Today I heard my sister singing an Arabic song. It’s lyrics go something like this:
The girl who wears a short skirt,
The girl who wears a short skirt,
Boys’ eyes follow he-e-er!
And she’s so full of herself,
She’s so full of herself
…(don’t remember anymore)…
So…what I get from this song is that girls who wear short skirts are vain sluts who want boys’ attention.
Well, you could say, it’s just a song. Who cares what a song says? Problem is, the song says just what everybody seems to think.
I’m not saying there aren’t girls who wear minis for guys, but what if I just like the feeling of it? What if I’d really like to wear one, but can’t because, in everyone’s eyes, it has a different meaning? What if I’m not heterosexual and am wearing it for another girl’s eyes?
Personally I don’t like to wear any kind of skirt because I find them uncomfortable, but when there’s a soft breeze I love the feeling of it on my bare legs. And say the breezy day on which I was wearing this short skirt I happened to get raped- who’s fault would it be? Well, mine of course! For my silly carelessness...if I wear such provocative clothes I should expect these results. Because boys will be boys, and you have to be careful whatever you do (see full list of thing not to do
here) in order not to trigger their natural instincts, which of course they can do nothing about. Otherwise, you are just a stupid slut, bitch, whore, (insert other derogative terms related to women.)
Why, though, is a shirt that shows my legs so damn provocative? I don’t think boys in shorts are considered sexy much, and it surely isn’t expected for girls’ eyes to follow them.
But, you know, women’s bodies are just sexual objects. Everything about them has to be sexualized: legs, breasts, stomach, waist, feet, eyes, hair…everything.
Women are sexual beings, but of course not sexual for their own enjoyment…just the keepers of sex, the bearers of a fruit that it’s up to men to pick and enjoy.
This continuous, normalized objectification of women is perpetuated by culture as a whole. TV shows (an example
here), commercials (too many for me to link to), movies, traditions, songs …everything. And all of this makes both men and women think that female bodies are objects to be used as one pleases. Of course, there is a “correct” use, but boys will be boys and rules are made to be broken.
Western people usually think that the treatment of women as objects is characteristic of so said “uncivilized” countries…these barbaric people over there…when really the only difference between a woman in, say, Saudi Arabia and one in America is that in the first her body is property of her father/husband, while in the second it’s public property.
So practically, a woman who doesn’t take proper precautions to protect her body is very much comparable to a man who hangs his credit card on his front door.
Nice.
"Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Sadly, true.
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