I've been involved in a discussion on Facebook about this topic. I want to try to get everything I said into one place in an organized fashion.
My unfortunately rather predictable liberal friends are having a programmed knee jerk reaction to a national news story that I disagree with. I hate this, when suddenly I have to step outside the knee jerk progressive orthodoxy -- but the take the national news has instilled in everyone is dead wrong.
First, I think it is perfectly reasonable for high schools to have dress codes.
Second, I find it distressing that fashion designers, mostly men, are progressively sexualizing women's clothing. This is not actually a choice that the girls made to reveal their bodies. It's a choice of fashion designers made. They are dupes in two ways. First, constantly changing fashion is a pink tax. Second they are being lured into allowing mostly male fashion designers to sexualize them.
I personally find it very annoying that neck lines are plunging and arm holes are getting larger. It means that I have to buy new underwear. Having to buy new underwear is another pink tax. School dress codes could put pressure on clothing designers to stop sexualizing women and to stop imposing such a pink taxes.
This business of allowing girls self-esteem to be tied to fashion it's not helping them. It's demeaning to them.
Third, I find peekaboo clothing to be much more sexually titillating than nudity. If you see a woman without a shirt, it is less sexual than seeing her with cleavage peeking out. The swimsuited boys, looking rather awkward, are not more sexual than the girls with the tight, low cut sweaters.
What if this were photos of boys wearing their pants low to show butt cheek cleavage? Would people have this same knee jerk reaction that prohibiting that was an affront to boys?
Fourth, swimsuits (aka speedos), shown on boys in this case, are functional equipment for participation in a sport. A few years ago, there was an effort to introduce swimsuits that covered more of the body. The powers that be in sports forbade these swimsuits, allegedly because they gave swimmers an unfair advantage.
We do not know, at least I do not know, from the news stories, whether there was a girl's swim team and whether the members of that swim team appeared in their team swimsuits in this yearbook. If they were not allowed to have a swim team or not allowed to appear in the yearbook with swimsuits, that would be inconsistent treatment of men and women.
The comparison of tight, low-cut sweaters to swimsuits is comparing applies to oranges.
The idea that showing cleavage is somehow a woman's right is gaslighting. Instead, what we are seeing is fashion designers sexualizing women, because they cannot visualize women as functional students and workers. Men love to convince women that they are being liberated, when actually they are being exploited, see e.g. the Nxivm cult https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/nyregion/nxivm-cult-keith-raniere-sentenced.html
#BartramTrailHighSchool #cleavage #editing #yearbook #yearbookphotos #speedos
I realized that when I was in high school there were no push-up bras, so I would never have had cleavage like this woman had. I think the invention of the push-up bra is an example of how the fashion industry tries to sexualize women. Someone sent me a blog link https://www.leaf.tv/articles/push-up-bra-history/
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