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What seems like hundreds of years ago, I was a senior in high school. In many ways, I feel like those times were the slightest bit easier, although by no means would I describe my tempestuous high school years as easy. Peer pressure and the desire to fit in was no different back then than it is now. Girls were sexualized in the media and in popular culture. Trends came and went. Still, I did not have to contend with Facebook, digital cameras, texting, twittering or any of this newfangled technology that ramps up the pressure to do what the other kids want or pay for it. (Also, no one thought it made any sense to wear shoes with enormous platforms and 95-inch high heels, which I appreciate.) Now that prom season just passed, it's again clear how hard it is to be a teenage girl.
Take "daggering," for example. At Teens in balance,Tara Cousineau described the trend:
It is basically mock sex with a rough edge. One might think of rape when watching any of the YouTube postings (a search you will regret). It’s not that sexualized dance hasn’t appeared on dance floors in the past, of course. Rather, it is that this form of dance seems to have taken on a right of passage, “I’m hot, your not,” group-think mentality among teens.
Like Cousineau, I'm not sure where the dancing fits in, but it's not just because I'm an old and craggy feminist who hates when people have fun. It seems that there are a lot of high schools girls who find the aggressive moves to be demeaning and threatening. Lawrence Harmon wrote an article in The Boston Globe about a group of Boston girls who advocated for a ban on daggering at their prom:
Unlike many of their classmates, they have no trouble distinguishing between the sensual elements of dance and outright lewdness. They’ve broken with the group-think mentality that compels many teenage girls to go to extremes to fit in or appear desirable to boys ... “Daggering is almost a movement now,’’ explained Shanasia Bennett, a senior at the Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers in the Fenway. “If you’re not doing it, you’re lame.’’ Bennett, wisely, would rather appear lame than allow herself to be debased.
Bennett, and several other girls interviewed for the article, rock. (Anthony McCarthy called Bennet his "hero of the day" over at Echidne of the Snakes.) I admire them for standing up for themselves and demanding respect. That's tough. (The tone of the article, though, is not so thrilling to me, as it suggests that girls who might enjoy sexual dancing are not good or smart. Why, why, why must there always be a good girls vs. not good girls thing? But that's another story.)
Now, if I could just rally girls (and women) to stop wearing shoes that will ultimately injure them ...
Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants and is the author of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track.
