For Melissa Wardy (and others who take the time to call out childhood sexualization and sexual objectification): Here’s a fun game to play while reading your many comments and emails.
Larger PDF version, too.
I’m visualizing a series of Bingo boards by blog topic: Junk food marketing, in-school advertising, gendered toys, etc. Interested, Mattel?
Inspired by Lauredhel’s Anti-Feminist Bingo.
Most people who disagree with me and my quest for more regulation on marketing to kids invoke the nanny state argument: Parents, not the state or federal government, are responsible for what their children see/do/buy.
To me, it’s not so much nanny state v. marketing to kids, but more, who is allowed to reach my kids? To teach them? As many would not like the government interfering in our family’s life, I don’t want corporations interfering. And make no mistake, that is exactly what corporate advertising directed at kids is meant to do: Interfere with parenting.
Janice D’Arcy writes about marketing to kids on social networks for the Washington Post:
It cites several new media strategies, such as a McDonalds text messaging campaign, Mountain Dew and Lucky Charms campaigns that ask fans to create their own promotional videos, thus turning marketees into unpaid marketers. My favorite example is of the KFC campaign that embedded a high-pitched sound into advertisements which most adults cannot hear.
If you don’t want the government texting your children, or convincing them to create pro-liberal/conservative videos, or embedding sounds that parents cannot hear into messaging to reach your kids without your consent — why is it okay for corporations to do so?
When do we draw the line?
Move over Bratz dolls. Childhood sexualization has new spokesmodels.
Here, the Twin Cities’ Jenny Ginther and Krista Carpenter, co-leaders of the body image group at Water’s Edge Counseling, talk about the Mattel’s controversial Monster High Doll Clawdeen Wolf, which is being marketed to girls age 6 and up.
Amy Jussel covers it all in this post at Shaping Youth.
Thanks to Trevor for the tip.
Life circumstances (new day job, new house, and a recent health scare) have encouraged me to do a lot of reflecting lately.
I began blogging more than four years ago; my first post criticized Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Raising two daughters, I was inspired to write about corporations who were shaping my girls’ views of themselves in order to make lots and lots of money. A sampling:
Less is more, or, may your daughters’ dream be to drive a Disney Princess car someday
Bratz girls are not sexy and you’re sick for thinking so
Time to scream about girls’ Halloween costumes — again
Girls, pay no attention to the naked supermodel sitting next to you, or, Dove’s at it again
PTA is a voice for multinational corporate interests, vows to fight frizzy hair
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was researching what would become the foundation of Parents for Ethical Marketing. I’m very proud of the writing and advocacy work I’ve done. But I’ve found I’m not feeling as pressed to pursue these issues anymore. I’d like to think that it’s because my daughters, now 9 and 13, are over the hump — that I’ve ushered them through those years where they were most susceptible, and have come out on the other side successfully.
That may be overly optimistic — I don’t know. But I do know that the world of blogging and social media has changed so much just over the past few years: When I looked for resources to help me parent the way I felt was right, they were few and far between. Amy Jussel’s Shaping Youth was the first blog I read religiously and I found comfort in the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s website. I also learned much from Nancy Gruver (New Moon Girls) and Joe Kelly (then Dads and Daughters).
Now we have Twitter and Facebook and so many great resources out there:
Marketing, Media and Childhood
See Jane/Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
And some places that even include PEM as a resource:
Jean Kilbourne (*squee!*)
Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV
Redefine Girly A blog for Pigtail Pals
All this is to say that I’ve found myself at another crossroads in life, and with a burgeoning teenager in the house, I’ll be stepping back from the keyboard. Not completely, but I won’t be around so much. I am confident that I am leaving my concerns in the hands of many capable advocates.
Thank you for all that you do.
Cross-posted from A Magical Year without Disney:
Here’s a clip of Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, talking about the four-billion-dollar Disney Princess complex and the difficulty and rewards of not choosing Disney.
Remember, Orenstein will be reading at the Barnes and Noble at the Galleria in Edina at 7 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, January 28.
Forget about creativity and imagination! Instead of homemade, Moms, Target suggests your teenage (or tween!) daughter dresses as a Sexy Native American. Or a Sexy Honey Bear. Or a Sexy Angel (Angelicious!).
Seems that Ooh, La La! Couture, the clothing designers for Miley Cyrus’s nine-year-old sister Noah and her friend, eight-year-old actress Emily Grace Reaves, is not really designing children’s lingerie, just tutus attached to tank tops. As of this writing the Ooh, La La website was down and all the online videos showing the girls modeling some designs had been designated private. If you haven’t seen them yet, here are some of the images of these girls and their outfits.
Seeing young girls dressing like stereotypical streetwalkers has been disturbing people all over the internet the last few days, which is good. This problem is real. And big. And it goes beyond wondering what these girls’ parents are thinking.
It is a parenting issue. But it’s also a feminist issue. And a public health issue. And a corporate marketing issue.
Hardy Girls Healthy Women posts about the new American Apparel campaign, which asks women and young girls older than 18 to send in photos of their bottoms for judging on the internet:
The sexualization of women and porn-inspired media have infiltrated the everyday culture of the youngest girls. According to the 2007 APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls in Media, the negative impact on girls and women is indisputable: the sexualization and objectification of girls and women in media wreak havoc on our psychological, emotional, cognitive and relational lives.
[American Apparel's] campaign is a perfect example of the insidious ways marketers and media promote sexualization and body obsession as “girl power.” American Apparel is directly and unconscionably undermining girls’ healthy development by equating confidence with looking sexy, winning with being judged on their appearance, and personal value with 15 seconds of fame. The objectification of girls’ and women’s bodies is a real concern in a country where 1 in 4 women is a victim of violence, and sexual harassment is rampant.
(Sign their petition boycotting American Apparel.)
Or spend some time at Sociological Images and discover sexually suggestive teen brands, baby booties, “future trophy wife” kids’ tee, House of Dereón’s girls’ collection, sexualized clothes and toys, sexist kids’ tees, a trifecta of sexualizing girls, a zebra-striped string bikini for infants, icky kids’ t-shirts, “are you tighter than a 5th grader?” t-shirt, and the “I’m tight like spandex” girls’ t-shirt.
I also wrote a post in 2008 about Disney’s Miley Cyrus and and her leap into sexualization with the photo shoot for Vanity Fair. I’ll leave you with the images (and helpful resources follow):
(more…)
This morning I had the honor of participating on a panel for the Minnesota Public Health Association, Unhealthy Influences: The Impact of Advertising on the Health of Children.
If you attended the panel, here’s some information that you might find helpful:
PEM Primer for CCFC Summit (basic background information on Parents for Ethical Marketing)
Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls
A few posts on sexualization:
From the makers of Disney My Baby Princess, Sluts! I mean, Struts!
Sitter’s Checklist: Parenting, toy makeovers, and even more! ways to get kids to buy stuff
A sexualized Miley Cyrus? One word: Disney.
Sitter’s Checklist: Sweet Valley High, Bratz, Bimbos, and Who’s to blame
Some things I mentioned:
Retailer rue21 profits from sexualizing girls, thinks you should, too
Sexed-up six-year-olds roaming the streets at night: Must be Halloween
Beauty school parties for preteens
Resources:
The Lolita Effect, or, Yes, Virginia, little girls really are sexualized by the media
Sitter’s Checklist: Kids and food, sexualization, and smoking
Sexualizing Childhood — Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood
