Female Chauvinist Pig
As long as I can remember, people have been complaining about the declining moral state of our society. Sometimes, I have been one of the complainers, and sometimes I have been the naysayer. However, with an increased sexual content in music, movies and magazines, it's tough to tell someone that everything is okay.

Teenage boys and young men are often seen as the troublemakers (ie. too easily embracing violence, drug abuse and alcoholism), but mostly in a legal sense, moreso than a moral sense. (Certainly civil obedience can never be fully separated from morality, but they are often seen as two different levels of the same problem). The moral decline that I hear the most about is most evident in teenage girls and young women. I don't see this as a double standard, but more of a continuation of the historical upholding of women as the preservers of culture. Of the cultural/ethnic/religious immigrant groups where clothing is somehow related to a belief system, the women are almost always more visibly different from the mainstream than the men, and they are also usually the slowest ones to acculturate. So I think it's only natural that people would resist a shifting cultural tide when it becomes most evident in that society's women.

A more thorough discussion of the depth of the "problem" is provided in a recent Maclean's article with the same title as this post. It generated quite a few responses in the next issue. Here are some of them, as well as my own.

One reader agreed in principle with the issue, but that the best remedy for the media would be to uphold intelligent, witty and dignified young women, instead of pointing out the flaws of the bad ones. A valid point, too bad smut sells more magazines then upholding morality.

One woman called for more leniancy toward people who do stupid things in bars, saying that momentary stupidity shouldn't be held against people.

Many of the respondents were women expressing their frustration at the same issue with varying degrees of hope for future generations. Hope for the future was often stifled by fear of what coming fads would bring.

Particularly encouraging was that most people blame the girls themselves for dressing and behaving in this way. Too often I hear teachers, youth workers and the young girls and women themselves blaming young men and boys for this trend. Certainly young men "benefit" from the plunging necklines and waistlines and the eye candy that is revealed. However, it is ridiculous to suggest that this generation of young men want it or appreciate it more, or that they are any more influential toward the outfits their female counterparts wear. It doesn't matter if it's 50, 20, or 5 years ago, young men want to see what they always want to see, more skin. Young women need to know that the attention they crave is only attention, nothing more. Attention that is derived from appearance is not respect, it's not adoration and it certainly isn't love, it's only attention. Those other things are not tied to attention, and in many circles there is an inverse relationship.

That being said, I truly believe that this is a trend that will soon pass. The bell bottoms fad passed, and then passed again, and then passed again. Mini-skirts came and went. Low-cut jeans, thongs and 3/4 tops will pass too. Perhaps because of an intentional strategy by some particular group, or perhaps its time will simply pass. The way I see it, the problem is low self worth on the individual level, not slipping morality on a universal level, and it should be addressed as such.

   [ posted by William @ 11:17 AM ]