With government agency overreach in the news, a report the TSA shamed a teen girl at LAX for her outfit is sure to raise some hackles today.
According to her parents, the TSA shamed the teen, who is 15, over what appears to be a perfectly reasonable and even somewhat modest choice of attire — but it also prompts the question … since when is the TSA the fashion police?
The account posted over on BoingBoing is certainly editorialized, and is a second account due to being communicated by the teen girl to her parents and then posted by her dad.
Sunday night, Mark Frauenfelder wrote of the TSA teen shaming:
“Here’s what happened, as my daughter described it in text messages to us: she was at the station where the TSA checks IDs. She said the officer was ‘glaring’ at her and mumbling. She said, ‘Excuse me?’ and he said, ‘You’re only 15, COVER YOURSELF!’ in a hostile tone. She said she was shaken up by his abusive manner.”
Frauenfelder points out the obvious issue with such comments directed at teen girls, noting that if accurate, the TSA agent who took it upon himself to chide the girl is advancing the idea that women’s clothing choices are subject to valid male critique regardless of whether the criticizer is a stranger or not.
But he quotes his friend and Babes In Toyland bassist Maureen Hermann as saying:
“Absolutely inappropriate, harassing, aggressive, creepy, unprofessional, and Taliban-y thing that he did. ‘Cover up’ is a dangerous cultural attitude that fuels more than rude comments. It’s the foundation of the oppression of women, rape culture (‘she was asking for it’), and the drive for reproductive control of women’s bodies.”
Thus far, the TSA’s alleged teen girl shaming has not been addressed by the agency on Twitter .