Well, the Australia Institute may have ruffled a few corporate feathers with the examples that it chose to use in its report last year on the sexualisation of children, but it seems that they have strong support for their over-all message from the American Psychological Association (APA).
The APA’s Task Force on the Sexualisation of Girls have just released a report and it makes for sobering reading. While they are calling for more research into the pervasiveness of the sexualisation of young girls in the media (such evidence exists in abundance for young adult women, but not yet for young girls), the APA are clear that it is not difficult to document the existence of the problem by pointing to a range of prominent products marketed at young girls.
These include advertisements (e.g., the Skechers ânaughty and niceâ? ad that featured Christina Aguilera dressed as a schoolgirl in pigtails, with her shirt unbuttoned, licking a lollipop), dolls (e.g., Bratz dolls dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings, and feather boas), clothing (thongs sized for 7â to 10-year-olds, some printed with slogans such as âwink winkâ?), and television programs (e.g., a televised fashion show in which adult models in lingerie were presented as young girls).
According to their findings, this kind of “sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, sexuality, and attitudes and beliefs.” The results can be seen in the lowered cognitive functioning in girls who have been taught to self-objectify (“In self-objectification, girls internalize an observerâs perspective on their physical selves and learn to treat themselves as objects to be looked at and evaluated for their appearance”); an increase in a range of mental health problems, such as eating disorders, low self esteem, and depression; diminished sexual health (“as measured by decreased condom use and diminished sexual assertiveness”); and the internalisation of sexual stereotypes that âplace appearance and physical attractiveness at the centre of women’s valueâ?.
This report has reignited the debate over the sexualisation of women and young girls in our society (both in the US and Australia). Several blogs have responded with a “Duh?“, but have acknowledged that the report does provide some useful scientific validation for their concerns. I have yet to come across any blogs that are keen on defending the sexualisation of young girls, but no doubt they are out there somewhere…
My favourite response comes from Melbourne blogger Blue Milk, who has used to the report to justify her ongoing campaign to encourage people to “kill a bratz doll today“. While I would shy away from using the word “kill”, Bratz dolls are a particular bugbear of mine – one that is only becoming more relevant to me as I move closer to having my own child (yep, I’ll be 39 weeks tomorrow, but who’s counting?). I find it deeply disturbing that any company could even consider dressing a doll in what basically amounts to lingerie and selling it to young girls. The only good thing that I can say about those things is that they make me slightly more tolerant of the bloody “princess phenomenon” that has been such a big thing in recent marketing to little girls.
However, while I don’t think that the princess phenomenon risks actually sexualising young girls, surely they are just further along the same spectrum and present very similar problems? Encouraging young girls to fit into the princess mould certainly raises similar issues of self-objectification and the internalisation of sexual stereotypes that place appearance, physical attractiveness and submissiveness at the centre of women’s value. As Peggy Orenstein points out in this fantastic article*, these Disney ‘princess’ characters are hardly great role models for young girls to be emulating. Ariel (the Mermaid Princess), for example, choses to give up her voice in order to be with a man – don’t you just love the symbolism of that?
The question is: what exactly can parents do about the issue? Being the nasty killjoy who bans all the latest trends from the house and frowns upon dressing-up as a princess is hardly a great recipe for success. Instead, the APA suggests that girls need to be provided with greater tools for decoding the messages in the media and products that they consume (through school-based media literacy programs and through discussions with their parents). They also recommend encouraging them to get involved in positive activities that build their self-esteem (like sports) and to tap into alternative feminist media such as blogs and web sites that “encourage girls to become activists who speak out and develop their own alternatives.”
*[Recommended over at Blue Milk.]
[Cross-posted at Two Peas, No Pod].
Hardly a comprehensive strategy, but make sure Pink’s Stupid Girls makes its way onto the TV screen every so often.
Great summary, Cristy. I haven’t been able to get through the whole thing myself yet. And super links.
The Disney Princess: I’m definitely not a fan of most. I find it interesting that my daughter has suddenly rediscovered Disney’s Mulan after not watching it for several years. Unlike Ariel, Mulan (not a princess) refuses to compromise her inner core at all, and ends up winning both honour and happiness through being “a girl who’s got a brain, and who always speaks her mind”. It may be coincidence that my daughter has just reached the stage of catching boys’ eyes, and isn’t all that happy about the societal message that boys aren’t interested in brains or opinions.
