"Why has the pendulum swung back to a feeling that sexualization of women is fun and funny rather than insulting and uncomfortable?"

That was my favorite quote from Belkin's article. Obviously women can't be sexual on their own, they must have sexuality imposed on them by others. And that's bad. Or something. In answer to your question, Ms. Belkin, the pendulum swung back because being insulted and uncomfortable that men see you as a sexual being is ridiculous. In terms of feminism, I find it ludicrously anti-feminist to believe that women are passive in having sexuality thrust upon them and that's apparently the way it should be. You can't have it both ways, sister. With empowerment comes taking control of your own sexuality. And, you know, not whining about it, ideally.

The sad thing is, Belkin actually has a few good points in that article, it's just wrapped up in the PC pearl-clutching about women being "sexualized."

It seems that that old song, "Girls just wanna have fun" has different meanings.

For some that means looking sexy.

For some it means ruining people's fun.

They ask if thats why these girls came to college...well I have to return the question, did they go to college just to do battle against girls who like to look hot and men who like to have sex with them?

Or did they come to college for an education?

Well...the ones who go for womyns studies sure didn't go there for an education...its hard to imagine a less valuable major.

> Belkin actually has a few good points
> in that article

Share. Don't make us read it ourselves.

(I tried to powerscan it, but was compelled to bail... Her erotic detachment was just too profound.)

(Hey, Christopher!... You're a stuff-your-feelings kinda white guy, right?... You might like this piece!)

I've never before heard the term "sexualization of women". What a ridiculous term.

NumberSix is spot on. Women don't need to be "sexualized" because, to us men, they are inherently sexy. Imagine someone decrying the "orange-ification of pumpkins".

If a woman, nearly any woman, is wearing a hideous dress that looks like a burlap sack around town, I'm still going to discretely glance at her chest when she turns away and so will every man I know. It's biology.

@Whistle
Thank you for that. As a (rather well endowed) woman, I notice men not-so-discreetly glancing at my chest rather often. It doesn't matter if I'm dressed to the nines, or in sweats, or like a slutty schoolgirl. I generally just laugh it off, as long as the glances don't turn into leering. (So does my husband, who is in fact rather proud that his "hot wife" still gets looks)

A friend of mine who buys into just about everything feminist mandated, is genuinely upset on my behalf when it happens while we're out together. She simply can't understand why it wouldn't bother me that men like to look at women, in particular women's breasts.

Of course, being that she buys into feminist theory, she doesn't wear make-up, doesn't shave her legs, and doesn't think about her outfits before going out into public.

Point being, I like to look nice for the sake of it (no, being married hasn't changed that) so why should it bother me that men like to look? As you pointed out, it's in men's biology to look.

As a straight woman, I can appreciate a woman who is beautiful and sexy and at times find my eye wandering to check another woman out. Unfortunately the radicals ruin it for the rest of us and make it seem as if every look is a sign of disrespect or a form of rape.

My friend's daughter went to a party like this one. It was called ho's and something, and the girl has a killer body and made a great ho. She is not normally a conservative dresser and if I had her body I wouldn't be either. That's what the radicals miss. She has a good body image and likes to look sexy. That's not because some man is forcing it. Do we need to be aware that eating disorders are a factor? Yes. But does that mean that we should completely desexualize women? No freakin way!

I'd hazzard a guess that none of the 300 invitations went to the harridans writing this article in the Times.

If I'm not having fun, you can't either. That is the real issue. The rest is mere posturing.

I don't know, though, I don't agree that micro mini skirts = beauty.

For most of human history women have worn long skirts, even in eras where youth and beauty were much more important than they are today.

I blame Coco Chanel. According to the Audrey Tatou movie, its HER fault we aren't wearing beautiful lacy gowns. Bitch!

I heard about that sociology conference, what a bunch of lameness. A couple years ago I went to the society for the scientific study of sexuality's conference, which was also in Vegas that time. We appreciated the non-conference activities much more apparently, there were no complaints. :-)

And on the length of skirt thing, what looks sexy depends a lot of body shape, height etc. Amy rocks her long fitted skirts (curvy butt etc). I look ridiculous in them and much better in the current tiered mini skirts (lack of curvy butt). Sooner or later (hopefully) we all figure out the best looks for us and stick with them regardless of fashion trends.

DJs on the morning show I listen to, yesterday:
"It's like flipping through the new Victoria's Secret catalog and someone's stuck that new Dove ad in it."
(They were talking about women who date online but use old pictures- from many, many sizes ago.)

Speaking of bullshit, Belkin manages to tuck in an old bullshit rape stat at the end:

Let me preface this by stating that I think that rape is a heinous crime and should be punished severely.

But it's also apparent that some women deliberately promote exaggerated rape statistics, probably knowing that they're not true. I think that rape is Feminism's answer to slavery, or the holocaust. It's a way for women to claim the mantle of victimhood, even if they've never experienced such victimization. The claim that 1/4 college women are sexually assaulted flies in the face of all available evidence, and the experience of women who've ever attended college. Because unless there's some unknown phenomenon by which college women develop amnesia about sexual assaults once they graduate, they are not actually experiencing what the Feminists claim that they are experiencing.

