My husband was walking into the grocery store the other day carrying our one year old daughter and holding hands with our four year old daughter. High school cheerleaders from an upper class school district close to our home were hosting a car wash in the parking lot.
As my husband and my children walked past the group of high school students, most of them bikini clad sixteen year old girls, a young boy called out to him, "How about a car wash when you're done shopping, sir?"
Kurt ignored them and kept walking, carrying a wiggling almost-toddler and guiding our preschooler towards the store.
The high school boy and one of the cheerleaders kind of followed my family for a few steps and the boy called out, "How about a picture of her?" The boy had his arm around one of the half clothed sixteen year old girls. "I'll sell you a picture of her for ten bucks," he joked.
Okay.
Let me take a breath.
Because.
This is SO totally NOT okay.
It is not okay that I am bringing girl children up in a world where a teenage male would a.) feel comfortable with making a joke that sexualizes an under age girl, especially a girl who is his friend, to an adult stranger. b.) That he felt comfortable making that joke in the presence of two little girls. c.) That he found it appropriate to approach a father of two little girls in the first place. d.) Most of all, it is SO not okay that this sixteen year old girl laughed and accepted this joke.
Something is wrong with the way we teach girls to be girls and boys to be boys.
The fact that these girls agree to stand around outside of a store in their bathing suits is sad and troubling and despicable. The fact that the parents of these girls allow this is despicable. The fact that the institution of cheerleading exists in the first place is despicable.
My first impulse is to be disappointed in and disgusted with the boys who are making these kinds of jokes, but really... what do I expect?
These boys are male children who are given all kinds of damaging input about what it means to be a man, as opposed to what it means to be a woman. They are expected to treat girls, especially girls who submit to societal expectations about how their bodies are supposed to look and how they're supposed to present themselves; dressed in little skirts with matching panties who are willing to put time and effort into "cheering" for boys while the boys Think and Act and Do...
Boys are expected to treat these girls like sexual property with no value higher than being something stimulating to look at or something to bolster the ego of a man. We model this way of thinking all the time, especially by doing something like encouraging our young girls to stand around waiting for a boy to do something impressive, upon which instance they're supposed to bend their bodies, crawl all over each other and jump around doing splits to celebrate.
I don't care if it's fun for girls, or if it's a way to help them fit in and make friends. I don't believe you when you say cheer is a sport, too. I don't care if your teenage girl begs you, threatens to run away and hate you forever if you won't let her do it. It simply isn't okay to support our girls in devaluing, prematurely sexualizing and humiliating themselves, simply because they were born female.
Why wouldn't a young man take us all up on the offer to be superior, to have power over girls, to possess them sexually and use girls to feel better about themselves? How are they supposed to even know this kind of thing is unacceptable when we're acting it out, or at least condoning it ALL THE TIME? How are they supposed to know it's wrong when women themselves don't speak up to acknowledge how poisonous and damaging it is?
I don't know. I'm sure I have severe reactions to this kind of thing. I don't live in the same world where this kind of thing happens. I am used to sharing my life with liberal, capable, proud, accomplished women and their partners and families. Maybe lots of people wouldn't even notice a joke like, "I'll sell you a picture of a half-naked teenager so that you can exploit her for your own pleasure, sir, har har." Maybe I'm just not suited for the general public, but I can tell you, I'm not wrong about this.
My girls do not exist to be bought and sold and used up and put on display. That's not even sort of a funny thing to joke about, and I'll do everything I can to make sure I am modeling something better for them.
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I agree with everything times ten over except that it's a cheerleading issue. I think that cheer or dance or anything like that has potential to be exploitative (such as your husband's encounter, which is horrifying yet commonplace) and to be about strength and talent and team spirit.
ReplyDeleteI hope that both these teens find strong role models to learn new and better attitudes and behaviors towards each other and gender.
great post. i hate the way so many young girls are taught to think of themselves.
ReplyDeleteWe need to be friends. It's like you ripped that from my brain.
ReplyDeleteI've always said the only way Daughter could rebel and I would be completely angry about was if she becomes a republican cheerleader.
Wow, that comment. That is just mind-boggling. I can't get over it. And yet isn't that what we do every day, with our magazines (Teen, Seventeen, etc)? Don't even get me started on the child porn industry. I will simply implode. Excellent post. x
ReplyDeleteI wish that this was a current or new topic, but it's not.
ReplyDeleteSadly there will always be young women and not so young women who feel there is nothing wrong with cheerleaders in skimpy bikini's raising money at a carwash. Just like there are playboy clubs, cheerleading at almost all major league sports, and women (help us all ) who think that this is just fine.
What we can do is teach our daughters and sons that they need to have more respect for themselves.
Years ago my daughters, competitive swimmers both, were walking into one of our practices with a swim dad and his daughters.
The younger girls stopped for a minute to watch the cheerleaders practice. Proud to say the swim dad got our little swimmers attention by saying .."Is it better to cheer for an athlete or be the athlete everyone is cheering for."
Not to give cheerleading a totally bad rap, it is said that college cheerleading complete with men as well as women, is one of the most intensive sport type activities. Notice the sport type reference, I am really not convinced that for me it really classifies itself as a sport.
Living in Fl, we see these kind of "barely-clothed" young teenage carwashes everywhere..nobody bats an eye. My husband and I do just like your husband did. Keep on walking...we couldn't agree with you more.
ReplyDeleteWe have 1 daughter, smack dab in the middle of four sons. More than anything, we want her to grow up smart,strong,self confidant, and respect herself.
Our boys, particularily her older brothers, really get this and help to boost her confidence too(poor girl will never have a date, lol).
I think having their little sister in their lives reminds them, too, that girls are not objects. They respect their girfriend/wife and have good relationships.I'm glad my 2 little boys have them to look up to...