The societal message that women=sex and that appreciating women’s brains/opinions is somehow effete doesn’t do men much psychological good either, I’m sure.
David, the tigling was given her first Pink CD last year just because of that song.
She loves it (and we’ve been pleasantly surprised by Pink’s musicianship).
Exactly! They go into that too, but I figured that my post was getting a little too long already. Essentially the APA argue, “Exposure to narrow ideals of female sexual attractiveness may make it difficult for some men to find an ‘acceptable’ partner or to fully enjoy intimacy with a female partner.” They go on to argue, “When one person objectifies another, it is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to treat that person with empathy, an important predictor of satisfaction and stability in intimate relationships.”
Any decent parent just says no to buying this stuff. It is no big deal. Parents have done it, i.e, just said no to what 5-12 year olds demand from adults for aeons, and will continue to do so. Those parents who don’t, can’t or who agonise over this stuff ad nauseuem, are just narcissistically indulging themselves and their sad empty proclivities and barren priorities. The future will reap the whirlwind of their abrogation of positive parenthood.
What about the stuff that isn’t bought, but nonetheless surrounds us?
Ads, TV, movies, billboards, posters i.e. our entire modern media-entertainment culture. It’s not impossible to live outside the media-entertainment bubble, but only if you live in rural isolation with no media at all.
How realistic is that for most parents, Bridie? How will they earn a living?
Girls will test their parents as much as they can. Their ingenuity and imagination is limitless. The more parents say “yes darling, whatever you want” the more likely they will end up at 17-18, obese, low self-esteem, into drugs and unsafe sex, bored with books, ideas, the arts, empty vessels, just what is demanded and expected.
It is pretty simple really. Parents are not just powerless agents, but many act, that way to the detriment of the broader citizenry. It is about time parents, particularly the over-indulgent, time-rich, culture-poor mothers got wise.
it’s all feminism’s fault of course.
I don’t understand your last point tig. But as to the foregoing argument. It is simple. Many parents do it with no ill effect. No or restricted tv, no ipods, no computers. Books, games, sport, drawing, spending time with elders, alone, allowing a child to daydream and play. Not rocket science. And very effective in growing a human being that is not brain dead.
I doubt that Britney’s mother was a feminist and it is a bit rich to characterise her and her daughter’s behaviour as feminist-derived, and, by implication, a whole previous generation, when it was only ever a minority of women who championed feminism.
In fact, it is Britney’s generation which optimistically pronounced feminism passe and irrelevant, egged on, of course, by an unprincipled political combination of male rightists and leftists, and gormless parents. Speed on they urged, and so the young women did, lemming-like, to … well, nothing really. Self-realisation, perhaps?
Troubling issue.
Don’t have my own kids, but I have a much loved 6 year old niece, who, thank the stars, is about as independent-minded as they get. She has refused to wear dresses or skirts since day one, takes little notice of dolls and other fashionable girly stuff, and has no fear of taking on her older brother and his friends in their often rough boy’s games, where she well and truly holds her own against them.
Credit to her parents for giving her the space to follow the beat of her own drum and become the gutsy little kid she is.
On the other hand, I have close friends with similar age girls, who are much more inherently feminine in the basic psychological make-up, and the girls are clearly influenced by (the difficult to avoid) media images of sexualised pre-pubescent girls. For example, unlike my niece, they love going shopping for clothes, and they often choose clothing that is clearly inappropriate for such young girls (at least, they would, if their parents let them, which they sensibly don’t).
It’s a worry, and I don’t pretend to have any pat answers.
I really do not think that girls in the 7 to 10 year age range see saucey dressing in a sexual way. I suspect that they see things as an ensemble or a pattern that is definitely connected to their sense of self, but the notion that there might be a sexual connection, if it is present, is more instinctive than intellectual. My observations of my 8.5 year old with bratz dolls suggest to me that the appeal is to do with a morphing of self image. Exploring the extremes to assist in deciding where the comfort zone lies. There is also an aspect of ownership which may be to do with bonding practice.
In general I think that young girls give as much total importance to dolls as all kids give to cartoons. It is not the actual details as much as the pattern and idea that is observed. And the effect on a childs self sense is more akin to a moving average balanced against all life observations.
I think that damage to a child’s development would occur in an environment of total immersement supported by strong parental participation. This would be an extreme and rare situation in Australia.
