Tue. October 30

So Your Daughter Wants to Dress Like a Hooker. What Do You Do?

It’s Halloween. You’re a parent. Your young daughter wants to dress like a slut. What do you do?

Eleanor Barkhorn over at The Atlantic has a great piece about discouraging sexy Halloween costumes among young girls:

A female contributor to the feminist website Feministing made a similar argument [in 2009]: “What’s wrong with having a night where we can say ‘This is my body, and I’m not ashamed of it, or of using it to express my sexuality.’ In fact, the only [thing] about that that seems wrong to me is the fact that it’s limited to one day, when the other 364 days of the year turn that idea on its head.”

The only problem with these defenses of sexy Halloween [costumes] is that they don’t work with girls and teenagers. Sure, grown women can use Halloween as an excuse to put on the corset or tight dress they’d be too embarrassed to wear the rest of the year. But youth should be a time when girls don’t have to express their sexuality. As one mother put it in a CNN article, “Dressing up as a sexpot is not part of my vision for a happy, healthy childhood.”

Dealing with sexy Halloween costumes is a major problem for parents–perhaps even a milestone in the parenting of adolescent girls. If your relationship with your daughter survives the Halloween showdowns between ages twelve and sixteen years old, then your relationship with her can probably survive anything.

Just the other day, a friend of mine who is a father asked me and my friends what he can do to discourage his pre-teen daughter from dressing like, in his words, “a hooker”:

I’d like to consult ya’ll on how to parent my pre-teen with respect to dressing . . . because (1) you’re young enough to relate and (2) you’re old and wise enough to be useful. I’m not uptight but my daughter’s desire to dress like a hooker is concerning. Maybe it’s the fashion, I don’t know; but she would wear a bikini everywhere if she could. If I forbid her to wear what she wants then she will rebel and do it anyway, making it worse. I want her to see that women are not objects. I tell her all the time that she doesnt have to get married if she doesnt want, men dont make her complete, she is strong and can stand alone, reach for goals, etc. What’s a dad to do?

This is what I told my friend:

When I was in the seventh grade, I went through a huge Madonna phase. Embarrassing, I know. But I think it was part of the developmental process that all girls who are sexually maturing undergo. Part of forming their identities is getting in touch with this new part of their selves. That, at least, is my story and I’m sticking to it.

So, of course, Halloween came around and I decided that I wanted to dress up as Madonna, cone bra and all. Not only that, but during that same period, my seventh-grade English class was assigned to write about who our role models were, and I decided that I would write about Madonna.

I don’t know what went through my parents heads when I declared my intention to be Madonna, body and mind, to them that fall–but I can only imagine. I have to give them major props, though, because they handled it in a totally reasonable way, which won me over. Basically, they initiated a conversation with me about how Madonna, whose music may be catchy and fun, is a silly publicity-seeking self-promoter. Dressing like Madonna and writing about her–taking her seriously on an intellectual level–wasn’t sending any kind of provocative message. Rather, it was just turning myself into a billboard that advertised her brand. Not cool. I also thought about the kind of image that I would be sending to my teacher (sigh, I was a major teacher’s pet, I admit it, and I wanted my teacher to respect me).

So I went back to the drawing board and ended up writing about and dressing up as a more fiery, interesting, and intriguing femme fatale: Cleopatra. This was a classier and more constructive choice–and definitely more subtle.

That experience may have been the first time I realized the value of “less is more” in the arena of sexuality. Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione in Harry Potter, hit on this point beautifully not too long ago as she dealt with how to manage her own sexual persona. Watson said:

I find the whole concept of being “sexy” embarrassing and confusing. If I do a photo-shoot people desperately want to change me—dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows, give me a fringe. Then there’s the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini-skirt. But that’s not me. I feel uncomfortable. I’d never go out in a mini-skirt. It’s nothing to do with protecting the Hermione image. I wouldn’t do that.

Personally, I don’t actually think it’s even that sexy. What’s sexy about saying, “I’m here with my boobs out and a short skirt. . . . have a look at everything I’ve got”? My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder.

Watson is a real class act. If she had been around when I was a little girl, maybe I would have had a different Halloween story to tell–one about showing up to school dressed as Hermione.

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Emily Esfahani Smith

10 thoughts on “So Your Daughter Wants to Dress Like a Hooker. What Do You Do?”

