Women’s fashion is the largest aspect of the fashion industry, generating billions of dollars in sales every year. Companies constantly try to out do each other and set trends that the rest of the world followed through the next season, and the trends must constantly evolve so that the fashions stay fresh. The problem with modern women’s fashion is that it is causing serious issues in American society that reverberate far beyond the fashion space.
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Unless something is done to reverse the trend, things will only continue to get worse. There are three areas that are particularly troubling.
Sexualisation Of Young Girls
Adult women can make their own decisions about how they want to dress, and they have the ability to seek out fashions and styles that fit their personality. Young girls, on the other hand, do not have the same options, and they are forced to wear what the fashion industry says they should want to wear. Unfortunately this clothing places a high value on overt expressions of a young girl’s sexuality, even to the point of being destructive. Extremely short shorts and midriff baring tops are common among girls even as young as elementary school, and companies like Abercrombie and Fitch have made headlines over the last few years by trying to sell this overt sexuality to elementary aged girls. They are taught to embrace their sexuality, even when they do not understand what that means, and it is starting to rob young girls of their innocence.
Body Image Issues
Another side effect of the kind of revealing clothing that most fashion companies are forcing on young women is that the women develop negative body image issues as a result. They are constantly forced to expose their bellies, because of midriff baring shirts, or their legs, because the shorts are not long enough to cover their perceived imperfections. As a result young girls are constantly comparing themselves to each other, and many girls see what they think are flaws with their own bodies because of the way that other girls look in the same clothing. This negative spiral has a devastating impact on the psyche of those girls, and that happens during the most vulnerable time in the development of their personality.
Emphasis On The Body, Not The Person
Finally, when a lot of skin is exposed or clothing fits so tight that nothing is left to the imagination, people begin to see young women only in terms of their bodies, and not the person who is inside. Men and women both fail to look beyond outward appearances because the clothing serves to show that the body should be the focal point, and so young women become mere sex objects, and lose their value as people in the eyes of others. This is a problem not only for school aged girls, but even adult women, who often find themselves taken less seriously than their male counterparts because so many people have been trained to see all women as objects. Though culture is as much to blame as the clothing, baring skin and presenting an in-your-face sexuality only makes things that much more complicated.
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These problems are only growing over time, and even now the backlash against the damage that the fashion industry is doing to young women is starting to grow. Companies like Fashion Undercover are offering women new choices in their clothing that emphasizes modesty and personality over the body and sexuality. While it will take a long time to reverse the damage that has already been done, there is a chance for Western culture to change.
Author Bio:
I am Kevin Athrim and I have been a professor of culture and society for over twenty years. I wrote this article to talk about the disturbing trends that I have witnessed my own daughters struggle through, and I hope to shed some light on the issue.
