This letter was brilliantly stated:
No bellies showing, keep "the girls" covered and supported, and make sure that nothing is so small that all your bits and pieces are hanging out.
Please remember as you select an outfit for the awards assembly that we don't want to be looking at 'sausage rolls' as Mrs. Elliot calls them. As you get dressed remember that you can't put 10 pounds of mud in a five-pound sack.Of course, somebody who would have otherwise chosen to wear something that a) didn't fit, and b) was slutwear, took offense. And wrote letters.
The thing that gets me was the last thing in the article: "As 18-year-olds we’re all insecure and impressionable."
Really. Really?
Oh, sweetheart, if you're still "insecure and impressionable" at eighteen, let me impress you with something. You fail. You fail at life. You will fail at everything you do, because the real world doesn't fucking care about your feelings.
Let me impress something else upon you: don't vote. Ever. Because you, and speshul snowflakes like you, are the ones destroying my country by insisting that anything that personally offends you needs to be banned, Constitution and Bill of Rights be damned.
Last, but not least...if you don't like how someone sees you, change something. Either change yourself (style of dress, eating habits, exercise habits), or change that people see you by hiding in your room with a massive bag of Cheetos and never come out again.
'Cause honey? NOBODY wants to see ten pounds of mud stuffed into a five pound sack.
No common sense anymore. Nothing is being taught about proper anything, either in school or at home. Guys want to look like gangstas and the girls like sluts. Where are the parents? They look like slobs and act the same.
ReplyDeleteTo be perfectly honest, this is one of the reasons I've got the kids in the private school they're in.
DeleteThat, and they go through the financial management class Dave Ramsey set up for teens before they graduate.
To be honest I'm all for letting 18 year old kids have consequences to their actions. At 18 I was jumping out of planes for Uncle Sam.
ReplyDeleteAlthough to be honest, as a man, I view slutwear with moral ambivalence. Women putting their bodies on display for consumption doesn't particularly bother me (and I'd rather slutwear than burquas). But I still think that somethings you wear that are meant to be taken off, shouldn't be worn in public. After all, how do you spice up the bedroom in a healthy relationship if there is nothing left in reserve to put there?
Consequences are good, and are something that many kids are protected from facing. I have no issues with kids facing consequences.
DeletePart of the problem so endemic that the school had to send out notices on appropriate clothing choices is that people seem to be losing any sense of when something is and is not appropriate. Context and levels of formality seem to be completely foreign concepts. The university where I work is having to create posters showing what is and is not appropriate at a job interview. Because a lot of the students will show up in holey jeans hanging down by their knees or something that's far too short and far too tight, and completely unprofessional. What is okay for hanging out with friends and/or going out on the town at night is not appropriate for formal situations, and it seems that that knowledge is completely lost on people younger than about thirty.
We are business casual where I work. More than one female university co-op has had to be taken aside and gently told that a little black dress is not appropriate.
DeleteI'd bet that many of them don't even OWN anything appropriate for business casual.
DeleteWhat fricking idiots. And I mean the kids' parents by that, because they failed at parenting by not teaching their kids about appropriate dress and behavior for serious occasions. Many eighteen year olds are naturally stupid and would do stuff like get tarted up for graduation if their parents didn't go, "Whoa there, you're NOT wearing THAT." (or better, when they're picking out clothes in the store, the parents go, "Whoa there, you're NOT buying THAT."
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I think if a kid shows up to graduation inappropriately dressed (provided there's been notice of "what is forbidden" ahead of time - sad, but I think we have to give that notice), they should be turned away. Oh, they still get their diploma and all, but they don't get the ceremony.
My high school graduation, we didn't do robes. The men were expected to wear slacks, jackets, and ties (the school jacket and tie). The women were expected to wear a white dress, one that came at least to the knee and covered the shoulders. NO ONE in my graduating class had any problems with that. Then again, I doubt anyone in my graduating class (I'm getting old) would wear slutwear to graduation. Prom, maybe, but not graduation.
And yeah, my university has a whole session for the seniors on "this is how you dress for a job interview" and in my department we also do mock interviews in senior seminar and do stuff like counsel the students on dress, behavior, and speech. Most of our students (in my major at least) don't really need that advice as many of them have been in the workforce or done internships, but still....
We wore robes at my HS graduation. One of my classmates wore a full-skirted summer dress under hers...with no panties. And it was a windy day, so EVERYONE found out in the parking lot, before AND after.
DeleteBut yeah, Odysseus has been rather horrified by his classmates' attitudes toward dressing for interviews.
Our imp loves dressing up, and we frequently catch him in a tee shirt and one of his two clip-on ties. The pixie frequently refuses to dress down. Both are beyond cute, and relieves worries that the kids won't understand levels of formality in dress.
I wish they'd have talked about proper behavior before the graduation we went to on Sunday. The procession in took about 1/3 longer than necessary because of graduates mugging for cameras and taking selfies.
ReplyDeleteThat is an issue. My university actually has started going over what not to do in the processions in and out.
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