Christy 4:11 post
As you’ve raised the subject. A little wisdom I heard in an interview of a pornstar who had paid her way through several universty degrees as a sex object (who did it incidentally she said because she liked it). Talking of the difficulties of doing the job she said that it is harder for the men because “any woman can fake an orgasm but no man can fake an erection”.
Therein lies the key secret that most women never understand about men while saying men are straight forward creatures who never understand their wives. The fact is that gaining an erection requires a complex mixture of mental triggers that are mostly not conscious choices. But these triggers are able to be damaged by overexposure to sexual imagery. Men are actually more vulnerable to the oversexualisation of women than women are. To the detriment of both. The whole show is all about women. Men are the support team. However the ability to perform sex on demand is a key function of human survival. The woman’s part in that is to be able to induce the man to perform. I believe that women have what I call the “display instinct”. And it is that instinct that the whole fashion/self image industry plays upon.
But that is not how it is, either in much of nature, think male peacocks, or in human beings, think the physical display and artifice of male warriors.
In fact, it is possibly the male of species that craves “display”. Females crave something different entirely.
Indeed. And yet, when women who have acquired said tools are incautious enough to use them in a public place for a bit of said message-decoding, they are immediately slapped down for lacking sanity.
Given that, I wonder whether anyone’s going to be crazy-brave enough to have a go at decoding the message immediately before this one.
I’m off now to do a bit of instinctive displaying.
Oh poo, this happens all the time.
Ahem: ‘… to have a go at decoding the message immediately before Bridie’s.’
Also, apropos Bridie’s observations,
‘I would just like to say
that it is my conviction
that longer hair and other flamboyant
a-a-a-ffectations
of appearance are nothing more
than the male’s emergence
from his dra-a-ab camouflage
into the gaudy plumage
that is the birthright of his sex.
There is a peculiar notion that elegant plumage
and fi-i-ine feathers are not proper for the male
when a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-act-ually
that is the way things are
in most
species.’
(James Rado and Gerome Ragni, Hair, 1967)
Bridie
Yes, men display as well but that is more of a physique based competition. In the female there is a drive that can be seen from as young as age one on. It is observable in the choices of colour, toys, clothes, movement, facial expression and eye movement. It starts subconsciously then becomes more conscious at a later age but all builds up to a collage that I call the “display”. And it is all about mate selection of coarse. By about age ten it becomes optional. But by then every girl has developed the tools for assessing a males interest in them, even though they don’t know why yet. This leads into the age of confusion. The early teens.
I should mention the nature versus nurture argument that I used to have tirelessly with people in the seventies. My real life observations tell me that where there is some nurture aspects to sexuality/personality development the underlying drive is predominately nature (instinct). And I am happy if you disagree. You can ask Cristy what she thinks in 16 years time.
Bil B. Why is that when the issue of sexualisation comes up someone will trot out their own version of the anecdote about the sex worker
Remarkable isn’t it that when people actually survey sex workers the overwhelming story is one of feeling trapped financially, of despising the johns and being subjected to violence or the threat of violence, and to degrading treatment in the course of their work.
What is your rationale and where is your supporting evidence for the following statement:
This seems to have sprung from the same font in which the theory that “sex workers only do it because they just Love Sex ” resides.
Think this should be in larger print.
In general, I guess the most useful thing a parent can do is keep encouraging and responding to a child’s sense of curiosity.
For instance, a child who learns how easy it is to use photo-manipulation software like Picasa or GIMP might be more likely to have a skeptical eye towards artificially glamourous images in the mass media.
Give ‘em cheap digicams, videocams if resources allow, musical instruments, science kits – anything that gets them closer to a sense of their own power.
Good advice, David, especially the cameras. There’s nothing like a bit of experience from an early age of what it feels like to be the one with the eyes: the gazer rather than the gazee.
Suze
Interviewed on Radio Pacific in New Zealand. They were the ladies exact words. This was an intelligent and highly articulate woman. It was a fascinating interview more about the movie making than the sexual content. The erection comment made me realise just how frail the process is, entirely contrary to the belief that a man is always ready.
I have no hard evidence. It is a thought. When I was an adolescent there was very little sexual material around. I worry about how todays adolescents are handling the absolute flood of pornographic material being deluged upon any one with a computer. Material that can only distort a young mind’s perception of what is natural and right. As this is all fairly recent it will be some time before we can see how relationships stand up in our computer-saturated world.
