Why Do Teen Girls Dress The Way They Do?

Girls are wearing revealing clothes at younger and younger ages. Why do they do it? Why do parents let them?

By Julie Rasicot

Jackie Fisher was beginning high school two years ago when she figured out that her developing figure was going to be her best asset.

So when the Bethesda teen dresses to go out with friends these days, she slips on a pair of jeans, flip-flops and a low-cut top.

It drives her mother crazy.

“I’m always telling her that you have to cover it up,” says Lisa Fisher. “You can’t just have it out there.”

But Jackie, a 16-year-old junior at Walter Johnson (WJ) High School, doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. “You feel like it’s one of your best features, so that’s what you want to show to people,” she says. “If people are looking...I don’t mind.”

Parents and daughters have been fighting over what is “appropriate” dress for generations. What woman doesn’t remember tangling with her mother over the hairstyles or fashions of the day? But some parents, educators and parenting experts say the undertones of the disagreement are different now, sharpened by the explosion of sexual imagery on television and the Internet, in movies and advertising, and in the marketing of sexy and provocative clothing to an ever-younger audience.

Saturated by these images, some teens have adopted styles that seem more suited for the red-light district than the school district. Some dress so casually that they show little understanding about what’s appropriate attire for a given situation.

“Coming to school is not like going to the pool, just like going to the pool is not like coming to school, and you should dress differently for those” activities, says Walter Johnson High School Principal Christopher Garran.

Today’s teens are bombarded with sexual imagery and innuendo the moment they turn on the TV, open a magazine or step into a shopping mall. Sex is used to sell all manner of products, from clothing to cars. Just check out “Live Unbuttoned,” the new advertising campaign for Levi’s jeans. The campaign “centers on the experience of ‘unbuttoning’ yourself and breaking free from inhibitions and convention,” according to the Levi Strauss & Co. Web site.

That translates into television ads starring young actors with their jeans unbuttoned suggestively and movie commercials depicting a couple flirting as they unbutton their jeans, undress and fall to the floor in a sexual embrace.
“One thing that has changed is how much our children are inundated with pop culture,” says Dr. Kay Abrams, a clinical psychologist in Kensington who conducts local parenting workshops and therapy groups for adolescent girls. “Kids are inundated with images and culture in a way that we weren’t. There wasn’t as much exposure to sex, sexuality and sexy things.”

Dr. Diane Levin, author of So Sexy So Soon and an education professor at Wheelock College in Boston, says much of the blame lies with the deregulation of children’s television in the 1980s, which made it legal to promote toys and other products linked to programming.
 
Toys, often based on TV characters,  became gender-specific, with those for boys targeting action and violence, and those for girls encouraging dressing up, looking like princesses and playing with such dolls as the sexy-looking Bratz collection—“the only girls with a passion for fashion,” according to Bratz.com.

“What we’re doing is teaching girls to view themselves as objects,” Levin says. “What they buy and how they look determines their value.”

The constant exposure has led girls to decide at even younger ages what they’re supposed to look like to be attractive, notes Silver Spring psychotherapist Laurie Young, who works with area teens and families. “I really do think that the sexual hormones start really, really young,” she says. “This whole idea to be attractive is tremendously, tremendously appealing. There’s power in it. Every girl loves to be pretty, regardless of age.”

And for teens and tweens, looking good is driven by what’s fashionable. While high school girls usually are focused on attracting boys, middle school girls are more likely to spend their energy trying to fit in and impress each other, girls and parents say.
 
But there’s a big difference between being cute and pretty and being provocative. Gaithersburg High School Principal Christine Handy-Collins notes that what is sexy today is different from when Handy-Collins, 45, and other parents of today’s teens were growing up in the 1970s and 1980s.

“You want to look good. You want to be fashionable. That’s always been the case,” she says. But “our mini[skirt] was different than their mini is.”

Lisa Fisher of Bethesda says she doesn’t remember having such battles over appropriate clothing when she was raising her two older daughters in the mid-’90s. The girls, now in their late 20s, attended a private school and wore uniforms. Although the uniforms made life easier, Fisher says there also weren’t as many issues over sexy clothing.

