On the day you are propelled out of that mad vagina, you are not clothed. You are gross, slimy and completely, 100% naked. You begin to grow. Going from toddler to child and then on to teen. In the beginning being naked was the norm. Running around the public pool with ya bits swaying in the wind was the cool thing to do. But somewhere between pre-teen and adulthood there’s a shift. Suddenly you have to cover yourself. Shoulders, legs, backs and collarbones all go from G ratings to R-18.
All the new bits you’ve grown are under no circumstances allowed to sway in the wind. I mentioned earlier this shift/change usually occurs between pre-teen and adult hood but we’re starting to see it affecting younger and younger people.
In 2015 a five year old girl from Houston, Texas was made to wear a t-shirt and jeans over her summer dress because it was too revealing and inappropriate. Her dress was ankle length, had spaghetti straps and was rainbowed coloured. She was FIVE years old and she was being sexualised for her body. If you put a five year old boy and girl together topless their physical features would be identical. The only difference between them would be the hyper-sexualised views that come with one gender.
How is it that we live in a society where these ideas are normalized? Where we encourage the censorship and shaming of the female form? Where all we expect of young boys is a crazed sexual reaction at the sight of women’s bodies? I wonder if these ideas sound foreign to you. You’re at Wellington High School! A place of equality and social justice. A place you’re encouraged to be yourself, whether that’s through clothing, hair colour, make-up etc.
Wellington High School is a great school. Well ahead of any other secondary school in the Wellington region when it comes to issues such as bullying, acceptance, diversity and equality. But just like everything else in the world our school is affected by the society and culture it lives in. Everyday you’re at school you’re in a building that holds an average of 1,300 people (teachers included). Every single person in that group has their own thoughts and opinions, their own likes and dislikes. And in most cases this is great.
We’ve created a culture in our school where open discussion and opposing opinions are a good thing. But what happens when those in power express views and opinions that carry unintentional sexist undertones and ideas in regards to young people? Are we supposed to sit back and follow these views? Are we allowed to challenge the ideas of our superiors when we disagree?
Well here I am and I disagree.
Arrrhhh, I’m sorry but I have to bring up the elephant in the room. April 4th, 2016. Wellington High School year 13 assembly. We sat and we listened as we were told to cover our bodies because “no one wants to see that”. This comment was directed at visible bra straps, sports wear and slits in clothing. I will always remember looking around the room and seeing the shocked/angered faces of boys and girls alike. The infamous “this is a school, not a nightclub” line will be forever engraved in our minds.
Please know I am not going to spend this article having a whine about that one shitty situation. I just feel it needs to be acknowledged as a trigger to thinking about a much greater issue. The issue being the (sometimes subconscious) sexualisation and objectification of young people in our society. Please note this issue is not unique to Wellington High School, or to school at all. But I’m sure we’ve all seen it on the news, It’s a relevant issue that affects all of us. I believe it’s time we started talking about it.
Sadly we live in a culture that perpetuates the idea that women and their bodies are always sexual and therefore there to be sexualised by those around us. It also promotes the idea that men are crazy, sex-hungry animals that can’t control themselves. Obviously both these ideas are a shit ton of crap that should not exist in the 21st century. But we’re humans! And as shown in the idiotically, repetitive history of mankind we are slow, we are dumb, and it takes us hundreds of years to create change for the better. But this, although it is a depressing fact, does not mean we can’t change. But to create change we must start analyzing our surroundings.
As I said earlier, is it ok to sit back and follow views that could be damaging and offensive because they’re said by people with more power than us? No I don’t think so. But at the same time we cannot hold the people spouting these views accountable for the issue. That’s like putting a band aid over a stab wound. It might hold the flow of blood back for awhile but eventually it’ll fall right off and you’re back at square one.
