Ok. I'm not really one to get all opinionated, but I'm wondering what some of you think about this:
Beirut's beauty parlor for young girls (BBCNews)
There seems to be a bit of "outrage" and screams of "too-far!" on the internet over this today, but when I watched the video, I don't find it quite so bad. To me, it seems like a glorified dress-up place for little girls...not a legitimate "salon". The employee being interviewed frequently mentions "princess" or "rock star" which CLEARLY are not real-life situations. I don't have children, or a daughter, but who among us didn't play pretend and dress up when we were little? I remember putting on my grandmother's bright red lipstick at a very young age, so I'm not sure how this is much different except that you pay for the service (maximum of $13, I mean come on...a tube of lipstick is $7).
I don't associate this with the child beauty pageants, which I totally disagree with. Those mothers, and their daughters, are something else. This setting also doesn't seem to be in the "growing up too fast" arena either. That I don't have to watch BBC to see...I just go to the mall.
Here's where my opinion comes in, and again, I don't have a daughter. I don't know what I would do if it was my daughter, but I know what my mother did for ME. I turned out pretty well, I'd like to think. So let's talk about the mall. Have any of you passed by the "homecoming dress" section in the department stores lately? Some are "cute" but most of them look like this:
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| Macy's |
Um, yeah see my mother wouldn't have let me leave the house. If little miss model there tries to sit her booty will show, I'm sure of it. I'm pretty sure every homecoming (which was SUPER casual, but regardless) I wore a longer skirt and a cardigan twinset. This is not just what seniors are supposed to buy, the 9th graders--14 year old girls--are supposed to be in this. Some of the dresses are over $200 as well. I don't get it, where are their MOTHERS? I mean, I know it must be somewhat difficult--what do you do? Make your daughter the outcast by not letting her dress sexy like everyone else? I like to think that my mom would have tried to find a happy medium (though I'm not sure where we could have found it, all of the dresses look like this...) cute but not sexy. Or she would have told me to suck it up and let me be an outcast!
Mall point #2. Go in Victoria's Secret. A large percentage of the clientele looks to be younger than 16. Buying thongs and sexy bras and whatnot...with again no adult in site. First, my mom would have LAUGHED AT ME for wanting to purchase a $40 bra and $9 underwear at age 13. Yes, VS makes some high quality bras that don't tear up, but it's the sexy factor I'm curious about...do these 13 year old little dudes macking on these 13 year old little girls even know that they are seeing a VS bra? I doubt it. Here's a secret, young teenage girl out there...your boyfriend doesn't know what he's doing any more than you do. At all. Bras, underwear, sexy stuff, all of that...he has NO CLUE, so no need to do something you don't want to try and please him.
Random point #3. My friend is conducting interviews for a world-class, very large corporation at a college this week. She text me to say that the outfits some of these college girls showed up in to the career fair were straight scandalous. Skin tight everything. Bandage skirts.
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| Herve Ledger via google images |
Here, let's throw a blazer or cardigan over this and call it a day. Perfect interview outfit! No. Bandage skirts are not pencil skirts or suit skirts. Spandex shouldn't be in the interview room (unless it's Spanx, of course and we all know that's well hidden.)
The college guys seemed to have it figured out--suits only. Sexy and interview do not go together, I am so sorry. I wore a suit to my first interview junior year of college--it didn't fit me well, it was entirely too big, but I was covered head to toe. So what is up with this group of girls thinking this is appropriate?
Is it media? Surely not. Movie stars and TV stars have always dressed sexier than us "normal" folks. The Kardashians are way over the top, but if you watch the show, the younger Kardashian girls really don't dress like Kim, Kortney, and Khloe. Cause they are teenagers! So...why are middle America teenagers going crazy? Yes "sexy" is pushed down our throats every second of the day, but when did "overtly sexy" = "beautiful"? I didn't WANT to dress sexy in high school, it terrified the mess out of me to be revealing. Does it start with these "little girl beauty parlors" and that's why people are upset? I'm all about dressing nice to feel good about yourself and makeup and all of that, but it just seems like so much, way to soon for these young girls.
That's my soapbox. Thoughts from you, readers?
