In the United States, why do women wear clothes that expose more of their bodies than men?

 

women wear clothes that expose

 

 While the other answers have done a good job answering the question, I feel they miss an important part of the question. Why are women wearing less clothing than the men here? It has to do with a few factors. First off, women are encouraged to show more skin in America. Mass media and society both influence women into conforming (men too, but that's not the question) to certain gender roles. For women, these roles happen to include short shorts and tank tops.

But why don't men show off as well? The answer is that for a while now, America has been against men as a whole showing skin. This is because men are traditionally considered valuable for things other than their bodies (not saying this is right, just that it is true) whereas women were often not. Today, of course, this is changing, and lots of guys today wear clothing just as revealing as women. I own a swimsuit so short I have to be VERY careful not to let a ball slip!

 

 

The rest of this answer assumes that you had intended the context of a public arena. If otherwise, kindly do not read further.

Instead of “why don’t the others do abc?” - a better question is “why do some do abc?”, isn’t it ? Think about it for a second. Say, a room has 10 people. Do you ask someone why they drank water or do you go about asking all the others why they did not drink water at that point in time ?

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FOR THE MEN PART:
I answer this, as a man, from my own experience with at least knowing a hundred other men. It is true for me. And what is true for me, need not necessarily ring true for you.* Because, we don’t feel the need to validate our existence from a praise from our girlfriends or wives. It’s okay if they praise and it’s okay if they don’t. My self worth won’t change if somebody praises me or not.

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GENERALLY:
Now, take this a notch further. For the women who don’t expose their cleavage and men, we don’t expose cos there is no underlying need to. To get love from our partners or to get attention from our colleagues or to get a promotion or to harmlessly self-express my right to my choice of clothing, etc. - for none of these, do we feel a need to expose. Remember by choosing not to expose, we are making our choice & this does not mean that we are against those who choose to expose. Please don’t fall for the fallacy of “if you choose one, you are against the other!”.

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HARMLESSLY:
Society began to accept it as a harmless fashion thing. Remember two things :

who’s society ? you yourself are

what’s fashion ? just one way of expressing yourself out of so many ways

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DIFFERENTIATOR:
When someone with a regularly exposed cleavage starts getting undue benefits, even then, nobody can really accuse them that they got those benefits out of singly exposing. It may be true or may not be true. Get this straight, please. As I said, if someone uses it for influence - please do not worry - [you can label it as undue or underhanded, but still, what does that get you ? there’s no real way of confirming it unless we see inside the mind of the accused-influenced & see if they were indeed influenced by the cleavage or not] - so, do not worry and you express yourself in non-exposing ways & leverage your other skills to achieve your own benefits.

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RIGHT NOW, BEING A SOCIETY IN FLUX:

We are changing. However, in the current state, society accepts female exposing more than male exposing. Call it hypocrisy or inequality. Talk about crime rates, other gender based issues, talk about millenia before or anything else. Instantly, this difference in acceptance won’t change overnight.

Do not believe or assume anything I say. Test it practically in your life, experiment it, go at it hard, try it. Only if it is true for you, then accept it. Oh my, by then you don’t need to accept it - you would have already realized it naturally - isn’t it ?. - The Path of Knowledge & appealing to the logical brain, intellect, intelligence by working on memories, facts, events, actions, testing truthness of claims - and thus arriving at each truth.

This question really does not provide any context about the situation in which women are wearing less clothes than men. 

Some women wear less clothes than men because they know that they are objectified and will be more successful in business if they are more attractive without being a distraction.  There is a fine line here, and clothes that is considered sexy is often times not business appropriate.  Men are starting to experience some of these pressures as well.  The concept of the "metrosexual" was about getting men to be more fashion conscious in order to sell more product. 

Some women wear less clothes because it is easier and more comfortable.  It is a lot easier to wear a dress than to coordinate a wardrobe.  Skirts are easier because there are horrifying things happening to women's pants.  Most pants that are easily available fit many women poorly.  That is because there is just such a wide range of body types in the US, and something that is going to fit a woman with a thin and flat build is not going to fit a woman who is more curvy or a woman who is highly athletic.  Skirts do not have as many fit issues as pants do.  The length of skirts varies with fashion tastes at any given time.

Don't forget that in some contexts women are wearing more clothes than men are.  Now that it is getting warm out, I am seeing male joggers jogging topless.  In much of the US, this style of dress would be considered indecent exposure if chosen by a woman.




Because (sadly) women are still judged by many on how sexually attractive they are in addition to any other qualities they have; therefore some women want to dress to expose more of their bodies  Do I like this? Not particularly. Does this mean I think they should dress differently? Not really unless they're in a workplace or similar situation where a dress code is in effect. Women in the U.S. should be able to dress however they want. When I was younger and available, I too dressed to expose more of my body.

Do women here expose more of their bodies than men do? Not usually. In fact, at the beach or swimming pool it is men who expose more of their bodies because it's culturally OK here (as it seems to be around the world) for men to go shirtless. Not so for women in most nations

The answer is fashion, and how fashion trends are set. Contrary to popular belief, women and girls (not just in the US, but western and westernized countries in general) wear revealing clothes not because they want to “attract men” or “show off their body”, but due mostly to their desire to look fashionable.

Looking fashionable means conforming to the latest fashion trends. The trends, however, are largely set by the fashion industry, which is controlled by a small group of old white business executives. Their vision of female fashion is the objectification and sexualization of the female body. This general trend, enhanced by modern advertising and consumerism, not only self-perpetuates, but also grows ever stronger.

So, women are not really to blame for “dressing like whores”, instead, the still very much male-dominated fashion industry corporations and their greed for bigger profits are the driving forces behind this longstanding trend of objectification. Feminists might claim they dress sexy because they can, but they are still only conforming to a preexisting trend caused by deeper socioeconomic forces.

The exposure of female skin has increased in volume over the years.  The hyper-sexualization of our culture, and the continually lowering age at which it is targeted, IMHO has much to do with what is coming out of Hollywood--be it music videos or movies.  Sex sells.  The masses emulate what they see. It becomes more acceptable.
  In addition, with the advent of "Reality" TV and narcissistic social media, young women in particular are sub-consciously (or consciously!) looking for that "15 minutes of fame" (hat tip to Andy Warhol).  Tight, revealing clothing  (or lack thereof) will certainly get you noticed...although it goes without saying that the wiser among us realize the double-edged sword inherent in it.
  Men have been less susceptible to this due to cultural factors already mentioned in other answers (and have not been marketed to in this manner--perhaps because the bulk of the producers of our visual media are male??). A notable exception might be the "sagging" phenomenon in which underwear and often derrieres themselves were partially exposed.