Hyper-sexualisation. This is one of my favourite words because it so aptly sums up all the little problems in our society that relate to this issue. Whether it’s bra straps and yoga pants at Wellington High School, gym shorts at Wellington Girls School or skirt lengths at Henderson High School in Auckland. Back to the point this word sums up our western society in three, powerful syllables. Isn’t it fantastic?! We live in a society that creates such a sexual aura around the female form that we’re now sexualising female teens and children in school! I know that sounds blunt but it’s really all it comes down to.
All through high school I’ve had teachers tell me to “wear tights with that skirt next time” or “cover your shirt it’s too revealing”(aka too “distracting”). Yeah sure you can say this comes from a place of care or protectiveness but at the end of the day thoughts such as “you’re showing too much skin” only come from the hyped up sexual nature of our society. I mean let’s take a legitimate look at the female body.
The only part that is genuinely there for sexual purposes is the mad vagina. Yet we have to cover our chests. Chests that have no legitimate difference to men’s apart from the amount of fat. Why is this? Because body parts that are there to produce milk for babies are considered sexual in our society and therefore should be covered to avoid temptation towards men.
In many cultures around the world western men are deemed “weird” for their attraction to breasts. In their culture it’s just another body part like an arm or leg. Even arms and legs are sometimes deemed offensive in our culture! Depending on the length of clothing they’re under.
So what are the consequences? If you are an adult reading this – parent, teacher or just a person, I beg you to take every word of this in. When you tell a girl to cover her bra straps, or to not wear tight/short clothing you are shaming her. You are allowing the cycle of rape culture, sexualisation and objectification to continue. Because although you may have good intentions you are telling that girl that it is her responsibility to not be a distraction. You are telling her that she is sexual and that that is a bad thing. That it’s something that should be restrained and hidden. You are sexualising her because of her body. You are also saying that a boy’s education is more important than her’s because she is just a distraction.
By not educating boys and men on what is and isn’t appropriate behaviour around women and instead telling women to “cover up” you are saying to all boys and men that they can get away with sexualising and objectifying women. That women are there for their own viewing pleasures. That as a man they’re expected to not have much self control. I’m sure we can all agree that this is not right. Sure there are extreme cases, nobody should be allowed to walk around with one ball or their entire butt hanging out. But those are extreme. What I’m talking about is not. The cycle needs to be broken.
I’ve spoken with many students around Wellington High and other schools around Wellington. Every single girl I spoke to (15 girls) had, at some point in their schooling, been told to change what they were wearing because it was “inappropriate”. Even at uniformed schools. One girl told me how a teacher said to her “you need to wear more on your chest. Any year nine boy could come up and rip that off you in the hallway”.
A boy who attends Wellington High but whose sister goes to Wellington Girls told me how her school won’t allow the students to wear gym shorts in gym class because they’re not a part of the uniform and are (here comes another favourite word) distracting. It’s gym class for fucks sake. What else do you wear? A full body balloon suit? After the chilling year 13 assembly of 2016 all boys I spoke to were shocked at the implication that it’s “distracting” for them. Quite surprisingly the boys were almost more affected by the assembly than the girls. Or maybe, as women, we’re just used to hearing these things. Wouldn’t surprise me.
Luckily we can change this (even if it will take another hundred years). We have the ability to analyse what goes on around us and figure out whether it’s right. We can change our thinking. If we start educating people properly about positive and healthy sexual and non-sexual relationships, about how women are not objects, about how men do have self-control, then we can create change. Create a better future for the next generations (if they make it… lol global warming ain’t looking so good #Trump).
You may not agree with me but I just ask that the next time you look at a girl in a singlet that shows bra straps or tight leggings and ideas such as “she needs to cover up” or “what a slut” come to mind, take a breath and think about this. When you look at something the first thought you have is what society has conditioned you to think. What you think next shows who you are as a person. Next time you look at a girl like that, question why you’re thinking such things. And please, please, please stop telling girls to cover their bra straps. Some people physically have to wear them and if I’m gonna spend forty bucks on a piece of clothing I want yo’ll to know about it so back the fuck off.
Peace and love everybody.
By Grace Stone
Images attached to this article