Thanks. I've never been to Las Vegas, but my daughter is going to be presenting her paper at a conference there, so that deficiency will be remedied next year. I'll probably blow a few bucks gambling, just so I can say I did it, but I'm going for the food, shows, and to see my kid.

I don't get the Puritans. That's all they are. Somebody is having fun, and they weren't invited. There are certain activities that people enjoy that I wouldn't consider fun (rock climbing for starters), but I wouldn't knock it. It would be a messed up world if all of us were waiting in line to climb a mountain...

I must be missing the authoritarian gene. I've enough to do running my life.

I'm more worried about the lack of proofreading. Mean Girls got it right: Halloween is the only day where you can dress like a total slut and no one can say anything about it!

My reaction to that e-mail would be "Pff. I think not," and then deleting it. Which I think is about the scope of reaction that it calls for.

There are real, legitimate concerns about student safety (and yes, that includes sexual assault) on college campuses, but I think this is a bit over the top.

I would like to complain about our degraded overly-sexualized marketplace that has led me, a man, to do things like

* attend a top-tier university and double-major
* launch two startups
* become proficient at guitar playing and woodworking
* write a novel

Whether through conscious choice, societal pressure, or genetic determinism, I have done these things largely to improve my "sexual market value".

...and thus I am being oppressed.

NumberSix hit the nail on the head! I agree completely that, as a society, we need to realize that women are sexually capable beings.

Plus, I thought we had mostly agreed that it isn't productive to blame a female rape victim by saying that she deserved it because she was dressed like a slut? I believe that the VAST majority of men are entirely capable of being sexually attracted to a woman and NOT rape her. We disgrace both sexes if we pretend that short skirts lead to rape. Or maybe I'm wrong and we should require that college attending women wear burkas?

at the risk of being too simplistic...
I have known many many women, who look at most guys like they just bit a lemon...
but for that one Adonis, their knickers hit the floor supersonic. And if they never meet him in the right place and the right time they will write off half the human race.

And they feel righteous about doing so, about being indignant on another's behalf.

I wish there was a better answer than just avoiding them, since they are liable to get up to mischief... but I have noted that there is a growing cohort of women, like the ones that went to this party at Duke, that think they should STFU.

Essentially this is a problem that will only be fixed by other women, because they will never listen to us, no matter how reasoned the argument.

About that 1 in 4 stat - My alma mater, the University of Toronto, has 77,000 students currently enrolled. About 56 % are female. Of course there are thousands of women on the faculty & in administration who are also presumably targets of campus rapists. Over a 10 year period, at least 120,000 women would have passed through one of the 3 campuses. The campus police publish detailed annual reports which show that over the past 10 years (2001 - 2010) a total of 39 sexual assaults were reported, only some of which led to charges. If only 1 in 100 rapes were reported to police, it would still be nowhere near 1 in 4 women. Data like this are available for every campus on the continent, so someone must have an awfully big axe to grind for that claim to persist for decades in the face of all evidence.

Articles like this always remind me of Olivia Newton-John in Grease. Sure, that final outfit was slutty. And every woman I know, including myself, wishes they could do that, just once!

Then again, I and my friends used to be part of the science-fiction and Society for Creative Anachronism crowd, where dressing slutty was frequently part of the general ambience.

Yes. Yes. I hate the pseudo feminism that seeks to turn women into female men. Not good, and certainly not as nature intended.

However, I would simply point out that there is a vast difference between dressing slutty and dressing sexy. No, really. And a woman who enjoys looking drop dead sexy should not need to be considered a slut. The term slut, like it or not, refers to something specific and is pejorative. Sexy, on the other hand, is awesome in all ways.

That is all.

These stats are probably bogus but it would do the debunkers credit to go beyond the campus cops and check with the police department as well. "Not reported to campus police" doesn't mean "not reported to the police".

As for the skirt/shoes combo, wear what you like - but don't complain if someone you consider unattractive takes notice!

"but don't complain if someone you consider unattractive takes notice!"

That's another thing--women whose real complaint is that the wrong person is staring at them.

As to rape: I was at Fort Jackson in the late seventies. There were a lot of rapes there. The women were all in uniform.

You just don't get much more enticing than khaki! Or maybe it was the boots.

I've complained long and loud about Halloween Whore-er but that's mostly because guys get the cool costumes and I'm left looking at "Sexy Ninja Turtle." Oh well, homemade costumes are more fun anyhow.

From the article:

As parents around the country send their children to campuses for the start of another academic year, what are we to make of the fact that lessons of equality, respect and self-worth have been heard when it comes to the classroom, but lost somewhere on the way to the clubs? … Odds are that the women dancing at that Duke party had mothers who attended more than one Take Back the Night march in their college days. What has changed? 

