Shit on my hands

BB

I don’t know about you, but I came of age at a time where teenage girls gave nary a thought to their appearance, were unmoved by the antics of their male counterparts, and spent every spare moment with their pert young noses buried in important works of literature. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head out to the countryside for a leisurely drive, and watch pigs fly.

Memo to Natasha Walters, author of ‘Living Dolls: The New Sexism’ : girls have always done stupid shit to impress boys. ….  though Walters would have us believe that in the space of one piddly decade, our girls have gone from bright- eyed teens dreaming of making inroads into their chosen careers, to dull- eyed pornstar wannabes.

The startling claim is made that where a few years ago, girls would have been saving for their first car, now they’re saving for their first boob job. Really? I can’t say I see any evidence that teenage girls are so drastically different from the ones I was surrounded by when I graduated from high school in the mid-90’s. To claim that this is what girls aspire to, that ‘the only confidence they believe worth having is sexual confidence’, is patronising, demeaning, and a whole lot of rot.

When I look at teenage girls in my suburban shopping strip, what I overwhelmingly see is a bunch of scrappy, mouthy, confident girls, paying no deference to their male contemporaries. They sure don’t look like they’re worried about being ‘forced to perform anal and engage in threesomes on first dates’, as Walters solemnly reports. Newsflash: Cleo, Cosmo et al were instructing girls on how to perform the perfect blowjob 15 years ago. This phenomenon may have changed its stripes, but is not new. Don’t get me wrong: I identify as a feminist and I don’t believe we are anywhere near finished in the quest for equality.

Most of the current cultural phenomena  that Walters is referring to- bratz dollz, the ubiquity of deadening, hardcore, male- targeted pornography- I find bowel clenchingly awful and hollow. But to imply that there has been such a quantum shift in the way young females think , well , I believe that’s just plain wrong.  Girls read this stuff, they giggle, they perhaps file away some information should they ever need it, and they move on.

 There will always be girls who spend a perturbing amount of time trying to please boys and focussing solely on their appearance; they were around when I was a teenager and they were no less an innocent breed back then, let me tell you. And much more commonly, there will always be girls who dream of having a job they love, travelling the world, and getting into a clinch with a cute boy. They might buy lip gloss and eyeliner and read the odd rubbish magazine but this doesn’t mean that they’ve thrown their aspirations away to focus on acquiring the skills of a porn princess. I’m pretty sure the stats on car sales would reflect that girls are still buying cars, and that the stats on university enrolments would equally reflect that girls are continuing to pursue higher education in similar numbers as ten years ago. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but can we give our girls the benefit of the doubt?