I'm glad you posted about this subject. No, it's not new news, but I think it's news worth continuing to point out.
A-MEN. Scary and not right. JUST NOT RIGHT. Everything you said was dead on. I have friends who would argue "it IS a sport" but a sport for what? In support of a better, male-centric sport? Oh, I could go on and on. Great job as usual. I realize I'm not the only one on here that feels like you're reading their mind :)
ReplyDeletekids who grow up in homes like yours, who are taught to respect themselves and others, won't act like this. sure, all kids, at some point, might try something that goes against their self-respect, but they won't stick with it. they won't make friends with kids like this either. it is definitely sad that so many teens are going crazy with their hormones, lack of social education, and media overload, but tons of sweet kids striving to live a healthy life are out there too. i'd say, without knowing them AT ALL, that those kids at the car wash have been neglected, regardless of the societal effects of the cheerleading culture. with that said, i totally agree about how damaging and preposterous cheerleading is. it just seems so wrong on so many levels. we didn't have cheerleading at our school, we had gymnastics instead. i was never a part of it, but it seemed to provide the fun physical challenge with very strong elements of learning to respect and trust the other teammates {who were both boys and girls}. sometimes it seems so crazy to me how accepted these obviously horrible, ridiculous things are in our culture, simply because it's just how things have always been. hopefully we can all change that.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this.
ReplyDeleteConfession - I was a cheerleader (short-lived, but a cheerleader nonetheless). And I did those car washes. However, perhaps because it was a different time, we were not allowed to parade around in our bikinis while washing cars. We wore tshirts and shorts, and worked our butts off to raise money. I danced from the age of 4, and for me, cheerleading was a way to continue something that I loved (dance) into high school. That said, I highly doubt I'd encourage my future daughters to do it, at least not in the present day.
As for the rest of your post, I'm in complete agreement with you that our society teaches boys (and girls) that lack of respect toward women is acceptable. Even encouraged. I applaud you for raising your children to know the truth, and to learn what it means to treat the opposite gender (and their own) considerately and in a way that isn't demeaning.
melissa
P.S. My nickname during my one year as a cheerleader was H.M. For heavy metal. Yep.
Melissa, I hope you didn't feel like I was judging you. I have two awesome, beautiful, amazing friends in my life who were cheerleaders in high school, too. Also, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were cheerleaders and I so completely love and respect them.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that you did anything wrong by participating in an activity that made you happy. I so seriously don't. I don't think that any of the girls who choose it, or even most of the parents who encourage it, are doing something wrong.
The idea that there's nothing wrong with something like cheerleader car washes is so far ingrained in our history and sociology that there's NO WAY that a young girl, or even her mother in most cases, would even have the platform to understand what's really wrong with it.
And also, if you (or anybody I know) DID choose to let your kids participate in cheerleading, while I wouldn't necessarily agree with that decision, I would totally respect it as your choice and love you and admire you, in spite of the fact that we disagree about something.
You're awesome, Heavy Metal. ;)
That is totally sick. If I were your husband, I would have walked up to that dude and told him off. Ugh, that whole story made me mad. I fear for the future of the human race seeing the way some people's kids are growing up these days.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for all your comments, everybody. I am privileged to have been privy to all of your thoughtful, smart, forward-thinking responses.
ReplyDeleteI feel super strongly that it is also up to us to teach our boys appropriate behaviour and respect.
ReplyDeleteCase in point: My boy, now 4, loved loved loved the girls even as a little guy. He would make eye contact, fix his gaze. One day, when he was not even one, he caught the attention of some 7ish year old girl in a coffee shop. The dad and I were laughing about it, I rolling my eyes. I leaned over and said, I'm afraid he's going to be the kind of boy you warn your daughter about. But as I went back to my coffee, I felt completely ill at ease. What does that really mean? Actually, it sounds completely creepy, chilling in fact.
As I finished up and prepared to go, I leaned back toward the dad and said, "You know, what I said earlier? About needing to warn your daughter? I believe it is my job to make sure you won't have to."
He looked at me as if I were a little crazy, though I'm quite sure he got it after it sat with him for a minute. But I'm not. That was my pledge to make sure that my son not only knows what is appropriate or not, but also that he understands what it is to not stand by as others make lesser choices for not having been told, whether they are male or female.
We don't have that cheerleading culture as much here in Canada, but the objectification exists all the same.
karen
All of us better be prepared to stay away from malls and never purchase another women's magazine again. Seriously! You don't have to drive by a teenage car wash to see half naked young girls. All you have to do is walk by the Abercrombie, Aerie, Victoria Secret, American Eagle and other store fronts to see exploited young girls and boys. Teen magazines are not just the problem, so are vogue, self and all these other magazines that tell young and older girls alike, just how to attract the opposite sex with barely there clothing and 16 something year old models. It seems so deeply ingrained in our culture, that at this point you would have to lock your little boys and girls up to protect them. Very sad!
ReplyDeleteHi there -- I'm a Hip Mama member in Pittsburgh and saw a link to this blog. What a great post -- what a scary post. I have a 7- week old daughter and my partner and I see how much she is already being socialized to be "seen" -- by clothing, by people who talk about how she's going to be "so gorgeous... lucky girl," and by toys that emphasize her looks at incredibly young ages. And as you imply, parents of sons have to work hard, too, to make sure they do not treat girls or women as objects. I don't think our girls will grow up in a much more enlightened world, though, when I see the homophobia that pushes boys and men to objectify women in order to assert themselves. This is a systemic problem, but it has to be something individual parents work on to "fix." I will do my best to help Hadley grow up to be strong, confident, happy, healthy, and open. Now... how do I do that?? :)
ReplyDelete-Jamie Calhoun