Letters: Girls' clothing is too grown-up

The Lane Filler column "Kids, harassment and our coarser world" [Opinion, Nov. 10], touching on how girls dress -- or actually, "undress" might be a more appropriate way to describe their appearance -- begs the absolute need to implement a dress code in our schools.

The American Civil Liberties Union's argument that implementing such a code is a violation of the First Amendment is not only flawed but totally misguided.

The question that needs to be asked is, where are the parents? Why do they allow their teen and sometimes preteen daughters to set foot out of their houses in provocative attire?

As the column so correctly focuses on the "undress" of female students in our schools, a pervasive situation, one can only conclude that their parents have abrogated their authority and, in effect, run up the white flag.

Proper attire contributes to self-esteem, respect and in some cases is even a factor in improved academic performance.

Stanley L. Ronell, Port Washington
 

Columnist Lane Filler states, "our kids are too sexualized . . . particularly girls." A previous Newsday article, "Battle of the Blush" [Explore LI, Nov. 2], partially explains why.

As mothers, shouldn't we be asking why 8-year-olds are being marketed makeup and beauty products, instead of asking which lip gloss they could wear? Girls are not only growing up too soon, they're clearly being sexualized younger.

Our society teaches girls that their value equals their body, beauty and sexuality. Knowing how our culture and media relentlessly erode our daughters' self-esteem by pushing premature, impossible and sexualized standards of "beauty," we as mothers must step up to the plate and set clear limits, regardless of the backlash that ensues, whether from our daughters or society.

Remember Tipper Gore? She had the audacity to ask the music industry to provide warnings regarding obscene lyrics on album covers. She was called a prude, puritanical and repressed.

If we've become so blind that we can't see what's wrong with a teen wearing revealing clothes, then we need to re-evaluate our standards and values as women, mothers and role models for young, naive and impressionable girls who are desperate for approval and attention.

We should be asking why we allow the most emotionally constipated, mentally twisted and morally bankrupt in our society to set cultural standards for our daughters: nose-in-the-air fashion designers and editors who perceive walking skeletons as "supermodels"; marketing and advertising executives who try to convince us they're only selling us what "we" want; executives who allow sexual saturation in movies, music, video games, radio, Internet and television in the name of greed; corrupt lawyer-politicians who try to convince us our forefathers embraced the First Amendment's right to free speech so Playboy centerfolds and Internet pornography could exist.

Quite a motley crew of players and yet we hand them over our daughters' self-esteem without enough question.

JoAnn Sweezey, Huntington Station