Blog 25

The pros and cons of using sexualized behavior as "a weapon in the arsenal”. There are many women in this world who have used or will use their sexuality as a weapon and on the other hand there are women out there who will be accused of moving up in the corporate ladder due to their sexuality. I walk into a department store to shop for jeans with my daughter and as we go to check out we are meet by a woman who normally I would describe as being fairly attractive but at this moment the first worlds to go through my mind were what a slut. Her hair was long and well manicured, her makeup was soft and subtle and yet she had on a top that plunged so low that I waited nervously with each move she made wondering if this was going to be the moment that her breast was going to pop out her top. My thirteen year old instantly made eye contact with me rolling her eyes in disgust. Now I don’t see how when this woman got ready for work that day she put that top and looked at herself in the mirror and said “Yep this is professional and appropriate to wear to work”. I have worked several different places growing up and throughout my life and each place seemed to go over a dress code in the new employee orientation so who blame the woman for wearing that top to work or the employer that deems that sort of dress appropriate attire for their place of employment. I worked for an eye doctor once and I had a co-worker that like to dress according to what the younger girls were wearing often times forgetting that she was in her late forties. The tops were often times to tight showing more skin than they were probably designed to and the skirts and dressed seemed to get shorter and shorter. Now I worked for 2 female doctors in an office that consisted of all women with exception of the office manager who was male. This certain co-worker showed up one day for work wearing a jean skirt that was not only to tight but offensively short and I was delighted when she was approached by the doctor and told that her outfit was inappropriate for the standard they had set for the office and she needed to go home and return in a more appropriate outfit. I don’t know how many times I have sat amongst a group of woman and heard comments like “I wonder who she had to sleep with in order to get that” or “I wonder who’s attention she is trying to get by dressing like that”? I was not the innocent bystander when these comments were being made because frankly I was thinking the same thing. In a society that screams sexuality everywhere you look from billboards to television, to magazines how do we teach the youth of today that sex is not something to be used as a weapon or a tool to get what you want?