Padded bras for first graders, bikini waxes for
eight-year-olds, pole dancing kits sold alongside Etch-a-sketches in the toy
store—excuse me, but how did this
happen? How is it affecting girls' self-image? And, um, what happened to feminism? These are a few of the questions tackled in a recent Salon
interview with M. Gigi Durham, author of “The Lolita Effect: The Media
Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About it.”
As her book title would suggest, Durham places the burden of sexualizing girls
at increasingly young ages squarely on the media’s shoulders. She argues that
many companies are looking to exploit tweens’ increasingly significant
contribution to the commercial sector by selling them traditional messages about
femininity that the older generation of women has by and large rejected.
Interestingly, Durham
connects the commercial sexualization of young girls with women’s inability to
enjoy their sexuality later on. The abstinence-only sex education programs that
have become increasingly prevalent in the Bush years combined with media’s
message that “You must look like Barbie to be sexy” creates a very confusing,
potentially dangerous backdrop against which young women come to understand
their sexuality. Even as teen girls are encouraged to ignore their own
sexuality, they’re told, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you don’t have
it, spend a lot of money until you get it.”
Durham’s
advice to parents? Discuss, but don’t censure. For instance, instead of forbidding
your daughter to read Seventeen magazine, ask her what she thinks of that model’s
look or that article about how to make boys like you. And she says that this
dialogue about media propaganda should start, in modified form of course, as
soon as your kids can talk. Anyone out there tried this method?
Photo: Girlshop.com
