Altering yearbook photos perpetuates rape culture
Utah made national news again for another poor decision by one of its schools. The yearbook school pictures for certain girls were photoshopped to create a more modest dress. One girl’s spaghetti straps were deemed inappropriate; another girl had her tattoo airbrushed out. All for the sake of modesty.
It is not right when a symbol of freedom and personality must be snuffed out because a man may have impulses that he cannot control. It is not right when a woman has to be aware of how she dresses for fear that a man will become sexually aroused and harass her. Yet, altering photos, which are only considered immodest by some far right school bureaucrat, lays the blame for what men feel and how they respond to those feelings on the woman not on the man.
“Girls (teen girls) shouldn't be giving men/boys those ‘impulses.’” This is the quintessential argument that some men make to justify the idea of dressing modestly. The Flight of the Conchords summed it up perfectly in She’s So Hot. “I want to tell her how hot she is, but she’ll think I’m being sexist. She’s so hot she’s making me sexist. Bitch.”
The idea that men are out of control horndogs who think only with their smaller heads is an outdated notion that every man should be offended by. If a male isn’t able to control his impulses, then he is no man. He is an animal who has forsaken reason for baser urges rather than take responsibility for his perception of chemicals coursing through his body and how he chooses to deal with them.
It is not right when a symbol of freedom and personality must be snuffed out because a man may have impulses that he cannot control. It is not right when a woman has to be aware of how she dresses for fear that a man will become sexually aroused and harass her. Yet, altering photos, which are only considered immodest by some far right school bureaucrat, lays the blame for what men feel and how they respond to those feelings on the woman not on the man.
“Girls (teen girls) shouldn't be giving men/boys those ‘impulses.’” This is the quintessential argument that some men make to justify the idea of dressing modestly. The Flight of the Conchords summed it up perfectly in She’s So Hot. “I want to tell her how hot she is, but she’ll think I’m being sexist. She’s so hot she’s making me sexist. Bitch.”
The idea that men are out of control horndogs who think only with their smaller heads is an outdated notion that every man should be offended by. If a male isn’t able to control his impulses, then he is no man. He is an animal who has forsaken reason for baser urges rather than take responsibility for his perception of chemicals coursing through his body and how he chooses to deal with them.
The real problem is that women could wear potato sacks with long sleeves, and men would still have those impulses. Perhaps, it is time that men learned that women are not giving them impulses. Those impulses are something that the men are having and have nothing to do with the woman. Instead, they have to do with the objectification of women and what society sees as the appropriate response to a specific set of artificially defined characteristics known as desirable in our society. Altering photos of girls in high school for modesty's sake perpetuates the idea that it is the woman's fault if a man becomes aroused. It also perpetuates rape culture.
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You'll have to add the long sleeves yourself.