Parents to Corporations: Stop Sexualizing our Daughters
These Bratz dolls have long bothered me — ever since they came out a few years ago. If the brand name “Bratz” wasn’t enough to turn me off, the haughty eyes, made-up appearance, and skimpy clothes certainly did. I’m not even a Barbie doll fan and never bought them for my daughter, either.
This Bratz doll embodies everything that I hate about our society. It’s exploitation of innocence but, surprisingly — and I know because Bratz dolls have been on many a girl’s birthday wish-list — accepted by mothers. So let’s ask ourselves — what message are we sending our daughters? I can only say that it’s a little more blatant than the one we were sent with Barbie dolls.
If you don’t think that your daughter is affected by society’s sexploitation of girls in our culture — in toys, music, clothing - let’s try a little litmus test: see if your daughter (or son for that matter) is familiar with the lyrics to either Fergie’s song “My Humps”:
What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
What you gon’ do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I’ma make, make, make, make you scream
Make you scream, make you scream.
They say I’m really sexy,
The boys they wanna sex me.
They always standing next to me,
Always dancing next to me,
Tryin’ a feel my hump, hump.
Lookin’ at my lump, lump.
U can look but you can’t touch it.
or Aqua’s song “Barbie Girl”:
I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic..
You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere..
Imagination, life is your creation..
I’m a blond bimbo girl, in a fantasy world,
Dress me up, make it tight, i’m your dolly..
You’re my doll, rock’n'roll, feel the glamour in pink,
Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky..
You can touch, you can play, if you say: “i’m always yours”
Now, I would love to tell you a big lie, but I’m going to tell the truth — even my kids know a lot of those lyrics. I’m not proud of it. Even though my daughter escaped the commercialism of toys, she has not escaped the music industry’s same transgression — sexualizing our youth. My point is that, when the sexualization occurs with socializing elements that are not even in the home, then it’s prevalent in society and in need of being flagged and changes made. Let’s love our kids enough to make the necessary changes to allow their childish innocence for as long as possible. Kids with even the strictest of parents have heard the lyrics above and sing them amongst themselves as anthems of their generation. No doubt, these two songs will be recalled in later years with nostalgia and smiles. Scary, huh.
When did we Americans become desensitized to shameless sexual content? When did we begin allowing corporations to capitalize on corrupting our kids’ innocence? No matter how we look at it, we parents are the ones who have allowed this erosion of values in society; and it’s up to us to correct that. It’s time to call out the corporations that sexualize our daughters and put them on notice. IzzyMom is a blogger who leads the pack in doing so. Take a moment to read her post:
http://izzymom.com/2006/09/11/just-what-your-first-grader-needspadded-bras/
I totally agree with this article by IzzyMom, which calls for something better for our daughters. While you’re at it, follow the link to Hilltown Families to read Scholastic Books’ response to a mother who called for discontinuation of Bratz books from the order list for elementary-aged girls. It is indeed a call for corporate responsibility for products marketed to our kids. I, for one, am UNwilling to throw just ANY books into my kids’ hands to get them to read. I totally disagree with Scholastic’s VP Kyle Good in his opinion that Bratz dolls offend the sensibilities of only SOME parents:
“Our mission at Scholastic is to get ALL kids reading — and to keep them reading. To do that, we offer reading materials that appeal to children where they are, not where we would like them to be…We recognize that not every book is right for every young person. The children in our nation’s classrooms come from widely divergent cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds.”
On the first note, Scholastic appears to dumb down our kids to get them interested in reading, to make the interests base to appeal to more kids. That’s to sell books, not to contribute to meaningful education.
Secondly, to Good’s opinion that “not every book is right for every person” — what a cop out! So values are relative. I argue that there is a core set of values in the public educational system. If the Bratz dolls are acceptable for any child at all, then what is America thinking?
To his third point, I would like to know of any culture, religion, or ethnic group in our very multicultural society that supports blatant sexualization of little girls. What a crock! Multiculturalism and diversity are not excuses, cover-ups for the introduction of sexualization into our kids’ content. The suggested differences in values is a veil for corporations to market to kids whose parents allow them to be exploited. Our values as a society are essentially universal in the way of protecting our children.
I consider what is going on now as corporate sexual enticement and pandering. Making children consumers has pushed the envelope for what is acceptable as making products and celebrities increasingly suggestive (the child sees it as sophisticated and grown up) increases profits. When an individual educates a child in such a way, he is considered a pedophile. Why isn’t corporate America made to answer for deliberately appealing to children and awakening them in this way as an individual would? Is it because money is the desired end rather than sex? No matter the desired ends, the child is still victimized by sexualization.
