self-objectification

I__ going to say this once here, and then__ecause it is obvious__ will not repeat it in the course of this book: not all boys engage in such behavior, not by a long shot, and many young men are girls_ staunchest allies. However, every girl I spoke with, every single girl__egardless of her class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation; regardless of what she wore, regardless of her appearance__ad been harassed in middle school, high school, college, or, often, all three. Who, then, is truly at risk of being __istracted_ at school? At best, blaming girls_ clothing for the thoughts and actions of boys is counterproductive. At worst, it__ a short step from there to __he was asking for it._ Yet, I also can__ help but feel that girls such as Camila, who favors what she called __ore so-called provocative_ clothing, are missing something. Taking up the right to bare arms (and legs and cleavage and midriffs) as a feminist rallying cry strikes me as suspiciously Orwellian. I recall the simple litmus test for sexism proposed by British feminist Caitlin Moran, one that Camila unconsciously referenced: Are the guys doing it, too? __f they aren__,_ Moran wrote, __hances are you__e dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as __ome total fucking bullshit.__ So while only girls get catcalled, it__ also true that only girls_ fashions urge body consciousness at the very youngest ages. Target offers bikinis for infants. The Gap hawks __kinny jeans_ for toddlers. Preschoolers worship Disney princesses, characters whose eyes are larger than their waists. No one is trying to convince eleven-year-old boys to wear itty-bitty booty shorts or bare their bellies in the middle of winter. As concerned as I am about the policing of girls_ sexuality through clothing, I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others_ pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality. I recall a conversation I had with Deborah Tolman, a professor at Hunter College and perhaps the foremost expert on teenage girls_ sexual desire. In her work, she said, girls had begun responding __o questions about how their bodies feel__uestions about sexuality or arousal__y describing how they think they look. I have to remind them that looking good is not a feeling.