immediately. Not to mention the majority that probably don't... This can make for awkward conversations and behavior, not to mention feelings.
Put it this way: if you don't want your daughter to be seen as a piece of meat, don't show too much skin, at least in mixed company. But even then other girls may be tempted towards envy...
While I think girls and women should not dress provocatively, men and boys should accept responsibility for their own "temptations" and actions. Blaming the weakness of men on the dress of the women is a major cop out.
I hate when people bring up extreme Islam in these types of discussions. It's as if there are no other choices other than the strict often violent rules of the Islamists or absolutely no standards of decency at all, with no middle ground. I don't know when we stopped developing the ability to employ critical thinking skills in our society but this sort of all or nothing reasoning is a prime example of why they are so important.
As far as the topic of the thread is concerned, I think instead of a strict rule it should just be left up to the teacher's discretion. It's hard to tell where exactly to draw the line but you can usually tell when someone is taking it too far. I also disagree that if girls should wear t-shirts than boys should too. Boys don't have breasts. I'm not sure I agree with the t-shirt rule but it is ludicrous to suggest boys and girls are the same when it comes to anatomy, even above the belt, and to make the rules with that assumption in mind.
Bathing suits cover the breasts. So just by wearing a bathing suit these preteen girls are already covered (many of whom btw, will not have yet developed breasts).
As for the other posters who ask how it is shaming girls. When you say to anyone, that they must cover parts of themselves, based on their gender, you are saying it is shameful to show that part of themselves in public. A t shirt over a bathing suit, means you are shaming not just the social conventions of genitalia, but the entire part of the body covered by the t-shirt. That is where the shaming comes in. It is pervasive in our society that women's bodies aren to their own but rather public property that everyone gets a chance to comment on, and decide what can or cannot be viewed. School dress codes are a small but institutionalized part of this larger problem and this specific example was blatant.
It is pervasive in our society that women's bodies aren to their own but rather public property that everyone gets a chance to comment on, and decide what can or cannot be viewed. School dress codes are a small but institutionalized part of this larger problem and this specific example was blatant.
I think you'll find it's harder to keep your teenage daughters from taking topless pictures and sending them out on social media than worrying about being ashamed of their bodies in our over-sexualized culture. But let's forget that and fight all attempts at early modesty toward a nudist society because anything short of that is akin to forcing all women to wear burkas.
Maybe because many of you are older parents and aren't very in tune with what's going on in youth culture but prevailing peer pressure for young women is to show more and more skin.
Of course not, because rapists still have the ability to refuse. But the temptations generated by seeing a well-developed, nubile young lady strutting her stuff in a bikini are so strong that many men have a strong time rejecting them immediately. Not to mention the majority that probably don't... This can make for awkward conversations and behavior, not to mention feelings.
Put it this way: if you don't want your daughter to be seen as a piece of meat, don't show too much skin, at least in mixed company. But even then other girls may be tempted towards envy...
You do realize you are calling eleven and twelve year old GIRLS "well developed and nubile" and "strutting their stuff". I am around hundreds of tween girls and I would never use any of those words to describe them.
A Tshirt is not going to protect my daughter from being raped, ogled, or treated like apiece of meat.
If you think it will, you are not a female. We can start listing personal experiences if you want. I am sure other women can chime in.
The idea that girls are responsible for the behavior of boys is the reason some boys choose to act out. " she made me behave badly because....."
I know many preteen boys and some behave well and some don't. just like preteen girls.
Last edited by Meyerland; 05-21-2015 at 08:40 AM..
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