Ladies, it's called "Self Respect"

This blog might win me praise or it might get me lots of hate mail…however, I’m going to speak my mind regardless.

I live in a beachside community in Sydney. It’s extremely popular during the week-ends, school holidays and even during the business week. People flock here in their droves. During the day all the café’s fill up with people, even in winter, and for us locals it can be all a bit overwhelming with all the visitors. However, every day I wake up, walk outside and I’m right in the heart of the village and my favourite cafe and only a few steps to the beach. Ahh bliss!! Yes! It’s like living in a holiday resort. However, there is a dark side of Manly.

Manly is known for its pubs and they stay open until late in the night. With the pubs, come the drunks and let me tell you Manly has its fair share of violence and criminal activity as well. In summer, Manly has another dark side which is the litter the hoards leave behind them on the beautiful beach. It is not unusual to go to the beach early on Sunday morning and in certain parts all you can see, rather than sand, is the litter left behind by the visitors. It is hard to believe in this day and age when there is such awareness of environment protection this still happens. The council provide plenty of bins however people are too lazy to take their own rubbish to bin it.

I am digressing, let’s go back to the night life in Manly. A couple of weeks ago, my brother, who looks like a bikie and is as tough as one, was attacked by a group of 15 year olds. They surrounded him and he was king-hit by a 15 year old female….twice! They tried to take his wallet. Now my brother is no angel, and I can report the group of 15 year olds were unsuccessful in stealing his money and I will elaborate no more, only to say they will probably never pick on a lone man again. The fact is my paradise during the day, can turn into a nightmare on Friday, Saturday and even Sunday nights.

Last Saturday night, my 19 year and 15 year old daughters were out. As I live in an apartment right in the village, I do not worry too much as they are only metres from home, however as much as I try and give them their freedom, a mother can’t help but worry. The 15 year old was going to a friend’s house after hanging around the wharf for a while and the 19 year old doing her usual partying until the early hours. I decided that night to go do a scout around the town around 1.00 a.m. just in case the girls were in need of my help, and especially if I caught the 15 year out at that time and not at her friend’s to enforce some discipline.

Finally I get to the point of this story. What I witnessed, and on previous scouting nights was horrendous. I saw very young girls so drunk they were being held up by some random guy in the mall trying to kiss or do some sort of hanky panky…and hey! Who cares who sees them with their skirt up around their knickers !!! Then there are the others trying to hold each other up, swaying along the Corso and stumbling over. I saw one young woman heading down a dark lane by herself and unfortunately she was so drunk I am sure she didn't realise the danger she was putting herself in.

What amuses me with this whole scenario, and believe me I know as I have teenage daughters, are the clothes they wear and the trouble they go to getting ready for the binge drinking night out on the town. Firstly, the makeup….my daughter takes about 2 hours just to do hair and makeup. This does not include actually getting dressed which adds another 30 minutes. It takes me 25 minutes all up in the morning to shower, hair, makeup and dress, and believe me I’m fussy what I look like. The end result in my opinion is they all look like clones of each other anyway despite the marathon effort.

Then next comes the outfit. I think I am about 99.8% correct in describing the outfit here. Doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of winter and freezing, and it certainly doesn’t matter if you are anorexic or a larger size. The mandatory dress code appears to be a short skirt just covering the knickers and must be matched with ridiculously high shoes that you can’t walk in. The harder to walk in and sillier the shoes look, the better! For the more vain of our nightclubbing lasses, no jacket with a skimpy top revealing all the girly bumps is essential. Next, we must have so much ‘up ourselves attitude’ and preferably we get as drunk as we can prior to hitting the pubs or nightclubs so we are already tanked before we arrive and don’t have to waste our money on buying drinks. Well actually we think we look so hot our drinks will hopefully be bought for us all night by the lusty young men hoping they will score. Oh yes, and we must be aggressive and a total bitch to everyone.

I guess it is hardly surprising that our young ladies today aspire to look like a sex Goddess considering the music video clips they are subjected too. For example, Lady Gaga, love her music and even bought her album on iTunes, extremely talented lady however the video shoots portraying sex and the rest really leave a lot to be desired. Young girls under 10 get to watch these music clips so what message do they get? Even my own 14 year old niece was posting erotic photos of herself on Facebook for the world to see. Oh Please!

So last Saturday night all I see are white pasty legs in all shapes and sizes in very high heels, shorts skirts, boobs, straight hair and exaggerated makeup. They are everywhere in their multitudes. What I don’t see are the boys paying much attention to our young sexpot ladies. The fact is, there is nothing left to the imagination, all the girls look the same and there really is no mystery and certainly no elegance. My point? I think that it’s time our teenage girls started to act like ladies and have a bit of mystique about them. Bring back the classy woman! Now there’s a nice new fashion trend for a young woman to start up.

Oh yes, and let’s not forget. During the night we must pose as supermodels, taking our own pics pulling ridiculous faces or being, “oh so provocative” so we can race home and put them up on Facebook ASAP!

Bring back normality! Please!

Debbie Carr is Director of Recruitment with the True Colours Group, True Colours Facilitator and Speaker.