We’re Sending Girls Mixed Messages About Body Exposure
I was one of the lucky 62,417 people who got to watch the Super Bowl in person. I’m a full-time wheelchair user, and managed to score two tickets at face value through an ADA ticket lottery. While I was excited enough about the game as a huge football fan, as a Latina born to Cuban immigrants, I was even more excited about the halftime show with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.
This year’s Super Bowl was in Miami, where I essentially grew up and went to college. There are few things I truly miss about the days when I could still walk prior to my MS diagnosis, and dancing to salsa and merengue ranks high on that short list. When the music started on that clear and cool night at Hard Rock Stadium, I absolutely lost my mind. Shakira and J Lo looked absolutely stunning, and I was mesmerized by their costumes, dancing, and sheer artistry and athleticism. These were my women representing my heritage.
I was sitting in section 132 behind the end zone, so the stage was far away. We had a better view of everything from the huge Jumbotron screens in each corner of the stadium, and it was clear that their costumes were high on glamour and short on fabric. Their dance moves were sexy, sensual, provocative, and energetic. It was everything you would expect and could hope for from two Latina artists performing in Miami.
The audience in the stadium was going absolutely nuts, and everybody was raving about the performance. That’s why I was so shocked at the negative reactions I was seeing online and on social media when I got back to my hotel. Many others loved it as much as I did, but my more conservative and religious friends were complaining that it was inappropriate, and even disgusting.
Over the next 48 hours, I started noticing a pattern. The vast majority of complaints were coming from older, white, politically conservative, and religious mothers. A common thread in their commentary was the negative effect the halftime show would have on young girls (e.g. their daughters), specifically because of the stripper pole and the exposure of the performers’ backsides and “crotch shots.”
Huh.
I don’t have daughters; I’m a single mom of two adolescent boys. However, I was a young girl once. I have young nieces, and best friends with young daughters. I’m very attuned to the objectification and sexualization of women, and especially young girls. That’s why the hypocrisy of these mothers crying foul about female performers’ crotch shots started making my head explode.
From the age of four (or maybe younger), mothers are putting their daughters in skin-tight leotards for gymnastics and lycra bodysuits for ice skating performances. Turn on any national or Olympic performance of gymnastics, and you will see hundreds of underage girls exposing their most private areas with only a few centimeters of fabric for modesty while flying through the air. You will see the same on the ice as teenage girls hold an ankle next to their heads while spinning at dizzying speeds, or high school cheerleaders performing stunts on the sidelines.
Why are mothers not only not disturbed by this exposure of their daughters’ most intimate parts to global audiences and potentially sexual predators, but encouraging it? Do a Google search for “crotch shots” and “gymnastics” or “cheerleading,” and you’ll see that collections of these photos proliferate on the Internet. Your daughter may even be in one of these crotch shot photo collections.
There’s also a lack of similar outrage toward other supposedly family-friendly performance situations. Dancing With the Stars airs at 8PM on ABC, which is a primetime slot. Plenty of parents watch this program with their kids, and performances exhibit skimpy costumes, sexual dance moves, and crotch shots galore. Watch a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader performance, and you’ll get a kick line filled with crotch shots. Watch a women’s Olympic beach volleyball match, and there’s very little left to the imagination.
So what are young girls supposed to take away from these mixed messages about female body exposure? Is it okay to expose that sacred space between your legs when it’s an athletic performance, but not during a dance? And are some dance performances more okay than others? How can we explain to them with a straight face that what they see from cheerleaders and a TV show is okay, but a halftime Super Bowl performance isn’t?
It’s hard for me to understand where some mothers draw the line. It’s also hard to separate these complaints from cultural differences and misunderstandings. White Americans tend to be considerably more body conscious and modest compared to Europeans, Africans, and Latin Americans. Any visit to a beach in Rio de Janeiro or the French Riviera can attest to that. I can picture many Americans shifting uncomfortably in their seats at a dance performance at the Tropicana in Havana or in Cape Town, South Africa.
While Shakira and J Lo’s dance moves were definitely sensual and their costumes revealing, their performances were no more about sex itself than those of gymnasts or cheerleaders or ice skaters. By saying their movements and physical exposure were shameful or disgusting, what message are we sending to young girls who routinely wear millimeter-thin skintight leotards and expose their crotches while performing for strangers?
The biggest mistake we can make when evaluating or comparing examples of body exposure by women is to assume that when done suggestively, it’s automatically about sex, and thus shameful. It’s also a mistake to believe that just because an adolescent girl shows her crotch to the world during an athletic event, it’s automatically innocent and non-exploitative.
The hypocrisy needs to stop. Instead of sending young girls mixed messages about body exposure, let’s teach them about ownership of their bodies. Let’s empower them to decide what makes them uncomfortable and what they’re proud to show without moral judgment. Let’s also stop shaming other women for making their own decisions about what to do with their bodies while performing.
About the Author: Sylvia Longmire is an award-winning accessible travel writer, a service-disabled Air Force veteran, and the former Ms. Wheelchair USA 2016. She travels around the world, usually solo, in her power wheelchair to document the accessibility of her destinations through articles, photography, and video. Sylvia is also the owner of an accessible travel agency, President of the nonprofit scholarship fund The PreJax Foundation, and a staunch advocate for accessibility in Central Florida. She is a brand ambassador for O, The Oprah Magazine, the author of three accessible travel books, and the creator of the Spin the Globe accessible travel blog.
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