haroldbkny
4d ago
It hasn't yet. And besides, some of these things, like wearing makeup and showing more skin and wearing clothes that accentuate certain parts of the body more or make them look deceptively sized are actively tapping into sexual signaling pathways. You can only fight biology so much, in my experience.
I definitely agree with you. I'm went to a very high class college and have now come back to a very mixed class place. I'm seeing this in my daughter. She sees her teachers and some friends with extremely trashy long painted nails and tattoos and gaudy jewelry and makeup, and wants it herself. She's internalized that these things are beautiful, and what adult women do, and not that it's trashy and derived from things that prostitutes do to signal their availability to men. I wish I could influence the way she thinks, but she's too young to understand, and I know any attempt at trying to control her in this regard will backfire 100%. All I can do is let her know on occasion that I don't really think it's beautiful, and hope that she'll eventually come to understand.
But I think one of the key insights for me that I didn't understand before I had a daughter is where feminists come from when they talk about how women wear makeup for themselves, not men, and "I can dress however I want but that doesn't mean I'm a slut and it shouldn't influence at all how men treat me". I guess I've learned that they do internalize some of this at such a young age such that they don't understand that these things, when done by a grown woman, send an overly sexual message to men. I can only hope my daughter comes to understand this, and values her natural beauty and a prudent presentation before she reaches adulthood
I don't disagree with you about nails, unless men evolved to have sex with tigers or something. But for whatever reason, it does signal "trashy slut" today, and that may or may not go away over time.
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