TikToker @ericasaysstuff recently asked dads of daughters to tell about the moment they realized the oversexualization of women starts incredibly young. Michael Vaughn, a husband and proud father of a 14-month-old daughter, Eleanor, had a lot to say about that matter.
“It was 100% the clothes. And I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't know how bad,” Michael stated in a TikTok video which amassed a whopping 3.3 million views. He then continued to tell his concerns about the systematic sexism which became obvious when shopping for clothes for his daughter.
So let’s see Michael’s eye-opening video right below, which will surely make us question the ways our society may be reinforcing this toxic mindset at the most vulnerable and earliest age, often without us adults even noticing it.
Michael, a dad of a 14-month-old daughter, responded to a TikToker asking dads to share how they realized that girls are being oversexualized at a very young age
He said it was while shopping for clothes for his daughter that he noticed things were very bad
Bored Panda reached out to Michael Vaugh, a proud dad, husband, and educational presenter and trainer who has worked in higher education for 15 years where he helped faculty, staff, and students find new ways to use technology to enhance their teaching and learning.
These days, Michael is taking TikTok by storm with his educational videos where he has tackled various useful parenting topics like best baby items in a car, understanding the phenomenon of cuteness aggression, and covering infant health outcomes.
Michael told us that it all started when “a friend of ours had recommended it a few months into the pandemic. My partner and I had our baby about a month before the pandemic started. Having a pandemic baby turned out to be extremely difficult. One thing I wasn’t able to do with our daughter that I’d really been looking forward to was volunteering with a local class called Boot Camp For New Dads.”
Michael said that “but by the time the class I was scheduled to volunteer for came around, our state was already in lockdown due to COVID,” so he got into TikTok. “It turned out to be a great outlet for sharing some of the things I’d learned with other new dads. The community on the app is really something special,” he added.
When asked how big of a problem the systematic over-sexualization of girls really is, Michael said it's pretty significant. “Clothes are just one example. I’d encourage anyone seeing this to go read through the comments on the video. There are literally hundreds (possibly thousands given the volume of comments) of women sharing experiences being catcalled, shamed, and sexualized starting at a very young age.”
“But to focus on the clothes in particular: When you compare girls clothes to boy clothes, seemingly everything related to size is different. According to the United States Center for Disease Control's growth charts, the average difference in size between a 36-month-old boy and girl is about half an inch and three-quarters of a pound.”
According to him, “despite this nearly imperceptible difference, girl’s clothes are often tighter than boys clothes in the same size, are made of flimsy and transparent fabric, and have shorter sleeves, shorter midriffs, shorter inseams, and lower necklines.”
“In the meantime, young boys have clothes that are durable, protective, and emphasize power in their sayings and iconography. The disparities in clothing are just one-way society reinforces the toxic mindset that female bodies are intended to be displayed, and conditions young girls to believe objectification is normal,” Michael explained.
Michael doesn't think it should be this difficult to find what he calls "platonic clothing" for children
And this is what people had to comment on it
