Young People Are Dressing In Ways Their Parents Vaguely Disapprove Of... And The WSJ Is On The Case

Old media, new media, whatever -- nothing moves ad space like the curiously creepy blend of titillation and censure that is the "why are our daughters such skanks?" essay. The Wall Street Journal has the latest example of the genre, Jennifer Moses' straightforwardly-named "Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That?"

Never mind that teen sex is actually down these days. Never mind that Moses offers no evidence to support any of her tangled theses. She's got a lede that salivates over twelve-year-olds in minidresses and a dozen paragraphs of hand-wringing to follow it with, and that's all she needs. It's time to sell some wine! (And, since this is the WSJ, a hospital!)

Mary Elizabeth Williams has already dissected Moses' silliness admirably, and I won't rehash her points. (Go read.) But I do want to highlight the piece's final paragraph, which is a real doozy:

But it's easy for parents to slip into denial. We wouldn't dream of dropping our daughters off at college and saying: "Study hard and floss every night, honey--and for heaven's sake, get laid!" But that's essentially what we're saying by allowing them to dress the way they do while they're still living under our own roofs.

Yes, that's what all the short hemlines and dangly earrings and inexpertly-applied blush are leading up to. Our daughters are going to have sex. In college.

Sex. In college. What will they think of next?

Cross-posted from StudentActivism.net

 

Follow Angus Johnston on Twitter: www.twitter.com/studentactivism

Comments

[marsjunkiegirl]

08:33 PM on 03/23/2011

You know, there's a point that people always fail to address in articles that decry provocativeness in young teenage girls. In the article in question, the author states that '12-year-olds are dressing up like prostitutes' and experimenting with questionable behavior because their mothers encourage it. In past articles that I have read, this phenomena is blamed on such things as early exposure to the media, celebrities, and/or Bratz dolls. Writers always completely miss the point that young teenage girls are sexually maturing and are curious about what their new roles in society will be. The media and parental supervision might be factors, but I think the overwhelming cause is that most young teen and preteen girls are interested in becoming sexual (but not necessarily having sex) beings, which is a completely normal human interest. I know I wanted to be attractive and independent at 11-13; certainly I wasn't ever going to act on those impulses, but they were there.

[frank day]

04:25 PM on 03/22/2011

The WSJ has become a sad shadow of it's former self.

[Court Smith]

03:24 PM on 03/21/2011

Oh the horror, won't anyone think of the children!