Sorry I haven't been able to post, I've been without Internet for several days. It's been hell, what can I say?
I've got mixed feelings on this subject. Apparently, this ten-year-old girl wants to be able to
wear mini-skirts to elementary school. She's even organized a rally and such, and her parents are endorsing her.
"What could a 9- or 10-year-old wear that would be inappropriate?" said Zoe's mother, Leslie Hinkle. "These skirts have shorts sewn under them. I would never let her wear anything (provocative). She's just dressing fashionably."
Personally, I say, "Who gives a shit?" Even if it's "obscene" in society's eyes, the less fuss you make about it, the less cool it is. Actually, if you really want the fool-proof method for making something "cool" into something "not cool" is by getting one's parents to fully endorse it and wear it; and, the converse is true-- if you want to make something "ultra-cool," you get people to deplore it. Vis-a-vis, rock and roll music. Had there not been such a hissy-fit by conservatives to censor and ban it, it might have never gained such widespread punk popularity.
... Same with Brokeback Mountain. Conservatives protested it, and it got national recognition-- d'oh.
Anyways, the article went on to talk about how her actions were justified:
(continued)Leslie Hinkle said she buys most of her daughter's clothes at "Limited Too," a trendy juniors clothing store chain found in many malls.... "My sign says, 'Style is Freedom,'" she said, "because freedom of expression is in the Constitution."
Okay, little Ms. Prissy-Pants... first off, Limited Too is a ripoff. My little sister used to buy clothes there, and it's ridiculous the profit margins that are made off of Chinese sweatshop workers who make some 5 square inch haltertop for $0.10 cents/piece only to have it resold at Limited Too for $50.00 dollars/piece. Though, I, personally, am not any less innocent-- I buy A&F clothes at ridiculous prices for ridiculously low quality. Still, that sort of psychotic spending should be reserved for, at least, when your boobs start forming and/or your balls start dropping.
Secondly, Leslie proves a good point: our children don't know the god damned fucking Constitution. She says we have "freedom of expression" which is bullshit-- that's a summation:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Where, little Leslie, does it say "expression?" Where does it talk about wearing a miniskirt? Are we to assume that wearing a miniskirt is implied?
The short answer? Yes and no. No, the constitution most certainly doesn't classify your clothing under free speech. In fact, the miniskirt didn't even come into existance until the late 50's, early to mid 60's, and even then it was risque to wear one. However, because of the risque factor, it grew in popularity-- so much to the point where they are commonplace today. After all, let's face it: risque sells.
The other part of the short answer: Yes, it is "freedom of expression." Granted, there is no "freedom of expression" clause of the 1st amendment, but considering the S.C.O.T.U.S. has basically combined speech, religion, assembly, and petition into the all-encompassing "expression" (rightfully so), there is a certain freedom of expression. Even more, this girl does bring up an important point: why can boys do whatever the hell they want in terms of appearance, but girls cannot?
I suppose it partially goes back to the [not so end of the] feminist movement. People, especially old-aged school administrators, still seem to think that women are some sort of morally high-by-nature gender, which, obviously, is not true (see also: women who practice infanticide). Even more-so, government legislation, such as affirmative action, which should theoretically account for past injustices, in a way creates new injustices. The more that one person is by-law segregated, whether by race, gender, sexuality, or religion, the more one is obviously segregated. That seems simple in semantics, but in reality people refuse to see the greater picture: women are still being descriminated against-- irregardless of the law-- and there's a good chance it will always be like that.
What's really at the heart of little Leslie's battle is not her clothing choice. Fuck, she should be able to come to school in a thong if she wanted to. What's really at the core of this is America's prudeness. We pride ourselves on sheltering our young ones from sex. Think about it: does the image of the "overprotective father" come to mind when you're thinking about a straight guy dating a girl? Does the thought of "make me proud, son" come to mind when you're thinking about the father of that same straight guy daing a girl, as well? If we didn't have those social structures and the violations thereof, would such "appalling" things as wearing a thong be taboo?
I suppose it's the same question that arises in any matter of scale: If everyone in the world were fit, who would be the fittest? Clearly, the person who defies the norm is the answer, but only upon defying the norm does one becomes supernormal; and, that's only in they eyes of the society. If the society doesn't view or care about you being supernormal, than you're no longer supernormal-- you're average (and/or weird).
Perhaps one of the best examples of sexual retardness comes from Goldman and Goldman (1982). They compared sexual knowledge in 9-year-olds across four different cultures: Austraila, Great Britain, North America, and Sweden. Sweepingly, the Swedish children-- at 9 years old-- knew lengths of gestation, sex-as-enjoyment, and the meaning of the term "uterus," as compared to their counterparts. Actually, even more surprising, 23% of Swedish kids knew the term "uterus," while 0% among Australia, GB, and NA COMBINED knew what a uterus was. Wow, that's powerful stupid.
Anyway, the point here is that in America, we're prudes. We think it's a great idea to shelter our kids from sex and everything related to sexuality, because in theory, it would prevent them from being bad people. In the end, it just makes them wonder wtf they've been missing, and due to their lack of education (see above), they end up doing stupid things, without condoms, and end up with a bun-in-the-oven by age 16, and cause their countries to have the highest crime rates in comparison (Sweden has the lowest crime rates, per capita, out of all of them), just to be able to support their children that they can't abort.
Perhaps we need to focus less on Christian morality, which obviously does nothing for the general well-being of society (judging by crime rate percentages), and focus more on universal morality. That is, focus more on the 'thou shalt not kill' and the 'thou shalt not steal' portions and less on the 'stone them to death for stupid shit' portions. Wearing a miniskirt to school is considerably less of a problem than citizens dying outside of our country for any reason whatsoever. Wearing a miniskirt to school is considerably less of a problem than the massive black market that drug prohibition has caused, thus resulting in women who
don't want to wear the miniskirt invariably
wearing a miniskirt (or less), and going out and selling their bodies just to buy more horse to satisfy their addictions. Wearing a miniskirt to school pales in comparison to the millions of people who can't pay for their children to go to the doctor because their HMOs don't cover it.
When government officials and school administrators can make the direct correlation from miniskirt to saving lives, I'll listen to their bullshit. Otherwise, they're just wasting my time.
