Saturday, January 02, 2010

Bros and hos (Part 3)

Start at Part 1

Changes in societal norms happen over time. When we are young, we are living within a time, and we are not seeing that things were ever different than they are right now. So you gals of a certain age might not know that calling each other bitches and hos used to be extremely insulting. Perhaps you cannot imagine a time when a girl getting a tattoo was taboo.

And that's OK. Trends come and go, and most trends - especially those relating to fashion - are ultimately harmless. Like the trend of guys getting perms (early 1980s). Although somewhat horrifying in retrospect, it was short-lived and was naturally resolved in the time it took to grow it out.

What disturbs me about today's culture isn't that girls call each other hos. It's that actually being what we called a whore or a slut back then is no longer outside the realm of acceptable behavior. It appears to be close to the norm now.

Hear me out before you write me off as just an old prude. I'm not referring to sex between consenting adults in a committed relationship, or even the "friends with benefits" thing. I'm talking about women wilfully offering themselves up as the very "sex objects" that, in my day, men were villified for desiring. During the wave of feminism that I experienced, those types of men were referred to as "male chauvinist pigs".

Just a few decades ago, the feminist movement fought to empower women through educational achievement and professional equality. The goal was a society in which women and men could compete at an equal level. The struggle was about banishing every negative stereotype of female sexuality. Today, those very stereotypes are not only accepted, but are actually held up as the new standard of empowerment for women.

Hos, you have given the bros exactly what they wanted.

(continued)

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