Well, BilB, I completely disagree with your half-baked theory.
I was raised by a strongly feminist mother who did decode the gendered messages contained in the media (and in my classroom) for me from a very young age – and bought me books like ‘The Practical Princess’ and ‘Pippi Longstocking’ to give me alternative role models to the girls depicted in books like Sweet Valley High.
As a result I did not “display” myself for men and was frustrated to discover that many of them were shocked by my lack of willingness to play such a game. I actually had guys attempt to explain to me that, although I was good looking, the way that I behaved was ‘not the best way to make myself attractive to men’ – because I didn’t stop to talk to them on my way to class or make an effort to seem interested in what they were doing. They were even more shocked when I then carefully explained to them that although they seemed like nice enough human beings, I couldn’t give a damn whether or not they found me attractive and that I had more important things to do with my time than fain an interest in their lives.
What you call a “display instinct” I call a societal expectation that is wholly and solely based in culture. Sure, both genders will attempt to display themselves to their best to someone that they are actually attracted to (and this could be someone of either the same or opposite gender to them), but I don’t think that any of us have much to gain by wasting our time feeling that our self-worth is intrinsically tied up in whether the wider world thinks that we are attractive objects for them to gaze upon or that we exist on this earth solely to stroke the egos of insecure acquaintances.
Cristy
All you are saying is that you subscribe to the nurture over nature argument. So be it. That is the spectacular thing about the human brain. Self determination can overwrite underlying drives. You are on this earth for no particular reason. You just are. But while you are here Nature has set you up to attempt to reproduce. You would clearly find it disturbing reading to learn of the chemical conspiracy that nature has installed in us all to give reproduction the maximum probability of success. There is a school of thought that suggests that Nature does not require people to be happy, the only thing that matters is that you reproduce. I do not believe that this can be true as we have many mechanisms specifically arranged for happiness.
I will guarantee that you do display your self. Some of the key tools in this are facial arrangements, smiles and eye movements (mostly subconscious). Your facial expressions are very closely linked to your emotions. You may choose to scowl at every body around you, and that is in itself a display. But if you do it is saying something about your inner contentment.
Buy a girl a camera, eh and thus help teach her to be the seer rather than the seen? But children are endlessly curious about the world and are taking in everything. They don’t need a machine to do that. And a camera is certainly not an eye nor a microphone an ear nor a computer a brain and never should be confused.
Advising commodification of sensory perception is very 21st century capitalism and a sign of adult alienation but hardly the answer to this issue or a recommendation beneficial to children.
As for young girls consciously displaying themselves for the benefit of the ardent gaze of potential sexual mates from the men they meet: wishful thinking and projection on the part of big daddy I say.
It is an interesting question though as to why very young girls become so self-conscious, and are they more so today than previous generations? Could that self-consciousness, which can lead to conscious “display”, be because it is elicted by adults? Could it be largely because of the ever-present, inescapable, overwhelming scrutiny of their bodies, actions, dress, by over-attentive and intrusive parents and other adults? Could it be because children today, particularly girls, are less and less able to just “be” as opposed to being constantly observed, monitored, commented on and to, even in the company of adults, who in previous generations were more likely to ignore them, let them be, let them play or listen or leave the adult company as they chose.
I’m not sure what you think you’re arguing with, when Cristy said this in the very comment you’re responding to:
You’re the one saying that females have a stronger or special “display instinct”.
Nobody’s saying that there isn’t some natural display instinct (for both sexes), merely that the particular generalised constant female display behaviour you are emphasising is very much a cultural artefact.
The natureof the display is different between boys and girls or men and women, but I don’t know that the degree is.
Just sayin’
Tigtog
I am saying what starts out as a natural drive becomes a cultural expression but the child is very much in control because of what they choose to absorb. I suggest that totally depriving girls of exposure to the material possibilities does more damage than excessive exposure generally does.
“Encouraging young girls to fit into the princess mould certainly raises similar issues of self-objectification and the internalisation of sexual stereotypes that place appearance, physical attractiveness and submissiveness at the centre of women’s value ”
My 8.5 year old who has every princess media item there is plays at princesses every once in a while with her girl friends then goes to school for the rest of the week. I don’t think that her values are stereotypically twisted as a result. Her clothing preferences were clear when she was 2. Long before the princesses came along.
The voice comment is a very interesting one.
