What is Victoria’s Secret thinking, marketing thong panties and bras for 7-to-12-year-olds?
Why is nearly a third of major retailers’ clothing sexy—for example, drawing attention to a sexualized body part—for little girls’ sizes 6 to 14?
Why are companies manufacturing onesies for infants emblazoned with sexually obscene messages?
Because these grotesque products make money, and these companies don’t give a rip how they are hurting our girls.
Mainstream culture’s barefaced sexuality is aggressively targeting younger and younger children. It is trumpeting the abominable lie that a female’s worth lies in her sex appeal. It says that a woman’s true power lies in a certain aggressive sexuality. This is what the clothes in the store represent; this is what the most prominent female role models project.
And tragically, this is what a growing majority of girls are coming to believe: that the only worthy woman is a sexy woman.
Our children are bombarded with this message, and they’re soaking it up. Popular songs put sex to a beat echoing in their earbuds. The trendiest music videos, marketed right for them, routinely portray women as objects for men’s gratification. Magazines for teen girls are filled with articles about looking hot and hooking guys.
Thus, our malls, streets and secondary schools are becoming a parade of tight-fitting T-shirts with messages like, “Who needs brains when you have these?” and “Future porn star.”
This is supposed to be liberation for women? It is precisely the opposite.
The blatant sexualization of children is increasingly conventional. Wal-Mart sells dozens of make-up products for girls as young as 6. Vogue magazine covers feature small girls made up and posed like grown women; it features pictures of 6-year-olds wearing thongs and padded push-up bras. On television, the most popular shows aimed at viewers ages 12 to 17 sexualize underage girls more often than adult females. And in the highest-grossing movies, teen girls are more likely than older women to wear provocative clothing, and are just as likely to appear partially nude.
The more that girls consume these media, the more they buy into their warped sexual stereotypes. At younger and younger ages, they “place appearance and physical attractiveness at the center of women’s value,” says the American Psychological Association’s study on “Sexualization of Girls” (emphasis added).
Is that what you want your daughter thinking?
A recent study found around 70 percent of American 6-year-old girls—SIX-year-olds—want to be sexy. Given a choice between a “sexy” doll and a “modest” one, the girls identified most with the sexy doll, believed she was most popular, and said that was what they’d rather grow up to be like.
Who’s to protect these girls from predatory merchants aiming to profit from their becoming sex objects? Where are the parents?
Well, this is three generations into society’s sexual revolution. We’re way beyond the problem of teenagers sneaking out of bedroom windows and getting into trouble. Today, the parents are the ones pushing their children to be more sexual!
The apa report cited several studies showing how today’s parents are conveying that the most important goal for girls is to look physically attractive.
Have you ever seen the show Toddlers & Tiaras? It shines a spotlight on the world of child beauty pageants. And who’s at the center of it, besides these bossy, bratty, spoiled divas just out of diapers? Parents. More specifically, moms. Moms who have bought the stereotypes wholesale, and are now dressing their little daughters in adult-looking clothes—with adult hair; make-up; fake tans, teeth and nails—and having them strut around with sassy walks and suggestive hip-hop dance moves, strike flirtatious poses and make pouty kissy faces.
They say they do it to give their daughters higher self-esteem and more confidence. Far likelier is that these girls will end up perpetually dissatisfied with their own bodies—and have insufferable egos to boot.
The notion that looks are everything and that promiscuity is the path to happiness is terribly poisonous. This is even more so the younger it is implanted, while a girl’s self-image is based so heavily on her perceptions of how others view her.
Making matters worse, the beauty standard our daughters are measuring themselves by is itself a demonstrable lie. The ubiquitous image of “normal” in the media is the wafer-thin, ultra-tall supermodel with big breasts. Not only do very few women fit that description, those who do are portrayed as even better than they really are: Photographers’ filtered lenses and lighting even out skin tones, and photo-editing software removes wrinkles and stretch-marks, smooths out dimply thighs and erases hints of flab. In the end, the measure of “perfection” that our girls absorb in movies and magazine covers is fictitious and unattainable.
So, guess what? These real-life girls lack confidence in and comfort with their own bodies. Studies show they are feeling anxiety and even self-disgust on a broad scale. The number of girls 18 and younger who have had breast enlargements has risen nearly 500 percent over the past decade. Teenage girls are subjecting their still-growing bodies to medical procedures to get fuller lips, better noses, larger breasts, flatter stomachs, smaller thighs and so on—and their parents are encouraging them, even paying for them.
Unhealthy sexualized thinking gives rise to three of the most common mental health problems found in girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression (along with negative moods and depressive symptoms). A lot of these effects, social scientists have tracked in women college age and up. But they’re finding that the same problems are starting to emerge younger and younger. Even girls as young as 12 and 13 are ashamed of their bodies. Shockingly, the British Journal of Developmental Psychology revealed that half of British girls between ages 3 and 6 say they worry about being fat!
Our daughters deserve far, far better.
The fact that girls are learning, in the words of the apa, to “think of and treat their own bodies as objects of others’ desires … and to treat themselves as objects to be looked at and evaluated for their appearance” is a tragedy that none of them should have to fall victim to.
If you don’t want your daughter falling prey to those lies, then shield her from those messages, take pains to educate her about them—and love her for who she is.
Teach her that society’s portrayal of “sexy” is wrong and damaging. It hurts not only our little girls, but also boys who are taught this false standard for girls. Teach her the truth about appearance: Yes, we should take care of our bodies; we should practice good hygiene; we should keep ourselves fit and capable of working hard—but obsession over looks is a trap. The most attractive enhancement of our appearance is a sincere, genuine ready smile, a warm demeanor, an outgoing personality.
Teach your daughter that she was not created to be an object to be looked at and evaluated. Show her the benefits of dressing modestly and how it shows respect for others and for herself. And give her the unconditional love that helps her to be positive, outgoing, confident and happy—a truly beautiful person inside and out.
[Correction: This article originally stated that the study of 6-year-olds identifying with “sexy” dolls took place in Britain. It has been corrected to reflect that the study was carried out in the U.S.]