Melinda Tankard Reist | Friday, 17 August 2007
Focus on media: A toxic culture for girls
The shameless exploitation of little girls by commercial interests is poisoning a generation.
Living in a sex-saturated society we are used to seeing the image of women cheapened. But baby dolls who know how to "flaunt" their sexuality? Provocative underwear for little girls, and "pole dancing" kits for them to entertain their families and friends with suggestive moves - and be paid in play dollars for it? If we care about children the time has come to put a stop to this ugly trend, says Melinda Tankard Reist, founding director of Women's Forum Australia and editor of its new report on women's magazines, Faking It. In this interview with MercatorNet she calls for a new global movement of women and girl advocacy.
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MercatorNet: Most of us have seen the little girls in miniskirts, platforms and boob tubes; we have heard about the bralettes and g-strings designed for them, and the sexy Bratz Babyz dolls. But tell us about the magazines for young girls -- are they really so bad?
Melinda Tankard Reist: An analysis of the three most popular magazines for young girls -- Barbie Magazine, Total Girl and Disney Girl -- showed that about 50 per cent of the content of the last two was sexualising material. For Barbie it was no less than 75 per cent. This is really bad because these magazines are aimed at girls from five or six years old and up. Around a third of girls aged six to 12 read one or more of them. The pages are full of advice on fashion, beauty and products. Lip gloss, perfumes, deoderants and hair styling products are promoted as must-haves for primary school girls. Along with this they can get "hot gossip". Little girls are shown how to look and behave like pop stars, including how to do "sexy" dance moves.
One Barbie Magazine issue was touted as a "cute crush issue", with images of teenage boys and men up to 30 years of age and comments such as "who's your celeb dream date". This can lead to girls being prepped for sexual advances from men. We know that this is happening to some girls who use social networking sites on the internet. Popular culture, including magazines, prepare them to be approached by men sexually and the internet provides the opportunity. An Australian, Jim Bell, who served time for child pornography offences, wrote an article justifying himself on precisely this ground. He said society allowed sexualised images of children in television, pop music and fashion, and the world of internet child porn merely completes the process. He had a point.
MercatorNet: You cite the Australia Institute report, Corporate Paedophilia -- is that too strong a term for this sexualization of little girls?
Tankard Reist: The phrase was invented by Phillip Adams, an Australian broadcaster and columnist. It is very prescient -- even though the corporations who use little children in their marketing hate it. The phrase highlights the way little girls are treated as sexual fodder for the flogging of products. It's all about extending the market for products -- corporations and advertisers are looking to younger and younger girls to both sell products and to be target markets for those products. As a result, the vulnerability and dignity of children gets sacrificed. They become objects, things to use. It's crept up on us so that we have hardly noticed.
MercatorNet: What are the effects this "girl-poisoning culture" is having or is likely to have on the generation -- girls and boys -- growing up now?
Melinda: Young girls are not emotionally equipped to process these messages. It's difficult for them when abandoned to their autonomy, to resist outside pressure. Exposing them to airbrushed, sexualised and thin images of other women makes them feel worse about themselves -- it affects their wellbeing and self-esteem. Let me quote the American Psychological Association:
"In addition to leading to feelings of shame and anxiety, sexualising treatment and self-objectification can generate feelings of disgust toward one's physical self. Girls may feel they are 'ugly' and 'gross' or untouchable… Strong empirical evidence indicates that exposure to ideals of sexual attractiveness in the media is associated with greater body dissatisfaction among girls and young women."
We are seeing the effects of this sexual objectification on the bodies of young women in self-destructive behaviour such as excessive dieting and eating disorders, drug taking and binge drinking, self harm, anxiety, depression, lower academic performance and ill health. As the APA also points out, this trend not only reflects sexist attitudes but probably increases the risks of sexual violence against women and girls. I would say, certainly.
MercatorNet: People are buying this stuff and letting their children buy it. Aren't the mothers and fathers to blame? I mean, no money = no sales = no industry.
Tankard Reist: It is too simplistic just to blame parents. Parents are up against it and often feel powerless to hold back the tide of sexual imagery and negative messages which flood our communities. There needs to be a whole of society approach. I agree with the view that "it takes a village" to raise good children. Unfortunately the village has become toxic. We need governments, regulatory bodies and other agencies to ban sexualised representations of children and to do something to stop the pornification of every aspect of daily life.
Why are violent and degrading lyrics allowed in music targeted at young people? Why isn't there compulsory internet filtering so children can be protected from internet predators? Why do our kids have to be exposed to open displays of porno magazines and billboards featuring half naked women in sexualised poses, while walking or being driven to school? Yes parents can say no and not buy certain products but a lot more needs to happen than this to force those who have all the power, to change their ways.
MercatorNet: How have you dealt with the pressures in bringing up your children?
