Kids Marketing and the Suffocating Gender Straightjacket

Joe Kelly, President, Dads and Daughters

As parents, we like to think that what we do at home is more important than what our kids see on TV, in movies, on the store shelves, or out on the streets. Most of the time, we do carry more weight. But those other, outside products, images and messages relentlessly influence our kids, and often in ways we don’t recognize—because we’re grown ups – and because we are immersed in a marketing barrage ourselves.

Something our Culture influences most is what I call the Gender Straight-Jacket.  This influence is so pervasive that – paradoxically --it’s usually hard to see. 

Here’s one concrete example: With subtle and overt means, our culture communicated to my 13-year-old daughter that it isn’t smart or safe to flash a pencil box covered with hearts and flowers (images the culture identifies as girlish) at school. If this strikes you as a trivial example, stop and think about what our culture would communicate to your 13-year-old son if he brought a cherished pencil box covered with hearts and flowers to school.

Marketing incessantly reinforces these narrow, stifling gender expectations, beginning when kids are very young, even in media environments we consider innocent and educational.

I was watching Rugrats on Nickelodeon with my six-year-old twin girls when the commercial for a local plastic surgeon came on. It showed pictures of school age girls while a girl’s voice told how plastic surgery helps girls look better and feel better about themselves. On Rugrats!  -- David, New York

Most advertising features females.  Why? Because advertising relies on one concept more than any other: sex sells.  Hence, on the surface at least, advertising looks like it overwhelmingly influences female gender roles.  But, as you’ll see, you don’t have to scratch very far to see how these images and messages profoundly impact male gender roles, too.

Sexualized appearance-first messages infuse advertising for the most innocuous products, like shoes and cereal. For example, an ad for Doc Marten shoes shows a girl’s legs (the rest of her body is missing) sitting on outdoor bleachers. The photo’s focus is the pair of Doc Martens she is wearing. The ad copy reads, The second thing guys look at. The clear implication is that boys look first at her breasts, therefore both girl and boy should be concerned about her cup size. Not only is this message harmful to girls and boys – it’s an insult to both sexes.

We’ve probably seen many ads like these, but they are so ubiquitous that we seldom notice all of what they communicate. When we stop to think about the messages, they are blatantly silly; but we’re all busy and there are so many other just like them. However, the fact that we are seldom fully conscious of what they say does not mean that their messages leave our kids or us untouched.

The underlying themes of all this marketing is this: a female’s primary, if not sole, purpose is to snag a male. And, for males, how a female looks is more important than who she is. It’s summed up on the 1990s slogan for Maidenform: “Inner beauty only goers so far.”

When you see marketing like this, imagine your child’s face in the picture. When I do that, I frequently get angry and sick to my stomach. That strong reaction sometimes catches me by surprise. After all, I see and hear marketing just like this every day, just as my kids do. But with my daughter’s face in the picture, I can’t keep the slogan’s meaning out of my mind.

What if Mavis walked down the street in Manhattan and, every block, a guy approached and said, You know, girl, inner beauty only goes so far If I were walking with her, I’d want to slug that guy! I don’t want anybody ever telling my daughter to believe such a lie as she walks through her life.

We have a word for judging people by how they look – bigotry. I don’t believe that Inner beauty only goes so far is one bit true for my children; and I don’t think it’s something any child – girl or boy — should believe.

Joe Kelly (joe@dadsanddaughters.org) is President of the national advocacy nonprofit Dads and Daughters; publisher of the magazine Daughters: For Parents of Girls; and author of Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter When She's Growing Up So Fast.