If you know me, you know that I am sexy. I love tight fitting outfits. My skirts are as short as can be and if you can’t see that cleavage I’ll make sure you see the silhouette. I love picking up men left and right and I love strutting around in my platform leather boots like a sexy goddess. My evolution to sexiness started in middle school when I transferred from a school with a uniform to one without. And I’ve always thought I knew what I was doing with how I was expressing myself. I feel beautiful and powerful when I feel, nay am, sexy.

When I went home for the summer, I was surprised to see my 15 year old sister dressing like me. Her clothes are tight, cropped, sleeveless, showing her childish, rather than sensual, back and breasts. Her shorts, like mine, show the bottom of her butt cheeks. She’s learned to do makeup, wears perfume, and has developed a taste and passion for designer handbags. She acts like, looks like, and is a child. Her “womanly curves” are only half settling in and she looks clownish with the face of a child wearing the makeup of a woman. Both she and my mom are dieting to lose weight. She, a volleyball player who should be proud of her powerful legs, told me she’d rather have skinny legs than strong legs. 

(https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/hrzugf/twelve_12_year_olds_then_and_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

I was deeply disturbed by my baby sister who seems to no longer be a baby yet is undeniably one. I whole-heartedly support her in wanting to be pretty and to use her appearance as a way of self expression, because my fashion choices are central to my self expression and I love feeling pretty. And yes, I’m all about sex and body positivity and I am so happy that people are less shameful about showing their bodies nowadays and that some people, like me, find it empowering to do so. But I don’t support whatever she is doing right now.

My 15 year old sister, who barely knows anything about sex, giggles at the tiniest “non-platonic” touch in books, movies, and those fantasy love comics she reads, and thinks that kissing is as scandalous as one can get, is sexualizing herself without knowing what it means to do so, because both her online and real world role models, including me, are equating showing our bodies with being female. 

Among Gen-Zers, the rules for being female are changing from the traditional. Showing our bodies is a symbol of reclaiming our bodies from being sexualized, objectified, and fetishized by patriarchy. I feel powerful when I feel sexy because I am reclaiming my body and sexuality for myself. As amazing as this reclamation is, it has created a narrative in the western world, at least, that showing your bodies is part of being a young girl/woman. All the young girls/women around you are wearing spaghetti straps, crop tops, bodycon dresses, and short shorts. These “cute” and “trendy” clothes become part of the “script” of being a young female. It doesn’t matter that the message behind this script is the contemporary woman’s rebellion against the patriarchal cage, because when young girls like my sister see that young women are showing their bodies all they know is that being scantily clad is part of being a young female. Hence when young girls “do” their female gender, they wear revealing clothes. Rather than sexualizing themselves to reclaim their body and sexuality, they sexualize themselves as part of a gendered social script. They sexualize themselves without knowing what it means to do so in a patriarchy intended to perpetuate their sexualization. Patriarchy already feeds them the idea that they must be pretty in the way society thinks they should be pretty in order to be a “proper” female. Now they think that being pretty is purely about wearing revealing clothes. 

Many adult female celebrities show their bodies to fight against an existing stigma, such as Rihanna, who shows her postpartum body to rebel against society’s unrealistic expectations for women’s bodies postpartum. (https://www.instagram.com/p/CuiSbdyPzYl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)

Madonna is another example, who shows her body to subvert the notion that older women must cover themselves up and “dress their age”. (https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtUStUgguGp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)

However, this is not to say that adolescent/teenage girls should not show their bodies, as it is precisely because we were pressured to cover up our bodies during girlhood that many of us feel the need to reclaim it by showing it in womanhood. Moreover, as society connects the female body with shame, learning to show their bodies, at least in the west, may be the first step for young girls to overcome that shame. And young girls, in their time of gender and sexual affirmation as their bodies mature sexually, may also find showing their developing bodies as a way of affirming their female gender; that showing their bodies as part of “doing” gender, albeit unknowingly sexualizing themselves, affirms their gender identity. Girls should also be able to wear “revealing” clothing such as a sports bra, spandex shorts, and tank tops for comfort reasons alone and not be sexualized by adult passersby. In addition, most adolescents are beginning to become sexual beings, and confidence, comfort, and the lack of shame in their bodies are central to their development. In short, when adolescent girls are “doing” girlhood and dipping their toes into the gender scripts of womanhood, they have to learn to be comfortable with their bodies, both in the sexual and non sexual way, which means that they shouldn’t be stopped from showing their bodies when they want to.

The teenage female body is inappropriately sexualized in popular media and culture. Kat, a teenage girl in the show Euphoria, supposedly embodies body and sex positivity by being a “cam girl” when this should not be celebrated at all as she is underage and looking for validation due to lack of self esteem. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/arts/television/euphoria-internet-relationships-conservative.html)

Now, I’m not sure if I know anyone in real life who is truly comfortable and confident with their body. But I do know that I feel more confident when I show my body, when I feel sexy. And I wish my sister and other young girls could be conscious about what it means for them when they show their bodies, that wearing “revealing” clothes is not only part of a new female gender script, that there is a powerful message of reclamation behind showing our bodies, and that before we blindly follow the gender scripts society gives us, we should evaluate what society gets from us following that script. In choosing to wear more revealing clothing like most Gen-Z females, are they furthering patriarchy’s hypersexualization of young girls, or are they making a statement against that? It is 2023. The new woman is a rebel, a statement maker, a dismantler of the misogynistic oppression encoded in a female gender script that is designed to maintain the patriarchal status quo. Adolescent girls like my sister are so lucky that this gender script is evolving, that “doing” female can now be such a powerful narrative. I just wish they knew that before blindly showing their bodies to the patriarchy.