Whatever. Don’t you have any concrete suggestions, or at least something better to do than stirring up apathy?
Can’t see a problem with teaching a child to use tools, especially (but not only, see the words ‘musical instruments’ and ‘science kits’) those tools that are used to construct the very media images this thread was originally about.
Oh, and children should be told the story about how the Skirmish of Whimsical Stuff was won in late 2006.
Your the one with the Messiah complex David. The answer is a lot more complex and societal than science kits, piano lessons and DVds.
Yep, I’ve got broad societal ideas as well, but right now I think practical suggestions about what parents might be able to do could be a bit more useful, especially given that the original post asked:
And your suggestions or notes towards a solution are?
Anyway, I have to go and lecture my disciples about how I won’t be around forever, and that one of them will betray me.
Bridie
Females don’t just have to attract a mate, they have to keep it/him. And they have to keep the mate around and supporting during periods of extreme vulnerability. So all of the afore said tools and skills and then there is the voice/guiles. The female is equiped with the ability to intimidate males. The female heightened emotional connection enables them to escalate a situation in a way that maintains control. The female being is a truly spectacular work of natural art.
By the way display doesn’t just say “yes”. It can say no. Not now. Never. Or come talk with me. I’m working. Lots of things.
Bilb
We’re back on the savannah are we? Guess that has its attraction for some males. Women doing the lion’s share of the work and inventing horticulture, medicine, language. But still, women need males to protect them you say? Protect them from what? Other males who steal what they produce and want to force monogamy on them/us? Sounds like a bad bargain and a con.
I agree we are spectacular. Just call me Aphrodite.
Bilb:
Cristy’s post:
Why bother engaging with your arguments if you haven’t even read this post with due attention?
Aphrodite
I didn’t say protect. That is your insecurity. I said support. ie clean the nappies, mow the grass, wash the dishes (I think that covers what I do). Oh yes, and I make her laugh.
But, BillB, if they are vulnerable – to what and why? And vulnerability calls for protection, or “support”, as you said. Or are you talking about something else? That you don’t think women and young girls in particular are sexually vulnerable? If you do, why then is it down to one male to provide that protection? And can he really provide it? And what if he is the most likely aggressor or predator to that vulnerable girl child? And what is everyone else doing or not doing that leaves individual women and girls so vulnerable?
FDB, I only just saw your comment caught in the spaminator and fished it out. Sorry it took so long.
where the hell did bilb come from with such half-baked integrations of biological drives and instincts with cultural structurations of sociality, etc? ffs, display instinct? what utter and complete nonsense. infants of one year old are not picking up bright objects for same perceptual reasons as a pre-teen girl.
david, I agree with the comment about curiousity, but the point about cameras and as you say teaching kids to have ‘power’ is problematic. To me it reads like the quasi-Heideggarian concept of enframing. You are teaching kids to enframe the world in certain ways. This in itself is not bad or whatever, because it is a necessary part of the socialisation of perception into habits, etc. However, there is a danger, which Heidegger was concerned with, implicit in the various ways that technologies determine how the world will be enframed. The debate later in life will be then around the legitimacy of ways of enframing over others (ie the foucaultian point about visibilities produced through discourse, eg medical gaze, or john urry’s work on the tourist gaze). Curiousity I think would be usefully complemented with a variety of ways of engaging with the world, or something like that.
Bridie,
A woman’s most vulnerable time is when she is heavily pregnant. Their vunlnerability is for over stacked pizzas and the overstacked guy who brings them. I offer what support I can in those circumstances. Flowers!
My girls are proud self confident people. Any predation would quickly show. What you are aluding to did happen in a large near family, but the girls themselves sorted it out by shielding the target girls and allerting other family.
A woman protects herself and her future family in the first instance by her choice off mate. The kiss by the way is a form of protection. It is a sharing of germs ahead of the conception so that the mother’s body can build an immunity, to bugs carried by the father, for the child during pregnancy. Predatory parents are a failure of the family unit. If the mother cannot fix that then it falls on the community to intervene. Sadly things generally have gone way too far before the community steps in. On another side of my family my cousin of equal age was beaten by her husband. The sisters only discovered the abuse when my cousin ended her life. A friend only discovered his wifes post natal depression after she drove the family car with all of the kids inside, fortunately seat belted, at high speed into a wall. There are no guarantees. We all survive as best we can.
