Today, instead of women wearing feminine clothing, they either wear essentially male clothing (such as pants and pants suits) or flesh-baring sexually provocative clothing. A young woman who wore a dress or even a skirt and blouse to a college, let alone high school, class would probably be considered stranger by her peers than one who wore a see-through top.
But in the name of equality and comfort, distinctive female dress - such as dresses and skirts - has been largely abandoned. In addition to the female roles of wife and mother, there were numerous ways of doing so. In the past, expressing one’s femaleness was done through expressing femininity. So, for the young woman for whom marriage, pregnancy and motherhood are remote or even undesirable given the anti-traditional education she has received, her primary vehicle of proclaiming she is a woman is literally to expose the fact.Ī second, related, reason is the death of femininity. Husbands and fathers are supposed to play identical roles, and because of the movement for gay equality, mothers have been declared unnecessary - two fathers, most well educated people now contend, are every bit as good for a child as a mother and a father. Among egalitarians, being a wife is no different a role than that of husband, and motherhood is no longer regarded as distinctively female. There are other ways young women can publicly demonstrate their distinct female identity - for example, by wearing feminine clothing and other feminine behavior, being a wife, being pregnant and being a mother.īut those ways are increasingly ignored, deferred and discredited. Therefore, the arenas wherein women can feel and demonstrate their feminine distinctiveness have narrowed appreciably.īy showing more of their bodies, women can announce that they are women. Thanks to feminist doctrines that pervade education from kindergarten through graduate school, men and women increasingly believe that the sexes are largely identical. Men and women have come to be regarded as the same, not simply as equals. Rather, I mean the feminist and politically correct definition of equality: sameness. I will offer at least five reasons that may be less obvious but more important than the valid ones usually given - peer pressure, women buy what stores sell and the sexual revolution.īy equality, I do not mean the belief that men and women are equal human beings, a belief that all decent people hold. Even if one welcomes this development - and for the record, as a male I am turned on, while as a man I am turned off - it begs for explanation. Playing with the sex drive, the most powerful force in nature, is far more dangerous than playing with fire. Women exposing their bodies in public is a big deal.
It is easier to notice, however, than to explain.īut explaining it is crucial to understanding what has happened to men and women in the last 40 years and where male-female relations are headed. You may have noticed that many young women wear less, and more sexually provocative, clothing in public than they did a generation, or even 10 years, ago.
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