It's Saturday night in front of the Regal Cinema and the high school girls are working it... A ninth-grader in a denim miniskirt exchanges conversational barbs with a boy leaning against a post, then fakes a little scream as the young man steps toward her and pulls up her skirt, putting her panties on display.
Modern Flirting? And that's just the first thing wrong with this
Washington Post article. Let us all get nostalgic for a time when women knew the "slow, subtle art of flirtation". Our dismissal of these antiquated ways being the cause for the upsurge in sexual harassment and abuse, of course. Oh yeah, and the reason why it's so hard to find a man who will take us seriously.
Comments
I didn't see anything in that article that suggested that they were blaming women for sexual harrassment. ????
It's a FACT that on college campuses, that many women are looking to find their future husband through 'hooking up', and the men aren't. That's a fact. And the women wind up feeling used, they say they're NOT okay with the way things are and how they're treated. It's not a case that these women are saying they're okay with the hook-up culture. If that were the case, then no problem. But the fact is, they're not.
I don't see how this relates to putting women back in their place, or women barefoot & pregnant in front of the stove. haha.
It's about women behaving in a way that's not getting them the respect from their sexual partners that they're secretly seeking. And that's the problem. They do one thing, but want something else.
Posted by: Chloe | October 18, 2003 11:39 PM
My comment about sexual harassment was in response to the section I quoted, wherein the author suggests that being publicly humiliated and exposed was a part of this fourteen-year-old girl's flirting routine. The article does suggest that in a way, women and young girls are asking for that kind of "attention" through more aggressive actions when it comes to dating.
I don't know about the "fact" that women on college campuses are using the hook-up as a mate-finding expedition. My own experience and that of the women I knew in college was not that. I suppose it could depend on the school, but I found that most women, myself included, were looking for something completely out of the scope of a future husband.
Whether or not women are being disingenuous about what they want or not is beside the point. I think most people have little to no idea what they really want. And I don't think that men are being any more truthful with us or themselves about their desires. The article asserts that women, especially young women, are playing on some sort of sexual field that is outside of what they can control or what they really want. I don't think the answer to that problem is to move over to a different playing field where the rules and goals are even less clear and more disingenuous.
Posted by: Lorraine | October 19, 2003 12:37 PM