I tried to think of a different title but couldn’t because this one says it all about this article. It is being shared because it brings of a valid questions about how more and more sexually explicit outfits are being marketed to younger people. What are you thoughts?
The Sexualisation Of Girls
Is feminism dead? As 2010 comes to a close, one of the clearest trends was the increase in campaigning and publications highlighting the way old female stereotypes in an increasingly aggressive manner.
Natasha Walter’s book Living Dolls: the return of sexism details how pornography has now come off the top shelf and is now part of our mainstream culture. So much a part of it that highly sexualised outfits are now being peddled at children. There was, for instance, a campaign against padded bras being sold to girls as young as seven. Playboy is also targeting children and many primary school children already wear make-up at school.
Some argue that there is nothing wrong with this. Children have long wanted to dress up in their mum’s clothes, including high heels (Bratz, who out-Barbie Barbie in their total obsession with shopping, have a whole range of high heeled shoes for kids) and bras. But dressing up for play is one thing; wearing these type of clothes on an everyday basis is quite another.
According to a recent international survey of 2,200 mothers, 81% of children under the age of two currently have some form of online presence — ranging from a single photo uploaded and shared by their parents, to a full-fledged profile on a social networking site. A full 92% of children in the U.S. have an online presence by the time they are two, compared to 73% in western Europe.
