Tales of a coffee-holic: Objectification begins with a compliment

Stop telling small children that you know or you meet how cute they are.

We have a habit of fawning over children and praising their parents for creating such cute kids. Most kids are adorable and parents like to hear it, however when you see a friend or acquaintance’s child and you always praise them for their looks, what are you really telling them? You are telling that child that one of the most important things about them—maybe the most important thing—is how they look. This is true for all children, but especially for girls.

We have this culture that tells girls their looks are one of their most valued attributes. This sexualizes them when they are much too young and them shames them for that sexuality as they get older.

I know many of you might disagree, but I think beauty pageants, especially for children, send the wrong message to our kids. Some of these girls are turned into a sort of Frankenstein’s monster woman with fake teeth and hair in order to win a title, reinforcing at a very young age that how they look naturally is not good enough.

I had a fervent desire to participate in beauty pageants when I was small, much to my mother’s horror. Although I see the value in attaining scholarships and displaying talent once a girl reaches her teenage years, I now believe the practices in these pageants tell women how highly we value looks above everything else.

Yes, once a woman wins a title, she usually spends a year doing good work, but there’s something about young women parading across a stage in bathing suits for all those watching to judge that just rubs me the wrong way. Let’s face it, even if she has a terrific interview, a chubby girl, an unattractive girl is not going to win any major pageants.

I recently saw an interesting Facebook post about school dress codes. It said that when schools send girls home to change their clothes because their shorts are too short or their bra straps are showing, they are telling those girls that not being a distraction to boys in the school is more important than their education. That resonated with me. When I was in high school my history teacher sent me to the principal’s office because my shorts were too short. At that point, I had one pair of jean shorts and they were probably a quarter of an inch above the required finger tip length. They were not booty shorts.

I could tell that my male teacher felt uncomfortable making me stand in front of the class while I put my arms down and then he had to stare at my thighs. I could tell he felt bad about sending me to the principal’s office as well. But they’d decided to crack down on dress code violations.

When I got to the principal’s office he gave me a stern talking to about how I shouldn’t be wearing what I was wearing. I was a good kid. I never got in trouble at school, but it was sent to the principal’s office two more times for wearing cap sleeves, because apparently my armpits were just too much for my classmates to bear.

I’m not saying kids should be allowed to wear anything they want, or shirts that a truly inappropriate, but shaming girls for showing a quarter an inch too much of their thighs or for showing part of their underarm when raising a hand in class shames her for just being a woman.

We teach girls that their looks are one of their most highly valued traits and then we shame them just for being a woman. We teach girls that their sexuality is powerful enough to be a distraction to all of her classmates, but also that it’s a bad thing that should be hidden at certain times. I can’t tell you how many boys who went to my school wore cutoff t-shirts without any repercussion.

Praising girls for their looks first and foremost while also teaching them that their sexuality is shameful is a recipe for disasters of many kinds.