Teen Girls: some historic thoughts
I want to spend a bunch of time today talking about the “teen girls like it, so it’s crap” meme. But I’m really busy, so you’ll get it on tumblr in bits and drabs. Yay?
That said, there’s an interesting history of hating what teen girls like. There was a sudden upswing in teen-girl [1]hate leading up to the “free love” *cough* of the 60s. For a variety of social reasons, teen girls in the US & Canada & UK (and likely elsewhere, but this is where I know) suddenly had buying power, because there was a move to give young people at that age allowances and the like. Boys were expected to spend their monies on Man Lite stuff, like saving up for cars, but what were teen girls going to buy with it?
Well, obviously “crap”. By which I mean records, magazines, and make-up. The records, of course, varied in quality. I have a thing for Coffin Songs (like “Teen Angel”, for example, basically songs about WOE MY BOY/GIRLFRIEND HAS DIED WOE), which were very popular at the time (I grew up listening to my mom’s Coffin Songs record), Bubblegum Pop (“Lollypop” “Short Shorts” “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot bikini”), and then Elvis and the Beatles.
GIRLS! All over the place! Buying things! Liking things! Liking things without running it by boys, or their parents, first.
Making things a big deal.
And it was just AAA! HORROR! OUTRAGE!
Kinda like today.
I mean, hey - there are lots of things teen girls like that leave me scratching my head in confusion. But so? There are lots of things adult men and women like that leave me confused. And yet, there’s none of that visceral hate that comes when you say “Oh, teenies like it. It must be bad.”
More later.
[1] The idea that “the teenager” didn’t develop until around this time is basically true, in the cultures I’m talking about, but, as always, it’s more complicated than that, and I don’t have a lot of time to go into things like “setting up housekeeping” and different expectations of different ages in previous times. I’m already late for French.
