2003-01-14 - 12:00 a.m.
I keep thinking about a girl I saw in the hardware store the other day. She had on a long straight black skirt, slit up to above the knee, revealing her high-heeled knee-high shiny black boots. Her purple flowered top was snug fitting, made of a soft sheer fabric with a low cut neckline and gathers under the bust. Her black leather coat was lined with faux leopard fur. Her silky blond hair in a sophisticated angled hair cut hung seductively over one eye. And she was maybe..... six.
The tiny blond girl was struggling to walk in the high heeled boots, awkwardly holding the long skirt up with one hand. Her little friend, also in a long dress, hose and wearing high heels, was clomping along, urging her to hurry. They were trying to run..... like kids do in stores, to the chagrin of their parents..... but they couldn't. The only way they differed from a couple of twenty-somethings was their size. They were as hobbled and tripped up by their sexy clothes as a grown woman would be. But it was so much sadder, because they were little girls and the way they looked was not their choice and definitely not the only option. All I can think of is: what are their mothers thinking?
I have watched as women's fashions keep getting more and more ridiculous. In the seventies, we rebelled and protested the discomfort and restrictiveness of women's clothing. We said women will never feel confident and free if we are not able to move without exposing ourselves, if we are wearing things on our feet that hobble and cripple us. We fought for the right to wear pants when it is cold in the winter, and to wear clothing that doesn't interfere with what we want to DO in life. But I have watched that progress slip away as a new generation seems to have forgotten there was ever a battle for basic respect for women. Many of the female college students dodder around on platforms so high they can barely walk, even if their long tight skirts would let them take a stride. I wonder if they ever think what they would do if there was an emergency, if they had to move quickly. What would they even do if they had to walk anywhere, if god forbid there was no convenient place to park. I see them standing around talking on their cell phones, perched on their stilts, looking like stranded water birds. They are able bodied young women who probably go to the gym and spend hours on the stairmaster, but they have made themselves essentially helpless.
I am resigned that college age women seem to value looking sexy over their own comfort and safety. But I am so sad that people are chosing that for their children as well. And why are manufacturers producing long black slit skirts in a child's size six? Why do little girl's shoes have high heels? If we, as a society, truly want to protect children from sexual molestation, we should not be dressing them up like little hookers. I know it is never the fault of the victim, and that such reprehensible actions are always about the adult's abuse of power as well as sexuality. But it just doesn't make sense to dress little girls up in clothing that suggests what the child is in no way prepared to accept.
One day I saw a little girl trying to run in a park, and she had on a pair of those platform sneakers with a sole about three inches thick. The huge clunky things would not even bend and the little girl ran like she had bricks strapped to her feet, and finally turned her ankle and fell to the ground. Her mother came up and scolded her for running. Why shouldn't a little girl run? There are so many years of adulthood to sit, and prance and flirt, to keep the clothes clean and the hands folded and the knees together. Why couldn't a child run in the park, and see how fast she can go, feel the wind in her hair, feel strong and agile and free? Why shouldn't she at least have a chance to grow up before someone hands her the set of limitations called femininity?
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