Boys also aren't allowed to wear bikinis, and their swimsuits are (usually) shorts already.
No white Tees is BS though.
However, without context, I would hazard a guess that the summer camp has a religious affiliation (most do). My YMCA affiliated summer camp required that all campers attend chapel on Sunday. I "learned" the "hard way" that not participating at chapel was "punished" by being sent to the cafeteria to play games and eat extra breakfast with the non-christian staffers.
“punished” by being sent to the cafeteria to play games and eat extra breakfast with the non-christian staffers
Makes perfect sense! I want to know what their logic is behind this. I imagine it's a mixture of prejudice and plain stupid.
Their logic was "it's easier to put this kid somewhere else, than it is to answer the questions he asks"
Maybe if we didn't divide people by sex and assign gender norms from birth we would learn how to interact before puberty without sexual objectification. It would make navigating teenage years a lot easier if we started than with a gender/sex diverse social group opposed to the current default being through the lens of objectification.
we would learn how to interact before puberty without sexual objectification.
Most kids do if you leave them alone. It's the adults that have them problems with it. I had zero interest in sex until at least 15 at the earliest. Adults are the problem, as per usual.
That's interesting, I remember thinking teachers classmates moms were hot when I was in kindergarten and 1st grade. I didn't really know what to do with that feeling but it was definitely there.
It's interesting that in the military that is largely flipped. There's pages of rules for what facial hair is allowed, how long it can be, how far past the corner of the mouth it can be, the length of both individual hairs as well as bulk and where hair can be, one specific uniform for each occasion, nail length (kept short) with no color, and all manner of other things.
On the women's side, they get a wide variety of hairstyles (including any and all that men have), longer nails allowed, multiple shirt, pant/skirt, and shoe options for formal wear, and the rules are generally less rigidly followed.
The amount of men butthurt by the difference in standards is hilarious. It's like "oh, first time?" I guarantee they didn't make a fuss when their high school didn't allow spaghetti straps.
Although I have to say it doesn't make sense there either. Either short hair is necessary, than everybody should have it. Or it isn't. Gendered hair styles are stupid.
Okay but when in uniform women must have their hair slicked back and pulled up as though they have no hair at all. Same as men not being allowed to have big hair.
But then men should also be allowed to have long hair and pull it up.
True. Sounds like it's an old fashioned concept from the 1950s when civilized obedient well-mannered men were all expected to have short hair.
Here we go again, women and girls being responsible for how men and boys behave.
that's a good way to put it, it's victim blaming in a way
It's quite literally victim blaming. Blaming girls for boys and even adult men from being unable to stop themselves from sexually assaulting them.
American prudishness is weird as fuck.
You can thank our psychotic Evangelical Christians. Bunch of pseudo-puritan nutjobs. They have no issues sinning, but want to make sure that no one else can.
A lot of the anti-abortion folks have had abortions. A lot of the anti-gay folks, have a gay sidepiece or have engaged in sexual acts with someone of the same sex. A lot of the folks that are anti-drug are some of the biggest drug offenders.
Like, at what point do Christians wake up and go, wow, these people are absolutely scum...why am I associating with them?
The funny things about the boys rules is that they mostly boil down to "don't let us catch you looking too much like a girl" but also "don't let us catch you looking too much like an adult man, either"
No long hair. But also no facial hair.
No piercings. No visible tattoos. Nothing that might look like a weapon (including combs, heavy shoes, and tshirts with pictures of guns on them).
No eyeliner or hairspray or jewelry. Nothing too punk but also nothing too fruity. Absolutely nothing that might be scary looking. Or drug affiliated. Or queer.
Heaven fucking help you if you look queer. Summer camps hate that.
The only thing worse than looking LGB is looking T+ heaven forbid your gender identity doesn't fit the binary you were assigned at birth
Mens fashion is all about compliance with the uniform
As someone who was abused, it's always the girl's fault. Just existing is enough. This is especially reinforced in Christian and camp circles, because one of the first stories you learn is all sin started with Eve, and women are why we're all damned.
Men are tempted, women are tempters – that's how it's always been.
This just reminded me of the "self-defense training for girls" we had in 8th or 9th grade. It boiled down to "Every man potentially wants to hurt you." Someone walking behind you? Turn around and yell at them to stop it. A man standing too close to you? Yell "Back off".
Of course the situations were all mundane and it was pretty clear you couldn't just yell at or confront any man that comes within ~3 meters of you. So all that "training" did was give me the uneasy feeling that if something happened, it would be my fault. I didn't preemptively yell at the man within the first few seconds of seeing him.
Shorts over bathing suits is such a weird one to me. Like... Bathing suit is fine in the water, going in to the water, getting out of the water. But you best cover that shit up for lake activities or whatever. Like what a weird line to draw.
Edit: You know what? These are all really weird. Like... No white t shirts? Are you afraid of them getting wet and maybe revealing the bathing suit they are probably wearing underneath? No two peice bathing suit? Because heaven forbid you show off the most sexual part of the body - the stomach? Like... That's the difference between a one peice and a two piece, right? The stomach? The back? Maybe it's to reduce the chance of a "wardrobe malfunction"?
