Do you strive to be pretty or hot?

Patrick Archbold's The Death of Pretty in the National Catholic Register has been the talk of the blogospere the last few weeks. Mr. Archbold poses the question of whether women (or girls) today strive to be hot instead of pretty. So I admit, I found myself at Christmas Mass looking at several attractive teenage girls in their scantily clad outfits thinking how pretty they would look if only they wouldn't dress so provocatively. But really, can we blame them? They probably aren't even aware that they are striving to look hot as opposed to pretty, it's what is expected of them.

Interesting to note that many of the comments on the article of 'The Death of Pretty' come from women who don't think that men should write about such subjects. They think that men shouldn't focus on women's looks but should focus on women's intelligence, abilities, and accomplishments.

But isn't that a double standard? On the one hand, women want to be recognized for their intelligence but there are just as many, if not more women who want to be notice for their physical appearance. While looking our best, isn't a bad thing, vanity and a lack of modesty is.

While women's rights groups fight for abortion rights and lesbian rights, they don't fight for the objectification of women which is the result of women who want to look hot and very possibly don't realize that they are displaying their body parts for men to ogle. Where are these groups? Why don't they fight pornography? Why don't they fight for the respect that women deserve.

While some women and men champion the invention of the birth control pill as a liberating wonder drug, it isn't a coincidence that the sexual revolution, rise in divorce, and change in women's dress all occurred relatively shortly after the pill's invention. While some may have viewed the pill as liberating, in reality, it allowed women to be used by men and men to treat women as mere objects to be used. So the result is women who feel the need to compete with other women to advertise their 'hotness.'

Instead of Grace Kelly...

now we have Madonna.

Instead of Audrey Hepburn...

now we have Lady Gaga

Is it possibly to turn back the tide, so to speak? How do we reverse the trend from push-up bras for 10 year-olds, bikinis for seven-year-olds, and make-up for preschoolers and teach our daughters to look pretty, without feeling the need to look hot? We can instill in them that they are created in God's image and because of that, they are beautiful already. 

Besides, while men love to look at the Gingers of the world, in reality they would rather marry Mary Ann.