what i would like to telepathically beam into the brains of the chaperones at the middle school field trip class at my mass today: you should be ashamed of the way you let your girls dress today. not them, you. and it has nothing to do with the fact that they were in a church (although i might've thought that might mean something to you seeing as this is a Catholic school ostensibly) but because i am not that far removed from being a high school or middle school girl, and i rolled my shorts ten times to make them as short as possible too, and if you asked me why and i'm sure if you asked your girls why, the answer would be "because i like the way it looks" or "it looks dorky/nerdy/unflattering to wear them long". and then i'd be in gym class not really trying and not really moving that much because i was afraid my shorts were going to ride up and flash someone. because in every way except visually, it is worse to wear shorts so short your butt is hanging out. you have to shave your entire lower body. you have to wear less comfortable underwear. you are constantly aware of how much of your skin is on display. you can't sit down on a hot surface. you have to pay attention to your movements. THESE ARE ATHLETIC SHORTS. the entire purpose of them is to be able to MOVE FREELY. you are choosing to give yourself a way worse experience in order to look a certain way. and why is that? when i was a middle schooler i never interrogated, why is it that dressing in a way that covers my body more and lets me move more is instinctively, inherently uncool or lame to me, and dressing in a way that covers nothing feels cute, cool, or even just...normal, expected? why is that??? who benefits from me feeling like that??????? i don't benefit, for all the reasons i just stated. your girls don't benefit. i can see by your shirts you are on a tourist trip. you probably walked all day on some kind of tour!!! all day tugging on the hem of your shorts, self conscious of missed hairs, feeling exposed when you sit down, trying to stop them riding up. it makes everything worse, not easier. could it be the fact that, as has become incredibly obvious now more than ever, our world is run by and culture is shaped by literal, proven, unashamed pedophiles? or is it the fact that even the average "nice" man benefits immensely by women being introduced as soon as possible to the idea that to be exposed, to the detriment of everything else, is to be cool, to be normal? but it wasn't my job to be figuring that out when i was in middle school, and even if they didn't do a good job at articulating why, at least the adults around me then made a cursory effort to get us girls to comply with wearing clothes that were designed for practical purposes, not to expose as much flesh as possible to get us used to always existing for display instead of living.
and i get that they'll be mad. and i get that they would say they aren't dressing for boys, which they don't think they are—they just think it's a coincidence that everything cute, cool, normal is also appealing to men, and that everything lame, dorky, frumpy involves not exposing oneself. and they'd probably say that you're not saying any of this to the boys, which is true, because it was looking at one of your girls and one of your boys standing next to each other is what made me so sad and angry in the first place! the boy is wearing shorts that cover him, that let him move, that don't make him aware of his body every second he's wearing them because SOCIETY DOES NOT DO THIS TO MALES. he isn't worrying whether his shorts make his legs look long or short or thin or fat. if you saw a man wearing shorts as short as your girls' it would be strange, uncomfortable, maybe comical, and you would be conscious this was something vaguely humiliating. because it is HUMILIATING. there is no way to have a 'modesty' (if that word can even be used anymore, it has been destroyed so thoroughly by well intentioned stupid talking points that it does not communicate the urgency with which i am trying to make this point) discussion that does not skew strongly towards the female because the world is not engaged in a wide reaching and all encompassing conspiracy to try to get men to feel it is empowering to, among other things, be as naked as possible!!!!! and i know it isn't your fault that they've already been sucked in, especially now in the age of the internet and social media, where all their role models are wearing the same thing and even telling them that it's good, actually, empowering, to make everything about your day worse so your legs can be fully out because otherwise you're going to be frumpy. but that's the situation. you just have to let them grumble and be mad and try to roll up their shorts anyway and tell them to knock it off, because you are adults, and you should be somewhat aware of how the world works, and they are, for the last time, children. also i hate you.
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