BilB, a two year old can indicate clothing preferences? How do they do this? And what choices were given?
I would say they are a predictable outcome of a unit that is given too much power over and responsibility for minors and not enough economic or social agency, or support, and which is based on the contining oppression and second-class status of women and their institutionalised sexual unfreedom.
I doubt that Britney’s mother was a feminist and it is a bit rich to characterise her and her daughter’s behaviour as feminist-derived, and, by implication, a whole previous generation, when it was only ever a minority of women who championed feminism.
(Bridie’s reply to Gianna)
Bridie, i agree with everything you say. But Gianna was being facetious.
I believe that women have what I call the âdisplay instinctâ?. And it is that instinct that the whole fashion/self image industry plays upon.
Go down to chapel st sometime and watch the young dudes play noisy tricks with their shiny, chromed, noise-enhanced, doof-doofing vehicles, then come and tell me that thing again about males not being about display… and dont tell me it’s “physique based”, either, unless the ubiquitous peaked cap counts as physique.
Helen
There is a huge hole in my argument. I do not understand that at all. More research. Where can I get a nose stud?
Bridie
That is absolutely true. Unimaginably stubborn and incredibly creative. This kid could before she was one reach for things that she was not looking at and get them. She was never fooled by the behind the back hand swap thing if the toy did not reappear she new it had to be somewhere. Early in the speech stage she would come out with phrases and even sentences that would sound natural from an adult and in perfect context. Goodness only knows where it is leading but can hardly weight to find out.
Damn, if only I’d known.
PCat
Its called “mom power”. Truly awsome!
Why would a self-respecting woman want to be her partner’s “mom”?
Why would a self-respecting man need her to be his “mom”? Hasn’t he already got one?
The ability to use “the force” comes through motherhood. Hence “mom power”.
As you are clearly interested have a little sniff around the BBC. There is a science article there about robotics science exploring the power of emotions.
Could you please stop stereotyping all females? You may have had the opportunity to observe two individual females – your wife and your daughter – but, shocking as it may seem to you, we are not all the same. I, for example, am heavily pregnant, but I am also a vegan and not remotely interested in ‘overstacked guys’.
The sexism that is so deeply embedded in your comments is really starting to get very offensive and boring. It simply doesn’t belong on this thread and I would prefer that you took your insulting theories about the “female display instinct” elsewhere.
Thank you.
Well Cristy, the pizza comment was flippant and sillly. I apologise. I’ve now read you thread carefully and it makes for disturbing reading. Your source the APA report is clearly a beatup. They have found that young adult women, that is women, presumeable, well into their sexual life are exposed to sexually oriented material. But in the younger group that they hoped to find evidence of sexual exposure, there was no such evidence. But if you know of any such evidence please send it to them quickly so that they can stop looking foolish. As to their claim that sexualised dolls in the hands of 7 to 10 year olds puts them at risk is ludicrous. Fishnet stockings and Pippy Longstocking length mini skirts are cliche’d symbols the significance of which have no meaning to children this age. My factory is right beside a dance school. Kids run in and out of there all day long wearing fishnet stockings and leotards, are you seriously suggesting that these children are sexually damaged goods. Get a life.
I am personally offended by your suggestion that my daughter playing with her brats doll is at psychological risk. What are you suggesting is going through her mind when she takes the dolls clothes off and redresses it? And I presume by this smear that you imagine that when she bunches up her naked barby dolls and chucks them in a box, then stuffs the box away in the cupboard that this is some kind of lesbian slave bdsm fantasy ritual?
Cristy I love your gravatar. It is a delightful image. But I think that it says a little much about you. I suggest that you stop looking at life through the eyes of others, go outside, breathe the air and live for yourself.
BilB, Cristy is clearly not trying to “smear” anyone, and please avoid derogatory comments such as “get a life”. Please stick to the topic under discussion and don’t make imputations about people.
BilB, as Cristy’s post outlines, the report finds evidence of:
If you have a daughter of your own, one would think that you would be a little more interested in these findings, and making serious attempts at recognising and preventing such problems. Cristy’s just the messenger – it isn’t her fault you don’t like the message.
As discussed in this thread previously, much of the “exposure” we’re talking about is through advertising, pop culture – in general, things that we are all exposed to to some degree and no matter how hard we try to prevent our kids being exposed to them, they are. There isn’t a magical point where a young woman begins to receive these messages, it’s something that accumulates over time, so expressing concern about the effect on young girls is a valid topic of discussion.
