With the recent events happening in the entertainment industry involving Harvey Weinstein, more women have found the voice and platform to come out and speak out against sexual harassment. While it has taken some time, many actresses, models and other female Hollywood stars are coming forward and speaking out against the mistreatment and sexualization of women, not only in the industry but overall as half of the global population.
Personally, I have experienced sexual harassment in more ways than one. But, throughout the years, it took me quite some time to realize just how often I was being sexually harassed, not only in my social life but also throughout my career in the workplace, as well as in school.
Recently, a 5-year-old kindergartner was forced to change her outfit in school after administration deemed the young girl was showing “too much skin.” Her mother, Emily Stewart shared the story on Facebook, saying:
The picture on the left is showing what my daughter was wearing to school this morning. The picture on the right is what I picked her up in. She is in kindergarten and she is 5.
Now, I knew the weather would be nice today. I sent her to school with a light sweater over her dress and jeans underneath of it. It’s a new dress that her grandma got her and she really wanted to wear it. we live in Minnesota and having 65 degree weather in April a week after a snow storm is everything to us in the Midwest. So, I thought “yeah it will be nice out you can wear a dress.” And that was the end of my thinking. It didn’t occur to me that an adult would look at my 5 year old child and think that wearing a dress was inappropriate.
She was told that she needed to leave class and go to the nurses office.
The nurse told her that she needed to cover her body and made her put on this T-shirt.
I am not making this post to bash the school or say anything bad. I’m making this post to raise some discussion.
As a mother, how am I supposed to teach my daughter to love and celebrate her body when she has people telling her she “needs privacy.”
What exactly is private about a 5 year olds shoulders?
Why is it ok to put my daughters bare shoulders before her education?
Why was her dress looked at as an inappropriate outfit to begin with? She is 5 why is she being sexualized?
I asked her when I picked her up “why are you wearing a T-shirt?”
She said “I was told I had to put something on because I need privacy.”
I then asked “how did that make you feel when they told you that?”
She started bawling.
She was excited to wear that dress to school and show her friends and play in it on the play ground.
She said to me “I don’t know why they told me I couldn’t wear my dress it was super embarrassing.”How do I teach a little girl that what she wears and her appearance is not nearly as important as her education and self development when things like this happen?
Facebook
Stewart also shared a video on Facebook live, discussing in detail what went down and how she feels about the school sexualizing her 5-year-old daughter.
Many people online were outraged to see that adults were that uncomfortable with a 5-year-old showing her shoulders in class.
As it turns out, Stewart’s Facebook video and commentary made waves online. Stewart was featured in countless news segments from town and, after, ISD 264 where her daughter attends school sent out an email announcing changes to the language of their dress code.
Stewart posted the update and the email online, stating that they removed the rule that allows determining sexualization based on a child’s outfit.
Way to go, Mom—that’s how you stand up for your child.
David Foster Wallace once gave a commencement speech where he told a story about a couple of young fish swimming along. They pass an older fish who says “Morning boys, how’s the water?” After they pass on for a bit one young fish turns to the other and says “What the hell is water?” The point of the story is to illustrate that there are things surrounding and us shaping our lives that we take as ordinary to the point we don’t even notice them. We also don’t question them. Treating people differently based on their gender or sexuality used to be one of those things, but hopefully that’s starting to change.
Josh Weed is a gay man with an important point to make about how we treat women:
(1) I am a gay man who was raised in a heteronormative world. A part of this world I have always been baffled by is “modesty” culture.
Even worse than that, many men and women point to a woman’s attire when she claims to be a victim of sexual assault. Just recently, a Yale student was found not guilty after a trial where his attorneys slut-shamed the victim for her Halloween costume.
(8) Newsflash: women’s worth is STATIC. It is inviolable. It doesn’t change with what she does or doesn’t wear. It doesn’t change with sex.
26-year-old Tara Natasha from Cardiff, Wales recently shared the story of how she was sexually harassed online by a guy who would not stop sending her d*ck pics.
Facebook
Natasha said that she had gotten an add on Snapchat from a random guy and immediately, he sent her two XXX photos right there in her Snap messages.
“It was 1am when I got a random add on my Snapchat. The guy immediately sent me two photos of him naked and one of his face. I completely ignored it at first, but half an hour later he sent me a crude message.”
Facebook
After ignoring him, Natasha realized the guy wasn’t going to leave her alone. So, instead, she decided to troll him sarcastically. However, he didn’t think that it was sarcasm and instead thought that Natasha was trying to meet up with him. Like anyone else, she went with it to troll him even more.
Facebook
Instead of sending him her exact address, Natasha sent him to somewhere that anyone would know—Buckingham Palace. Turns out, this guy knows nothing and immediately was ready to invade the palace all to get some action.
She added:
“It was so funny I couldn’t cope. When he was approaching Buckingham Palace, he still didn’t click.”
Natasha said:
“He then realized and he just went mad, he did not appreciate it at all. He told he had drove forty minutes from outside of London and had spent so much money on petrol.”
“He then started sending me abusive messages. He started threatening me and told me he would come find me. I just had to end up blocking him. I do hope he has calmed down now, and just sees it as a bit of banter.”