AHLondon (@AHLondon_Tex)October 30, 2012 at 2:13 pm

1. Great post and story. 2. We must have the same reading list. Every time I think, “oh just like that article” I read a few more lines and that’s the one you cite. 3. A few more bits for your father friend. Sometimes you choose your battles. For instance, instead of always saying no, occasionally have the offending garment get lost or ruined in the wash. This one is kinda embarrassing, but recently a friend with 16 year old daughter with many friends had to have his wife have a chat about helping out the dads and brothers by not running around the house as if they were still 6. Everyone was sufficiently mortified to back off of the bikinis. Finally, know what is going on. Girls this age are just learning that their boobs have power over men. They are both enjoying the power and trying to figure out how much power it is. It is more than they can handle at 16, and you are trying to keep them from learning the hard way.

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rasqualOctober 31, 2012 at 9:31 am

Sure, daughter, you can dress as a hooker. And your dad will accompany you dressed as a convincing pederast. Fair enough?

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1. jimOctober 31, 2012 at 10:45 am
  
  Darn, and my beige Member’s Only jacket is at the cleaners…
  
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  1. florentinepogenOctober 31, 2012 at 11:36 am
    
    Excellent observation. I do think they “pick up” on the attention, but lack the insight to grasp its implications.
    
    So the question is why the attention-seeking?
    
    While I know it’s not the full answer, my observation, having raised a girl and been a keen observer of different parenting styles and their behavioral outcomes, is that quality Dad-time seems to be associated with less sexual attention-seeking and a reduced tendency to promiscuity.
    
    My advice to Dads is spend time alone with your girls when they’re young. Take them hunting, fishing, camping or to other activities where you can allow your daughters to engage in “adult” activities and adventures while under close, but light-handed, supervision. Solve little problems together (e.g. let her navigate to the destination, but be patient!). If it’s not the outdoors that floats your daughter’s boat, well, you may have to play dolls or participate in crafts. It’s not that bad, really!
    
    Go to her softball games, gymnastics, ballet or whatever it is. Be interested in her life. Be a leader, but lead by example, not by precept. Do not emphasize physical attractiveness, but rather physical and mental achievement. Remember that the foundation of a building must be built first. Be wise in helping her lay that foundation, and be patient with her inevitable mistakes.
    
    Let her know, at least as much through deed as word, that you love her. It is your relationship with her, and hers with you, that will form much of the template of her relationships with men in general.
    
    If you do these things, and do them well, your daughter will, in my estimation, come to see the wearing of provocative clothing as shallow, vain and strictly unnecessary. She will know that her worth to a man is much more than her body. She will not be a victim of abusive boyfriend or husband.
    
    And, most importantly, she will remember with great fondness all the fun stuff you did together, and strive to honor those memories by becoming someone she knows you will respect.
    
    Reply
david7134October 31, 2012 at 9:48 am

If a woman wants to dress in a certain way in public, that is her choice. But a woman should know how to deal with the attention, wanted or not, that the visual image of a sexy woman stimulates in men. Those men with less inhibition may feel the image to be an invitation. Now a girl does not have those matuirity brain cells to understand what she is doing and might not pick up on the attention that her sex is generating. Thus placing her in a dangerous or less than honorable position. I don’t mean this to the extent that it is the woman’s fault, the images impressed on a man are imbeded in his brain and produce a response that is hard to repress. That is nature. If you want the response, dress in a sexual manner and deal with the attention, if you don’t, restrict your activity to a private venue.

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KMarxOctober 31, 2012 at 11:48 am

“Ya’ll”? Really? What are you contracting to end up with that word?

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1. Templeton EditorOctober 31, 2012 at 12:26 pm
  
  Yes, we agree, but this is an excerpt from an e-mail–likely written off the cuff.
  
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2. Ben NevisOctober 31, 2012 at 2:45 pm
  
  ‘You all’, it has been in the American lexicon for a couple centuries….look it up grammar nazi.
  
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3. AHLondon (@AHLondon_Tex)November 1, 2012 at 11:35 am
  
  Some of us use the word not only out of habit or because it is more versatile than other forms of “you,” but also out of a sense of pride, as the Texas accent is fading. I use it in informal writing all the time and make a point to use it in speech amongst friends. You can take the girl out of Texas…
  That said, it is y’all, a contraction for you all, not ya’ll, which would be a dialect contraction, I suppose, for ya all.
  
  Reply