Cult of Youth, Infantilisation, Fashion

[ailbhe]

Thoughts:

Little girls and young teenage girls wear clothes which adult women can't without "trying to look young."

Adult women dress in these for advertising purposes with an explicit sexual message.

Ew.

Things which come immediately to mind are very short skirts with white ankle socks, school uniforms, babydoll dresses, etc. There are more but I haven't thought properly about it yet. But I know I've seen other instances of women, mainly in sex-sells-products type adverts, dressing like little girls in order to appear more alluring, presumably through vulnerability, but ew. I think it's to do with the virgin-whore thing. Ew ew ew.

Also: do little boys wear things which adult men don't usually wear? Or do boys and men wear basically the same clothing, so there isn't the same message-sending ability? I can't think clearly about it, right now.

Comments

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I wasn't using evolution, but ethnography; yes, it's true that in some societies there are localised and usually temporary strong preferences - not just for pendulous breasts, but bound feet, blackened teeth, wasp-thin waists, facial scarification etc. But there are certain trends that can nevertheless be observed in a lot of post-axial age civilisations, and whether the adaptationist explanation I quoted is the right explanation of them or not, they are still there and we may as well engage with them.

Concomittantly, I don't think men needed to wait for evolutionary science to come along and give them an excuse to think with their penises. I absolutely agree with you - more than I can express in an LJ comment - that subverting science in order to justify the status quo is a frequent and, to my mind, capital offense. But I don't think that ignoring any kind of data that's out there (like: pretty much all men everywhere have always preferred to marry/sleep with young women) and just crying "patriarchy!" is the right debating tactic to combat that.

[ailbhe]

So now we've both argued against positions the other doesn't hold. That's that sorted then.

I haven't got as far as debating yet, I'm still busy being appalled and furious. Channelling the anger is the advanced lesson.