The Washington Post has a troubling article today called “Goodbye to Girlhood” highlighting the nauseating trend of younger and younger girls being taught to be “sexy” with their bodies, their clothes, and their attitudes. Some of the more jarring quotes from the article:
Ten-year-old girls can slide their low-cut jeans over “eye-candy” panties. French maid costumes, garter belt included, are available in preteen sizes. Barbie now comes in a “bling-bling” style, replete with halter top and go-go boots. And it’s not unusual for girls under 12 to sing, “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”
and:
“Throughout U.S. culture, and particularly in mainstream media, women and girls are depicted in a sexualizing manner,” declares the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, in a report issued Monday. The report authors, who reviewed dozens of studies, say such images are found in virtually every medium, from TV shows to magazines and from music videos to the Internet.
and:
…in 2003, tweens — that highly coveted marketing segment ranging from 7 to 12 — spent $1.6 million on thong underwear, Time magazine reported.
Here is the link to the APA’s report.
Reading the article and report leave me angry and dumbfounded – angry because it feels like true evil is stalking our kids and no one is really paying much attention to it. What name does this evil go by? Jesus called it mammon – greed, avarice, the seeking of material gain. Mammon seems to rule our culture – we have to sell more and more stuff to more and more people (especially kids) so that companies can reap greater and greater profits. Where does it end? Apparently it doesn’t end by selling thongs to 7-year-old girls.
I feel ill and I feel grateful. I feel ill because this is going on all around me. And selfishly, I feel grateful because my girls aren’t part of it. Thank God – truly – that my 11-year-old and 9-year-old care most about their birds and dogs and breeding rodents. Ok, the ‘rodents’ are actually rats but they are kind of cute white and black hooded and dumbo rats – high-class rats. That once made me squeamish. No more.
Sometimes, like now, the realization hits me that this is far too much to pray for in our world. At the top of the list is the wrenching poverty and disease that controls billions. Theirs is a poverty of want. But also on the list are things like the sexualization of our children. That is a poverty of riches. Jesus, please, please protect your children.
posted February 20, 2007 at 3:30 pm
David, great commentary. I saw the Post article too. This is something that’s been going on for some time now, unfortunately. BTW, liked your comment on poverty of riches. It reminded me of a great passage from Bryant Myers’ Walking With the Poor: “At the end of the day, the poverty of the non-poor is the same kind of poverty as the poor, only differently expressed. The poverty of the non-poor is fundamentally relational and caused by sin. The result is a life full of things and short on meaning. The non-poor simply believe in a different set of lies. The only difference is that the poverty of the non-poor is harder to change. A bank account and abundant diet somehow (I cannot explain it quite satisfactorily) insulate man from coming to feel the primary truth of history. (Koyama 1974, 23). This is what Jesus was trying to say when he compared a rich man getting into the kingdom as a camel trying to go through the eye of a needle.”
posted February 20, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Money insulates the truth from people because it is simply a time filler; a vehicle to experience the physical. The poor have no choice other than to grapple with their inner strengths and weaknesses. They have not the luxury to readily retire to a new, fresh or unique environment after prayer or meditation. Great posts, Pedro and David.
posted February 20, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I think it’s pretty tough to tie this one to lack of faith. It seems to me that in a country where a majority of people identify as Christian, and you see this kind of sexualization of youth all over the place, we’re not talking about two different groups of people. And there are plenty of kids raised in more secular homes who manage not to fall prey to this. (Anecdotally, I was surprised to find myself going to a movie in a suburb of Houston – the kind of suburb where many, many cars are adorned with Christian stickers, there are lots of churches, and the politics are highly conservative… and the place was swarming with 12 year old girls dressed like prostitutes.) There are practical things to be done. David, congratulations on isolating your daughters from this so they can be little girls, not little customers for whatever someone wants to sell them; that is no small challenge and is a sign of your good parenting. But… perhaps lobbying for some restrictions of advertising to children, with the threat of regulation if the industry doesn’t clean up their act, is in order?I work in marketing (business to business, IT products) and I’m frankly horrifed by what some of my peers do. There are agencies specializing in marketing to kids, and they employ child psychologists to help them figure out how to manipulate children. Given today’s media environment and sheer number of marketing messages anyone (of any age) is exposed to, how do you protect your kids from someone trying to sexualize them in order to sell them things?And when those people are very adeptly playing on natural desires of children – to play at being grown up, to fit in, to know the latest trends – any parent or relative (I’m not a father, but I am an uncle) is utterly outgunned.
posted February 21, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Until I moved out of the house I was not allowed to leave in something my mother didn’t consider appropriate.She didn’t deny my looks or body but gave me proper boundaries to operate in the world. Just because everyone was wearing it or I wanted it did not mean I got it. The standard phrase, “if they jumped into the river would jump too?” My mother raised me to think for myself and give appropriate due to my body and sexuality. I need to neither flaunt nor deny it. It is too bad young girls have parents that would rather flaunt them as miniature sex objects for their own amusement rather then have them grow into mature sexual beings.