You might find some articles in the jan 2007 Scientific American interesting. Particularly an article by Kurt Kleiner titled Venus in Repose. It is on what our brains call attractive. Other articles: “the Violent Brain”; “Why Do We Cry”; “It Takes 2″; and “Is the Teen Brain Too Rational”.

If you haven’t already read this issue that is.

This man is talking about genetically driven hard wired body image as part of the whole sexuality mix, along with the proof for such. It does add some credence for my belief in the preconditions that follow.

As I am reading and thinking about Cristy’s theme I am thinking that the opportunity to help prevent susceptibility to self image manipulation comes best in the preschool and early primary school years. These are the years when self confidence and core attitudes are being built. Once a person hits high school sexual stereotyping can influence but cannot so easily control a person with a strong sense of self determination.

I suspect (without any proof whatsoever) that there is in sexual development some of what is seen in the brain building of vision and sight. If one is impaired for any reason then the other takes conrol of more brain mass to compensate. I am suggesting that early childhood programs designed to build executive brain function at the non sexual age may reduce the ability of obsessive behaviour to dominate at a later age.

Attempting to analyse generational adaptations to modern artificial constraints using analogies from the savannah seems to mostly draw a very long bow, and most amateur ev-psychs prefer to not look at actual gendered labour divisions in gather-hunter societies anyway.

A plethora of socio-cultural messages about women as the sex class doesn’t mean that everybody accepts those messages, Bilb. Where did I ever say that? But a simple rejection of the sex-qua-sex messages is not the same as coming to an informed understanding of how the cultural immersion permeates gender interactions, either. Sexual puritanism tends to still regard women as temptations by nature of their sexualisation, even as it rejects overt sexual display. That’s still treating women as the sex class.

Pavlov’s cat

I’m not the only woos in town

http://www.smh.com.au/news/heckler/boys-will-be-boys-but-sharp-tongues-can-break-them/2007/02/26/1172338546607.html

What ever my thoughts, and brats dolls aside, I believe that Cristy’s end conclusion is correct that plenty of school based positive support and activity programs are a valuable way for trapping these problems in children. I would add family based programs. Cristy will probably have done the ante natal class thing, which I found endlessly valuable, and it occurs to me that it would have been valuable to have done a second course several years later for support on parenting skills. Still working on it.
Anna while you are bagging these ideas be they right or wrong remember that this is an exercise in involvement. If you are going to trash efforts that do not fit exactly to your path then you dramatically diminish the effectiveness of your own good ideas and the process of helping others.

I am 57 years old and am a keen observer of life. The “pillâ€? had only just become available when I left high school. I am able to draw conclusions on the subject at hand from the rock and roll era, through the early drug era, to the present pop culture directly from my personal observations.

Bratz dolls are not an extension of an attitude that began with the Pill, BilB. What the report is addressing is not the idea that sex can be fun for everyone involved, or that women can control their fertility and more readily choose to have sex when they want to. It is addressing the sexualisation of girls as objects, not as subjects.

I know you seem to think that women feeling as though they must put themselves on display in order to gain attention and respect is not harmful, but the report says otherwise. And you won’t get any further in convincing people of your view if you continue to show that you don’t even understand the ideas being discussed.

As Broadsheet points out:

The report also mentions a particularly fascinating study in which college students were put into dressing rooms and asked to “try on and evaluate” either sweaters or bathing suits. Then the subjects were left alone for 10 minutes, while still wearing the sweaters or the bathing suits, and asked to complete a math test. The women wearing swimsuits did “significantly worse” than their sweater-wearing counterparts; among men, there was no difference in performance. The APA concludes that this study demonstrates that “thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity” — which happens more frequently in young women than in men.

Do you really think that worrying about how you look in a bathing suit – while left alone, and completing a maths test – has anything to do with the empowerment and increased options that came with the Pill?