I dont know.
This is for a kids summer camp? Who is the no white T-shirt rule for, the camp staff?
i'd react the same way cuz i hate unequal gender division.
if they tell her she has to wear something different they should also tell boys to wear something different.
i hope it bothers her also when rules are unequal against males too. If so, good daughter. Smite those gender divisions.
As once a boy & now a man. It's simple. Be embarrassed. This applies to any form of sexuality or gender.
I've been fit for my entire life and wished it wouldn't be weird for me to wear a T-shirt while swimming.
There's always more than two sides. That's why I don't flip coins, I roll dice.
these are the boys' rules.
No rules about femboys though? I see a loophole here.
I don't think Linux devs go to summer camps...
Maybe don't refer to femboys when talking about 12 year olds?
Being a femboy isn't inherently sexual.
Americans when they learn that cross-dressing isn't considered adult only in other places. Sure you have RuPaul's drag race which is very sexualised, but that isn't the only type of cross-dressing that exists.
Also the rules listed are actually sexualising girls. I would rather mock the rules instead. The femboys are not the problem here.
Well fuck, when you're right you're right.
Just kind of a gut reaction, as that's how the world treats them, but that's not really fair.
To be fair, boys swimsuits are already basically just shorts, there's not much to make rules about. If a boy turned up in a speedo, there'd probably be a new rule.
Yeah, more often than not the lack of rules for men's clothing is because culturally, what's thought of as "men's clothing" is so boring that there's no way it could be sexualized.
Seriously here are the bathing suit options for men: Shorts, Smaller Shorts with no pockets (speedo), Cargo Shorts, Shorts with a T-Shirt and (theoretically, I don't even know where you'd buy one) a one-piece. Everything else, mankini or g-string or whatever, is lingerie and is covered under "decency laws" so you don't have to explicitly address it in your summercamp rules (the reason pants arent included in "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service")
Meanwhile every bathing suit option women have has been sexualized to the moon and back, and half the options are just lingerie that's acceptable to wear in public bcz all our laws were written by horny hypocrites. A men's speedo covers more than your most basic bikini, are way harder to find and aren't usually sold in boy's sizes. A women's one-piece suit is a camel toe nightmare that should qualify as a fucking miracle if it doesn't leave both cheeks hanging out, and now most of them are including a fucking boob window.
We've internalized the masculine aspects of sexism to the point where we don't need to explicitly state it, and instead spend all our time correcting for the obvious cultural deficiencies that result from it and shifting the responsibility for dealing with it to women. "Why would I change my behavior, I'm fine, nobody's ogling me at the pool." It's great. Really winning as a society.
I remember my time as a boy... Back then the rules for us were "whatever dumb shit you're thinking of doing, fucking don't!".
Ever get chased through the fields with the nice, big, beautiful stick you brought back earlier that day?
Ever had heavy stuff thrown at you for doing some really dumb shit?
Ever left the home with a deep, resentful glare burning through the back of your skull?
It's difficult to lay down rules for boys because in general, we're dumb as shit doing dumb shit all the time. So there's almost always one, unspoken rule for boys: "Just fucking don't!"
The problem though is that girls are held upon to a higher standard. There are expectations of a higher level of civility and understanding, though undue in my opinion. Some of y'all were as dumb as the rest of us and were treated unfairly due to those higher standards.
But let's face it, as parents or adults, we all probably tend to have a similar kind of bias towards our own kids. Some of them are dumb as shit and while we worry about them, every time they plan to do something stupid, the inner voice we won't admit to is saying "please, oh please, just fucking don't!". Meanwhile, the kids we worry about less as they know their shit, they have clear, but few specific rules because we believe that's what they need.
So, in my humble opinion as a formerly dumb boy/kid, the lack of written rules more likely means there are too many, unpredictable rules that have to be managed proactively.
Btw, unrelated question, has anyone managed to get squirrels drunk in those camps of yours? I know it was on a to-do list at one point...
It's very easy to lay down rules for boys. Don't ogle, grope, or otherwise assault someone just because they're wearing a two - piece swimsuit. Let people wear what they want, even if it's a white shirt. Don't let the outer appearance of anyone be the guide to make up a fantasy in your head and decide what kind of person they are.
See? That wasn't very hard.
I think not all hope is lost, but you're missing the point here, with a bit of the ol' "boys will be boys" attitude mixed in. First of all, it doesn't help to treat boys (or any teenager for that matter) as some form of intermittent lifeform on its way to achieve full sentience. They're not animals, and most of them haven't been dropped off in the jungle and were raised by wolves. They can, and have to, learn what is acceptable behavior, as well as empathy for those that surround them.
Dismissing any form of accountability and consistently shifting the blame to a 14 year old girl wearing a white shirt at a lake function enforces stereotypes and societal preconceptions that I can only call disgusting.
The rules aren’t because boys will “ogle” the girls, it’s because some religious fuckhead has inserted their views onto society.
Those in power want to enforce abrahamic religious norms. It about control, they don’t care about protecting children.
Easy. Society has taught me that boys are the exact opposite of girls, so white T-shirts only, with two-piece swimming suit, no shorts and just bathing suits.