“I don’t remember struggling with them the way I struggle with these girls,” she says of Jackie and her younger sister, Anne-Marie, who is also a WJ student.

Teen Trendsetters
For today’s teens and preteens, stores like Aeropostale, PacSun, Forever 21, Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch represent shopping meccas, especially for many middle schoolers who live and die by the brands they buy. Although many of the fashions at these stores seem geared more for the 20-something crowd, dozens of girls can be found perusing the racks in shops at Montgomery Mall.

Even Victoria’s Secret is cashing in on the teen market with its Pink collection of pink-hued athletic wear, pajamas and underwear—supposedly marketed to college students, but in hot demand by the middle school crowd. And then there’s Juicy Couture, a pricey and sometimes suggestive line of clothing that few girls, it seems, can live without.

Teens’ standards for appropriate attire have changed so much that some girls don’t even realize their clothing might be considered inappropriate. They say they are only following current fashions at a time when showing bra straps is de rigueur and when body-hugging tank tops and camisoles with spaghetti straps line the shelves of trendy stores along with skirts and shorts that barely skim the tops of thighs.

“My mom gets mad because lots of times my bra straps show and she doesn’t like that,” says Anne-Marie Fisher, the WJ sophomore.

But she and her friends don’t see the problem. “No one really focuses on them,” she says. “They focus more on the outfit.”

Eighteen-year-old Katie Friedman and 17-year-old Sahar Nesvaderani, both of whom graduated from Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville last spring, like trendy clothes. But “we’re more modest,” Katie says while pulling up her strapless top during an August shopping trip at Montgomery Mall.
“I won’t wear Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister. Everyone looks the same,” Katie explains. “There’s nothing that really fits a body type that’s not stick straight.”

Sahar, however, is an Abercrombie fan. “It’s not, like, flashy,” she says. “It’s appropriate.”

Levin, the Wheelock College professor, says the teens’ attitudes reflect marketing messages about what is fashionable. So, while parents may think today’s fashions show too much skin, teens consider such clothing as low-cut tops and rolled-up shorts to be the norm because that’s what they see everyone wearing.
 
But some teens say the girls who take it an extra step and couple the super-short skirt with the tight, low-cut, clingy top, or show their underwear outside the back of their jeans, are going too far.

“They’ve come to develop ideas about slutty-looking girls,” Levin says. But teens don’t realize that what they consider acceptable also may be over the edge, she says.

Cindi Pollack of Bethesda says she worries more that her two daughters, 12-year-old Natalie and 17-year-old Jessica, dress too casually rather than provocatively. But she acknowledges that the casual look of sweatpants and a camisole, preferred by Jessica, can be “sexy in its own way.” And it’s bothersome that some of today’s styles make girls look older than their years, she says.

Pollack recalls feeling uncomfortable when walking in public with one of her daughters. “I see men looking because she’s got short shorts on. That bothers me,” she says. “They may be 14, but they look like women. That’s too young. They’ve got a whole lifetime to be women.”

The Right Impression
Parents’ discomfort over their daughters’ clothing choices is normal, experts say. That’s because parents are “thinking with the sexual brains of adults,” rather than realizing that teens may not yet see things as adults do, says Abrams, the clinical psychologist in Kensington.

“As parents, we’re facing a generation that’s facing so many confusing images before they’re sexual beings,” she says. “How do you teach teens what exploitation is? They don’t get it yet because they’re not sexual beings. Our responsibility is to teach them.”

Parents have to remember that for teens in puberty, getting attention is the goal, and some may not yet understand the difference between positive and negative attention, Abrams says. “We’ve got to walk a fine line. We want [them] to celebrate being a woman,” she says. “We certainly don’t want to shame them.”

Aparna de Weever of Bethesda knows firsthand how difficult it is to get her 12-year-old daughter, Malaika, to understand why certain clothing is not appropriate. “She’s not crazy about my nagging, but when she walks out the door, she doesn’t walk out alone. She represents her mom and dad and her grandparents and her family,” says de Weever, a physician whose family is from India. “I had to specifically tell her that I saw a particular mom looking at her and rolling her eyes. I don’t want guilt by association.”