If, at this point, you feel that the marketing of Bratz dolls is acceptable, then take a look at this report from the American Psychological Association:
http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualizationsum.html#
Somewhere along the line, we allowed our daughters to go from being consumers to being the consumed. One excerpt lays out how companies sexualize our little girls:
“…advertisements (e.g., the Skechers “naughty and nice” ad that featured Christina Aguilera dressed as a schoolgirl in pigtails, with her shirt unbuttoned, licking a lollipop), dolls (e.g., Bratz dolls dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings, and feather boas), clothing (thongs sized for 7– to 10-year-olds, some printed with slogans such as “wink wink”), and television programs (e.g., a televised fashion show in which adult models in lingerie were presented as young girls).
The detrimental effects of this sexualized marketing/advertising on our preteen and adolescent girls:
“Research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood.” PLUS…”Self-objectification has been linked directly with diminished sexual health among adolescent girls.”
So we’re producing — or allowing corporations that exploit our daughters to produce — a generation of girls with poor self-worth and unhealthy views of sexuality. That makes for continued sexploitation and lower self-esteem…and those same views will be passed to the next generation.
So the next time your daughter takes a left turn in the toy aisle to those flashy purple boxes holding the haughty-eyed, skimpily clad dolls that are the Bratz bitches, take a second to get down on eye level, gently hold your daughter’s little shoulders, look into her sweet baby eyes, and remind her, “Sweetie, you’re so much better than that. That’s not beauty. That’s inappropriate and not something that I want you to aspire to.”
You’ll be reminding your daughter of her value, that she already has something special that you (as her parent) won’t allow to be stolen. That’s the most important message that we, as a society, can convey.
Want to make corporations answer to our society’s values for our girls? Here’s a start from IzzyMom:
As for media — television, radio, and magazines being the main vehicles for commercial exploitation — the next time our tween/teen daughters get a glimpse of Janice Dickerson and the hollow women on America’s Next Top Model; The Simple Life with apathetic and self-absorbed Paris and Nicole; or those desperate, feuding women on The Bachelor, let’s think about what message we’re sending as adult women who ourselves accept being dumbed down.
Damned Barbies…they did it to us, too?
From one parent to all others, let’s raise the bar much higher for our kids’ sake. This cause is worthy of some serious activism. Take it up in your community, starting with schools’ book lists…and what you won’t give at girls’ birthday parties.
Keep updated: http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/
Related post on this blog: http://galvanized.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/barbie-girl-we-need-to-talk/
I’m right there with ya on this. Grrr, those Bratz make me so mad.
i ENTIRELY agree. That’s why i love Alanis Morissette’s YouTube video on it… her spoof of Humps.
I, for one, am UNwilling to throw just ANY books into my kids’ hands to get them to read.
Amen! I wonder what Kyle Good would say to that???
Thank you for carrying the proverbial torch and calling parents to action on this. We need as much support as we can get and sadly, the issue of sexualizing little girls needs to be reiterated over and over because s many people are completely numb to it.
[...] Galvanized [...]
[...] Related posts: http://galvanized.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/parents-to-corporations-stop-sexualizing-our-daughters/ [...]
I agree with what you said at the end. It makes more sense to attack the choices made by parents, who the corporations are simply responding to, than the corporations, as the article title suggests. My business doesn’t sit around and think of ways to manipulate societal mores to convince them to make questionable moral choices… we respond to the desire of our customer.
If there’s a message that your title is trying to send to the corporation, it’s this: Please make moral choices for your customers, who are apparently too stupid to do this for themselves. (I happen to be frustrated about the sexualization of both genders, but I also realize that in America we have more problems dealing with sexuality in a healthy way than in many other developed countries, based on the statistics of sex-related crimes.)
Some companies, Kroger for example (by putting Cosmo behind a blank cover), have chosen to hide what they feel is blatant sexualization on magazine covers directed at women. Whether or not that’s the right choice, and whether or not it’s truly effective, is what I’m questioning. Just because it’s easier to boycott a store or a company than to teach our neighbors the risks of their choices, doesn’t make the easy path the right one to take. - Tim
P.S. Regardless, it was an interesting read.
Tim, thanks so much for your insightful comments. I agree with most of what you say. I see that there is responsibility on both sides, but it’s ultimately the parents’. The fault on the corporations’ side is the Almighty Buck, and on the parents’ side, it’s in passively accepting whatever is marketed rather than filtering.
I appreciate your flip-side argument, so much that I’m making a new post for it. I think there’s accountability *and neglect of it* on both sides.
[...] Tim’s Response: Parents, Filtering Is Our Job A reader Tim offered a flip side perspective to an earlier post - “Parents to Corporations: Stop Sexualizing Our Daughters.” [...]
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