Nothing. Reality bites.

Women are specialized, dependent, and vulnerable. There are precisely two things women can do men can't, and men have made one of them optional.

In contrast, there are hundreds, thousands perhaps, of things women cannot or will not do.

Consequently, a man will have far greater material impact on a woman's life than vice versa. Combined with the unfortunate fact (God is such a kidder!) that the large majority of women make suitable mates, while the same can be said for far fewer men, women must compete for suitable men. The payoff for competing successfully is huge -- far more for women than merely possessing a college degree.

And it is not just at Princeton and Duke where you can find gender relationships that would not be described as evolved.

Belkin appears to have less than a glancing familiarity with the concept of evolution.

So, is this all harmless? Late last spring, Princeton hosted 1,300 alumnae for a weekend celebration of progress called “She Roars.”

"She doth protest too loudly." Shakespeare is timeless.

What the performers onstage that night saw as ribald fun, she wrote, was at the root of statistics like “one in four women will be sexually assaulted on a college campus.” 

That stinking heap of statistical abuse is further proof that to be a Progressive requires heroic delusion and an affinity for bald-faced lying.

One way they got to that number is by adopting a definition for sexual assault that covers anything more proximate than sharing a bus.

Using their definition, I have been "sexually assaulted" four or five times in my life. I'll bet my experience is not unusual.

Of course no one, not even Belkin, would consider those instances sexual assault. Flip the coins, though, and it is.

Feminists, unconsciously embracing irony, think women are delicate, easily victimized flowers.

[Belkin] taught a class about the tools of journalism …

Belkin is a tool of journalism. A simple tool.

That was a great Vegas conference, Dr. Amy. :-)
And if you never noticed the lack of butt curves, the short skirts work. :-)

However, I would simply point out that there is a vast difference between dressing slutty and dressing sexy.

A lot of young women must pass through slutty on the way to sexy, too. It's like makeup: many girls start out with WAY too much before figuring out it's not about just slapping it all on and hoping for the best. Most of those sluttily-dressed college girls won't dress slutty forever once they figure out that sexy does not necessarily mean showing everything all at once.

Stupid, risky behavior does correlate with slutty dressing, but it's not a causal relationship. Binge drinking in a frat house isn't caused by a teeny skirt; they're both just symptoms.

Ditto on the floor-length skirts, Catherine, but for a different reason. I have the curves, but I'm only a hair over 5'1, so most long skirts make me look about three feet tall. If I wear something long, it has to be a dress so as to lengthen, not a skirt to chop me in half.

Odds are that the women dancing at that Duke party had mothers who attended more than one Take Back the Night march in their college days. What has changed?

Young women recognized their mothers' hysterical and bigoted beliefs for what they are and rejected them?

I'd attended college in the 90's, when TBTN was in its heyday and don't remember it having much to do with equality, respect and self-worth. It was basically a bunch of anti-male zealots trying to convince young women that they were rape victims. I remember that they would march around campus screaming threats at men through a megaphone and then they'd have a big bonfire and burn men in effigy.

Hmm, Duke... that name rings a bell somehow... something that happened there... maybe... well, it probably wasn't important. Never mind. Maybe this year, Sigma Nu should have a hijab party. All women will attend in full cover. They will all be generically referred to as "hey you" and no attempt will be made to determine who is who.

Rest assured, Ms. Belkin, that in a few more years you wymiun (or whatever the word of the day is) won't have to endure the attentions of disgusting, perverted men much longer. That's because, at the rate things are going, a few years from now there won't be any men on campus anymore.

The term is "wopeople", people.

I thought we were going with "wombyn" still. Dammit I missed another memo.

This might seem a bit savage, but think of dressing suggestively like pulling a gun.

Lady, if you advertise that you have great power, please take the time first to learn how to use it. It will actually be obvious to your audience.

Like the gun, you can have something taken from you if you don't know how and when to use it.

And the tragedies are not as frequent as professional doomsayers insist, but they still occur.

Sadly, these womyn will never know the fun I had yesterday, when I walked to the post office in my snug T-shirt and best bra. (I wore jeans and sandals, too, just to be clear.) More men than usual smiled. I smiled back. It was loads of fun. I'm 33 and only in the past five years have become comfortable enough in my body to stop wearing clothes three sizes too big, and I intend to enjoy it before everything sags to my knees.

And Jeff, you must be loads of fun at parties.

My daughter recently got into an energetic discussion with one of her teachers by disagreeing with the woman's assertion that "Women working in the porn industry only do so because they were sexually abused as children." My Kid told her that that was crap, a woman that is comfortable in her beauty and sexuality can choose such a career for other reasons, and many women have built their own companies in the porn industry by being both beautiful and smart.

Her teacher called her privately and told her to stop being 'confrontational', which I read as a "sit down and shut up, kid." Guess the Comfy Shoes couldn't handle it.

I had a teacher tell me that once, I said 'Fair enough, if you stop being stupid' didnt go over too well