And though de Weever tries to interest her daughter in being a different kind of trendsetter by offering to buy better-quality, more-appropriate clothes, the North Bethesda Middle School eighth-grader is happy with the brands that she and her friends prefer.

“They’re comfortable and I like the way they look,” Malaika says.
Not all girls are into wearing provocative fashions. Even in today’s sexualized climate, some girls favor more conservative clothing or choose comfort over style.

“A lot of this, to me, boils down to that whole thing about acceptance— getting attention from your peers, the boys,” says Pollack, the Bethesda mom. “They’re trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be, and they all go about it in different ways.”

Chloe Nickens, 14, of Silver Spring, a freshman at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, says wearing uniforms to school probably helps ease the pressure to wear certain brands of clothing. She and her friends like to shop at a variety of stores, but most aren’t into wearing sexy clothes.
“Normally, we just think that looks kind of ridiculous, especially at this age. We just giggle,” she says.

Chloe, who is “not a Hollister person,” says she’s angry that Victoria’s Secret has opened its Pink store because “they’re marketing to, like, 10-year-old girls. It’s basically lingerie made for girls. It’s not right.”

Girls who aren’t into provocative clothing say they know that others wear it to get attention, even though the attention may be more negative than they’re seeking.

Sabrina Chanock of Potomac, a senior at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., says she’s not comfortable wearing suggestive clothing and thinks “it’s kind of sad” that girls want to draw that kind of attention from boys.

“Guys definitely notice it,” the 17-year-old says. “They realize she’s probably going to be ‘easy’. You don’t dress that way without looking for a response.”
     
Middle School Pressure
The desire to look good often begins in middle school, when sixth-graders are bitten by the fashion bug as they check out what the seventh- and eighth-graders are wearing. At some schools, the pressure to wear the right brands can be intense, leading to exclusion for those who can’t afford or don’t wear certain clothes.

At Thomas W. Pyle Middle School in Bethesda, students aren’t required to wear uniforms, but peer pressure is so strong that many students end up dressing the same way, Principal Michael Zarchin says. “It’s almost a student-imposed uniform,” he says. “It’s a shame, because not everyone has the same taste.”

Katey Lazarchik, whose 13-year-old daughter, Emma, is an eighth-grader at North Bethesda Middle School, says she is frustrated by her daughter’s need to buy expensive brands because that’s what her friends are wearing. “Our issue is more the brand attraction that her peer group is caught up in,” Lazarchik says. “At 13, at least with this group, they’re not developed. So a tank top on a 13-year-old is just a tank top.”

Bothered that her daughter insists on shopping at more-expensive stores, Lazarchik says she recently followed another mother’s lead and began giving Emma $150 per month to spend on clothing, her cell phone and social activities.

“I don’t see any way to control it. It comes from outside this house,” Lazarchik says of her daughter’s brand obsession. “It’s rampant through the schools. It’s rampant through society.”
 
Emma acknowledges that fitting in at school is important to her.
“You don’t want anyone to stare at you and think you’re weird,” she says.
Although she shops in stores frequented by her classmates, she sometimes wishes she didn’t spend so much on so few clothes, partly regretting the time she blew her whole month’s allowance on one pair of jeans.
 
But Emma’s not about to change her style and risk rejection by her classmates, even though she notices that the less popular kids “don’t really care what they wear. It’s probably better.

“I sometimes wish I could just wear a T-shirt and sweatpants, but I don’t want anyone judging me,” Emma says.

Pajamas in School?
For many girls, the pressure to wear the right clothes and fit in continues when they enter high school, where freshmen take their cues from older students.

“You’ll see a group of girls who have virtually the same outfit on,” says Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School Principal Karen Lockard, who can remember calling her friends when she was a teen to find out what everyone planned to wear.

Anne-Marie Fisher, the WJ sophomore, says looking good is not just about attracting attention from boys. “It’s not just guys. It’s also how your appearance is at school,” she says. “You want to make an impression on everyone. There’s lots of peer pressure in looking good. If something doesn’t look good, everyone notices.”

