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Too Sexy, Too Soon:
Combating the Sexualization of Childhood
Nancy Shute
US News.com
August 11,
2008 05:32
A
6-year-old asks at dinner, "What's a blow job?"
Four-year-old girls mimic Britney Spears's
pelvis-grinding gyrations. Eight-year-old girls plot how
to manipulate their parents to buy them "sexy"
midriff-baring tops. And fifth-grade boys tell their
teacher they know you don't have to like a person to
have sex with them because they've seen pornography on
the Internet.
After I read these real-life examples of the
sexualization of childhood in
So Sexy So Soon,
the new book by Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne, I felt
nauseated. I have a rising kindergartner whose idea of
being a big girl means going without sippy cups, and I'm
nowhere near prepared for dealing with the blow job
question at the dinner table. So I called up Levin, a
professor of education at Wheelock College in Boston, to
find out what on Earth is going on. Here are excerpts of
our conversation:
The
examples you give in your book are so distressing. Is
life really like that for young children?
Yes, unfortunately. I don't want to terrify you about
what's going to come but, on the other hand, it will
help you be prepared.
What
has happened? This is so different from our childhoods,
when we didn't start thinking about this stuff until
middle school. I just saw an ad for high heels for
6-month-olds. Puh-lease.
Deregulation of television in the 1980s led to much more
violent programming for young boys, and girls being
channeled more to what's pretty and sweet. Since then,
we've seen increasing escalation of gender divisions, of
boys being told they have to be macho and ready to
fight, and girls not just being pretty and sweet but
being sexy and sexualized. Even Barbie now has bigger,
sexier lips to compete with the Bratz dolls.
When I look at a toy that upset me 10 years ago, I
think, "Oh boy, I wish we had that now." There is a
female professional wrestling toy that comes to mind.
Back then, she had on a very skimpy dress and she was
holding a cigarette. It was marketed to children. Her
breasts got bigger every year after that, the neckline
got lower. Seven years later, I got a figure of a
professional wrestler in a black leather bra and shorts.
The bra was unzipped; she carried a whip. It was an
image out of S&M pornography. I say give me back the
earlier toy.
But
you say that just saying no, banning Bratz dolls and
violent superheroes, isn't going to work. Why not?
Industry always says it's the parents' job to say what's
appropriate, that if they didn't let their kids watch
it, they wouldn't see it. But no matter how much parents
say no, there are things that are going to get in that
they don't want—at another person's house, on the
playground, or through older kids.
Secondly, if you just say no, your kids are not going to
know how to deal with these things. They begin to see
you as the enemy. The single most important thing is to
stay connected. If a child says, "I really, really,
really need to have this," say: "Tell me why you think
so, and let me tell you why I think that's a bad idea.
Let's think about a way how you can have it that will
deal with what worries me."
You're talking about letting kids see stuff you don't
think is appropriate.
Let me give you an example with my own son, who's now in
his middle 20s. We did not go see the violent cartoon
movies, and he was in first or second grade when the
Ninja Turtle movie was coming out. Everyone in the class
had seen the movie except for two girls and my son. We
agreed that we would go to see the movie together.
Afterwards, a friend of mine asked Eli how the movie
was. He said, "My Mom came out and had a stomachache and
couldn't eat dinner, but I loved it."
What was so important about that is that it established
that he had a voice, and that I had different ideas than
him and he could hear them and they could get into his
head and they could influence him. Had I just said no,
it would set him up at school in a way that would have
alienated him from me, and I knew that at some point he
was going to have to live in this world.
Kids have two boxes in their heads—the pop culture box
and then the family-school-societal-culture box, which
is all the things we hope kids will learn to be good,
contributing members of society. The boxes now are
pretty much disconnected. I hope this will help parents
realize that they have to see what's in their children's
world. They have to connect the boxes. Talk to your kids
about the media in their lives. Watch those shows or
games and ask your children questions about them. If
you're not sure if they're appropriate, watch them
yourself first.
What
do we parents say if our 7-year-old says she hates her
body and wants to be sexy? That's another distressing
real-life example from your book.
You don't need to have the right answer. The important
thing is to talk about it. If you say something is
wrong, later you can say, "I have another idea." Or you
can say, "Hmm, that's a good question. Let me think
about it and we can talk about it tomorrow." There are
ways you can regroup. Even if you say the wrong thing,
it's better than saying nothing.
What
else can parents do?
Work with others—talk to other parents about this and
get your kids' school involved. Schools are at fault for
saying that this is the parents' job. Schools have to
counteract the pop culture lessons kids are learning and
help them develop alternate views and skills. Parents
can't do it themselves.
For six tips on combating the sexualization of
childhood,
click here.
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