As the days heat up and we rapidly approach the official start of summer (see: the crown of frizz now living along my hairline), I’ve stumbled across parents who are dead set against their daughters wearing bikinis. As a girl mom and a woman, I was intrigued. Is belly flesh really that scandalous? What makes bikinis so different and so much less appropriate than their one-piece counterparts? I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it, but I needed to. The deeper I dug, though, the more pissed off I got.
The basic motivation behind a bikini ban is good: parents (usually fathers) feel they are in some way protecting their daughters by not allowing them to show their bellies. Now, I can totally get behind the idea of protecting my babies. There is no mama bear fiercer than I am. But can we take a second to acknowledge how completely fucked up that logic is?