Jessica Pollack, a Wootton senior, recalls how hard she tried to fit in when she was a freshman. She straightened her hair every day and made sure she never wore the same outfit twice. “I don’t know who I was trying to impress,” she says.

Now that she’s in her final year, Jessica and her friends are taking a much more relaxed attitude toward clothing. They’re more likely to show up for class wearing sweatpants or pajama pants, topped with a camisole and a sweatshirt. “No one even bothers to put contacts in,” she says.

Jessica, who describes her style as bohemian, has friends who are into trendy clothes. But she much prefers creating her own casual look—maybe adding a scarf to an outfit—even if her parents disagree. “They’re always like, ‘You need to look nice.’ But I like wearing sweatpants because I’m comfy in it,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve been in Abercrombie in three years.”

Jessica’s mom, Cindi, says she tries to teach her daughters a sense of decorum, pointing out that the clothes they wear to school aren’t suitable to wear to a nice restaurant.

“They’re very adamant about not looking dressed up or like they tried,” she says.

Catherine Master of Bethesda thinks her daughter, Elizabeth, a freshman at Stone Ridge uses “good judgment” when choosing clothing, but she is baffled that Elizabeth, 14,  and her friends want to wear their UGG bedroom slippers or pajama pants whenever they can.

“They can’t wear slippers to school, but they do wear their slippers to the mall, shearling slippers in the middle of summer,” she says, noting that the issues she has with her daughter’s clothing are fairly minor. “All of us have to deal with what our kids are wearing. It’s more challenging for some families than others.” 

Why Not Just Say ‘No’? 
If parents are concerned about their daughters’ appearance, why do they buy clothing they don’t consider appropriate?

That’s not an easy question to answer, parents and experts say.
“There’s been a norm that girls will wear clothes that are more revealing at younger ages than they used to, and parents don’t seem to be stopping it,” says Patricia Dalton, a Washington psychologist who treats Bethesda-area teens. “When kids use the argument that this is what everybody is wearing, [parents] falter.”

“It is difficult for girls, because when they go shopping, that’s what’s being sold,” agrees Lockard, the B-CC principal.

Walt Whitman High School Principal Alan Goodwin says he has heard that excuse when he calls a parent to report a student who is inappropriately dressed. “The common response is, ‘That’s all they sell in the stores.’ To a common degree that’s true. But they sell lots of other things in stores,” he says. 

Experts and educators agree that the issue can be complicated by several factors. Some parents may give in and allow inappropriate clothing because they want to avoid conflict, while others may worry that their daughter won’t be popular if she’s not wearing the same clothes as her friends.

Sometimes, parents don’t have a clue what their daughter is actually wearing outside the house, educators and girls say. The parents may have prohibited certain clothing, only to have their daughter change outfits once she leaves home.

Sabrina Chanock, the senior at Sidwell Friends School, says she knows girls who hide their clothing under a big jacket or a sweatshirt when they leave the house, especially if they’re going to a theme party. For one such party, titled “Tennis Hos and Golf Pros,” girls wore “teeny skirts and sports bras,” Sabrina says. “Obviously, parents don’t want to see that.”

To counter the influences of peer pressure and the media, experts say parents need to educate their daughters about the sexual and cultural messages they are receiving and how they fit into their family’s values. Talking with children about media images will help them process what they’re seeing and provide an opportunity to deconstruct those messages, Abrams and Levin say.

“Because sex sells, we parents, more than ever, need to have a presence and be mindful to have values,” Abrams says.

When talking to children, parents should remember that a child’s point of view is different than an adult’s, Levin adds. “Adults need to figure out what kids are thinking, rather than punishing kids for things that make perfect sense because of what they’re exposed to.”

Young, the Silver Spring psychotherapist, says parents also need to keep in mind that, ultimately, battles with their daughters over clothing are an essential part of growing up.

“If it’s not happening on the clothing issue, it will be something else,” Young says. “It’s developmentally necessary for her to push the limits, and developmentally necessary for you to frustrate her.”

Julie Rasicot lives in Silver Spring.