At age 12 I felt like a piece of meat

Marjorie Champagne

Friday, 30 march, 2018 09:09

UPDATE
Friday, 30 march, 2018 09:16

Look at this article

Our memories of youth are often significant moments of happiness, of unhappiness, but also of awareness, of perspective, of achievements, or even epiphany.

One of those moments was for me when I was asked to return with me to change clothes because what I wore was inappropriate. I was 12 years old and I started high school.

It is at this point that I realized that my body could be considered exciting, and it had to be covered so as not to stir up the eyes of the boys, or even men of my entourage.

It made me immediately whereas.

For the first time in my life – 12 years ! – I felt like a piece of meat, this because of a law that was supposed to ‘protect’ me. The impression I got? That my body belonged to me more, that I had to be careful, that it was MY responsibility.

This is what I wore…

A short hole on the bottom with a legging floral very opaque below. I found that this look rockait to bottom! We did not see any skin, but my math teacher had taken great care to make me come in front of the whole class to signify to all the world that I had no pace with my holes on the buttocks. A little more and he made me turn on myself! The shame of it.

I returned home to change me in tears.

The problem of the mode

The problem with clothing for young women in magazines, advertisements, music videos, is that they focus on the sexual characteristics of the woman. It is therefore at this level that we should act.

How can a girl meet the expectations of the company that disseminates an image of the woman completely sexualized and at the same time dress on the pure and chaste? One can understand that for some of them, the transition from girl to woman being fingered sexy clothes, because that is how we are defined – at least in part for: a woman, it is sexy.

In general, teenagers need to conform to their group and to feel accepted. To do this, and they respond to the diktats imposed by the media – advertising-among other things – who know that sex sells. Conceptualizes advertising, which carries out the clips, who designs clothes? We, the adults.

Between the tree and the bark

Our young women find themselves caught between the tree and the bark. They are either too prudish compared to the models that we offer them, or they are too sexy for their parents and for the school. In summary, they are never correct.

The judgment comes from both sides and some come to have the taste of the loss of this body. Anorexia when you hold us…

The signal sent by the dress codes in schools, including the majority of the proposals are directed towards young women, is discriminatory and sexist. Some teenage girls contend with the movement of the yellow square. With good reason, because these rules validate the value sex that is given to the bodies of women.

And now?

So let’s take the problem upstream and stop sexualizing the bodies of young women to death for economic imperatives.

Take OUR responsibilities as adults and denounce sexist advertising of bars, or beers (a friend of me pointed out that the more a beer is bad, the brand uses the image of the wife to sell it…).

Act with the fashion industry for it offers models of different bodies (special mention to mimiandaugust.com), and most importantly, continue to fund and publicize initiatives that promote women otherwise than by their physical. For example the contest, Hats off to you!

Educate our guys and our guys. Raise our voice when a comment is moved is made on the body of a woman. Let’s take the boys when they claim “that it runs after wearing his mini-skirt”. Yeah, it still says…

In the meantime that WE fulfill our responsibilities, let the girls dress as they want.

Because make regulations to prohibit spaghetti straps, is to take the girls to noodles.

*The argument that the school is a place of training for the labour market, “so that if you allow the young people to dress no matter how to school, ben they will do anything when they have a job” is inadmissible. One, the school is not there to train workers, but of the citizen.nes, which includes the development of a critical mind, and two, teens are going to eventually conform to the environment in which they evolve later as you do the same with your suit-and-ties.