He's right and we know it. Mr. LZ Granderson had the guts to write about something most of us have been witnessing for a long time. Our young girls have been wearing clothes that are much too inappropriate for their age and the blame game begins.
If you read my blog, you won't be surprised to find out I'm going support Mr. Granderson's description of the scandalously dressed t(w)een set of today. I've been on my soapbox about this and how Hollywood influences our culture's expectations of how girls should dress, behave, and aspire to be for a while now.
Photo courtesy of www.TheGloss.com
There's a debate currently raging on in the blogosphere about whether the protective father insulted all woman-kind by calling an innocent little girl a tramp based simply on the outfit he saw her wearing while walking through an airport.
“Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie “10” (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her “Xtina” phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.
You can tell she had been vacationing somewhere warm, because you could see her deep tan around her midriff thanks to the halter top and the tight sweatpants that rested just a little low on her waist. The icing on the cake? The word “Juicy” was written on her backside.
Yeah, that 8-year-old girl was something to see all right. … I hope her parents are proud. Their daughter was the sexiest girl in the terminal, and she's not even in middle school yet.”
If you are a parent who found the columnist's remarks insulting because it generalized a good portion of the population who purchases these items for their daughters to wear, you're not alone. In fact, I'm guilty of buying them too!
Are the clothing designers who make provocative items in smaller and smaller sizes so that every girl can wear them to blame? Or, is it the parents' fault this has reached this (low) point since they hold the purse strings? Why do parents buy this crap for their pre-adolescent girls anyway?
I think a combination of things might cloud people's judgment regarding fashion for kids these days: marketing, availability of options, and peer pressure. I understand trying to purchase modest clothes for girls is tough now, but it is doable — it just takes more work for parents to stand their ground on the dress code, and much more walking around a mall to find something decent for little girls to wear while still being fashionable.
But, besides trying to find a balance to keep the harmony between a child's fashion demands and parents' relationships with them, the questionable clothes, shoes, and make-up little girls wear lately could also be because ironically, to some, wearing these specific styles and labels indicates quite the opposite: status. And with status comes popularity among their peers.
Hollywood certainly has some part in this situation since it influences our society as a whole, and has conditioned many into thinking that wearing labels like “Juicy” written across a young girls butt is nothing but cute since it's in the sweetest shade of pink and sparkly … and Kim Kardashian wears it!
And, speaking of pink, did it remind you of Victoria's Secret “Pink” line of collegiate-inspired clothing? I'll leave the quantum leap of your thoughts answer this one.
Did the unsuspecting little girl at the airport deserve to be called a skank at such a young age simply based on the outfit she was wearing? Probably not. But it's the perception that the writer was addressing in his article.
Frankly, I agree with him.
I equate Mr. Granderson's thinking to those age-old sayings, “tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are”, or “guilty by association.”
There are a few ways to look at what the CNN columnist is pointing out, but his message is loud and clear, “Don't dress your little girls like tramps.”
Do you think Mr. Granderson was wrong in calling the 8-year-old a tramp? Do you think there's anything wrong with the way little girls dress today?
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