Also, I’m sure you are aware that young girls don’t usually stay young girls – they become young women. If you aren’t concerned about the messages your daughter may be receiving now, then perhaps you may consider being less short-sighted with your level of concern and look towards the day when she is a young woman.
Lastly, your rude and patronising manner in addressing Cristy here is not acceptable, nor is it helping convince anyone that you have the well-being of young women high on your list of priorities. Cut it out.
I detect the sulphurous whiff of “momism”.
Suze
“momism”? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Please take note of marks comment above.
Mark
I apologise for the “” comment. Heat of the moment. As to the other, if Christy is able to start taking offence at my immature remarks then she invites elevated rhetoric. But this is not my general approach. I will avoid such situations in future.
Anna,
I dispute the conclusion. The study is trying to mix oil with water.
I have 2 daughters. One at 14.5 and one at 8.5. I have one in each of the study ranges. I am 57 years old and am a keen observer of life. The “pill” 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. I am fully aware of the forces at play in this battle. I am going to put my thoughts together on the subject and post them later. Unfortunately I am working around the clock till Monday to complete an export shipment. In between time I would appreciate it if you do not cast aspersions at my intentions. I am as concerned as every one about the risks faced by young people. I have observed on this page contributors more interested in rhetorical chess rather than talking the issue. That is unhelpful.
BilB, you may disagree with the conclusions of the report, but the APA used proper quantitative research methods while you are relying on your own very limited observations of two daughters and your own life experience as a male. Perhaps you should actually read the full APA report and think about their findings without immediately dismissing them on the basis that they don’t accord with your preconceived notions of healthy constructions of femininity.
Once you have, feel free to put your thoughts together on the subject and post them here briefly. However, please do not try to dominate the thread by posting excessively or use this thread as a place to insult other people or women in general. There are plenty of places on the internet where such behaviour is tolerated and even welcomed, but this thread is not one of them.
BTW: My gravatar is a picture of me on a train in Vietnam. I am actually looking – through my own eyes – out at a country that I was in the middle of exploring. Sorry to destroy your little interpretation of its deep inner meaning, but the fact is that you know absolutely nothing about me and were completely out of line in making that comment.
Gravata point taken (it IS one the best gravatars). Reading, thinking, if I’m wrong or right I will comment.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
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:
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?
For goodness sake Anna. I make absolutely no connection between the pill and the thread. You’re rally mixinng it up there. The only relevance that the pill has to anything is that it maked a turning point in how people managed their lives. I’m still reading the report. My thoughts at this point are that the supposed sexualising material is a device in a process that starts with problems associated with a loss of self worth triggered by alienation at home and within peer groups, from a failure to meet personal objectives, from a myriad of other possible personal frustrations. The self objectification theme (which I cannot possibly relate not being female and also not having the faintest interest in my personal appearance) would become a manifestation of the underlying problem. Still a problem to be treated. That is my thought which I am testing against the material.
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.
Anna
I meant to say criticise away just adjust the tone.
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
Yes, well, that Heckler article in the SMH was, I thought, really obnoxious. Not to mention stereotyping of boys.
Suz,
Well it is no more nor less stereotypical than saying that all girls in swimsuits can’t think clearly, based on a very basic test.
My comment was that females have evolved to have a particular (averaged through the range of possibilities) makeup of mental attributes to handle the very varied range functions that they have to perform. They have evolved that way because that is what works, in nature at least. And what are those attributes, and how are they meant to work? And what happens when those mental tools are distorted by an unnatural environment? How can those distortions be avoided? going back to tigtogs comment about the societal message that women equal sex and the implication that men believe this is very wrong. I think that you will find that there are many men, not all, who find the pasting of sex into every thing offensive and obnoxious. And further many men, not all, find appreciating women the enlightened part of their life. To think differently would be living in a dark corner of life.
Humans, not just “females”, have evolved to be extremely adaptable, and every test you can name apart from muscle power shows more variation within genders than between them. Biological evolution moves slowly, and social evolution moves fast because it’s artificial.
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.
I just heard on radio natioanl the tail end of an item by a reasarcher whose name I did not catch, but aspects of the item will be repeated on the Saturday Science Show, Sydney 576.
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.
BilB, I think we can at least agree that building core attitudes at a younger age is crucial.
Done.
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.