In the last decade, I see an alarming slide backward toward "females as sex objects" thanks to the distasteful fashion of showing, in some cases to extreme, one's cleavage. I am a member of the "transitional" generation, that is, one of those women, born and raised in the 40's and 50's, when women were treated as sex objects, who struggled to be free from the shackles of societal expectations that the "little woman's" only legitimate role was to marry, and produce children. IF a woman had to work, only nursing, teaching and retail sales were considered appropriate, lady-like occupations. Those were the days when birth control was so iffy that you had to get married to have sex. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies often resulted in being sent to Aunt Mary out west or the Unwed Mothers Home.
But then the birth control pill hit the market in the 60's and girls everywhere began to rebel against all those societal straight jackets and began to have fun not only with boys but with the idea of having careers that fitted their own natural talents and aptitudes. Nursing, teaching and sales were still great choices but not the only choices.
However, in the last decade, since arriving in the 21st century, I see an alarming slide backward toward "females as sex objects" thanks to the fashion of showing, in some cases to extreme, one's cleavage. Of course Marilyn and Jane did it in the 50's but they were movie stars and everyone knew that was part of their job... to be sexual bombshells. But today, every female seems to want to get in on this fashion trend. I have seen women who are very large in every part of their anatomy pushing baby strollers in halter tops that barely "halt anything" turning every head in the crowd as they pass. I guess that was the point of course... to get attention.
And I see young teens wearing push up bras trying to appear to have more chest development then their young years have had time to produce. I even turned on PBS not long ago to a cooking show and there was the hostess, her barely contained, dangling breasts suspended only inches above the pot on the stove. The camera man had clearly forgotten he was supposed to be focusing on the food on the stove and not on those barely covered orbs. Young women, middle age grandmothers and old women are now bearing as much as they can. To my eyes and sensibilities, this trend is not only in poor taste it is actually detrimental to all women, for men love breasts and are naturally going to be distracted by them while hearing not a word the woman says.
This is my real issue with this fashion of showing cleavage... women are turning themselves back into sexual objects and all the fighting many of us did to get men to actually listen to us and take note of our very good brains, is being subtly but substantially undermined. Ladies, do you really want that? Is the momentary satisfaction of being stared at or the momentary delusion of being "desired," really worth this price? I guess you can't answer that if you were born after the 1960's because you never knew what it was like to be expected to be less than you were so men could feel more, and you were not sent away for having sex (and its consequences) before it was socially permitted (being married.) Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. For some of us it is hard to watch.
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