Tankard Reist: It is very hard. You try to protect them, but it is just about impossible unless you lock them up. I suppose I try to teach them media literacy -- to recognise harmful messages, to teach them they are more than the sum of their parts, to help them explore their gifts and abilities and develop other facets of their lives. Like many of my friends, we do what we can to equip them to live above the sludge of a sick society , to live counter-culturally, and to make a positive mark on the world.
MercatorNet: Faking It is a kind of antidote to the sexualising magazines. Who in particular is the report aimed at?
Tankard Reist: It is aimed primarily at younger women, by exposing the messages they're sold in magazines about being sexually available, looking "hot", attracting men, and buying tons of products to try to improve their looks -- and of course, never gaining an ounce of weight. Our magazine-style report is something of a parody of beauty and fashion magazines, with headings on the front like, "Of Course You're Not Hot!" and "The Stick Insect Diet". But it contains serious research which we hope will help girls to reject the hyper-sexualised and objectifying messages they are inundated with and to search for something beyond the vacuous air-headedness of the cult of celebrity. I think any woman, actually, will find it helpful. Along with educators and anyone involved in advocacy for girls.
MercatorNet: Corporate Pedophilia, Faking It -- what do you hope will happen next to counteract and halt this trend?
Tankard Reist: Women's Forum Australia wants to be part of a new global movement of women and girl advocacy . It is happening already -- we are being besieged with messages from all over the world from people who have also had enough of this toxic culture. Now we want to harness this sense of outrage and turn it into a force for change. We hope that the issue will be addresses at all levels, from government bodies regulating advertising standards to the magazine editors themselves. The editors particularly because they have great power to put positive messages in their publications and makes girls feel good about themselves.
Melinda Tankard Reist is an author and the founding director of Women's Forum Australia. She lives in the Australian Federal capital, Canberra, with her husband David and four children.
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Comments (12)
Prof. Earnest Thornberry said...Thank you for the info about Faking It. I’ve been covering media literacy and the sexualization of girls in my own blog.
As the father of a little girl, I’m weary of the sexual imagery on TV and billboards. What does it say about a culture that strips innocence from children?
United States | Saturday, 18 August 2007 at 8:43 pm
Ginger said...Thanks for the insight and Tankard Reist, thanks too for speaking out despite all odds. Often it’s about putting some more “grey matter” in the heads of young girls and of their parents (especially the mothers).
For the media and advertising, their concern stops at the “bottom-line”, and so parents have to equip themselves for a ‘rescue’ mission.
Nigeria | Sunday, 19 August 2007 at 1:47 am
Solange Miller said...http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16070
The demographic winter is here.
Aging workforce in the US.
geocities(dot)com/demographic_crash
Website with good information on the subject.
Welcome.
Have a nice day.
Sincerely,
Solange Miller
Canada | Monday, 20 August 2007 at 10:15 pm
Christopher Canaris said...Locking up your daughters is certainly not the answer! Banning Cleo or Cosmopolitan from the house generally doesn’t work – they just hide it under the mattress.
Teaching children to be media savvy means being prepared to read what your children are reading and discuss the contents. An old friend, the patriarch of a large and irrepressible family, had it honed down to a fine art. He’d pick up a copy of Cleo at the dinner table, open it up and say, “Hmm, this is interesting, seven new ways to have sex on your first date…” and then start reading it aloud as his daughters squirmed with embarrassment.
I could think of subtler approaches but the message certainly got through.
Australia | Wednesday, 22 August 2007 at 2:07 pm
Bess Magno said...I am so glad that Ms. Reist is helping fight the immorality and ammorality so prevalent in our young people these days. It is difficult to counteract the current in-your-face sexuality seen in almost everything in media. Everything seems to be about sex! But there is hope. There are groups of young people learning to refuse to be dragged by these forces because they have realized the negative effects on their sexuality.
I am glad that Ms. Reist has provided us a powerful source of information to help convince the younger generations to live as true human beings should.
Philippines | Wednesday, 22 August 2007 at 10:29 pm
Karen Dunleavy said...This article is totally right on the truth! I get so sick of this stuff. I-at 46-am still effected by the way women are portrayed in our modern culture and also how disgustingly and hypocritically they are treated in 3rd world countries. I feel dirty and defiled often and worry about this influence on my daughters. I am a Christian and accepted by God and unconditionally loved, but these sinful society are sick, and their sexual perverted tendencies pull you in.
United States | Tuesday, 28 August 2007 at 11:24 am
Talia said...I am doing an assignment on this issue! It is so good that it is being addressed! I am sick of the media objectifing women and considering woman as nothing more than a man’s commodity!
Australia | Sunday, 9 March 2008 at 9:55 pm
Merlin said...The environmental pollutions are an extension of the cognitive pollution that has contaminated our perceptions and their precipatated presumptions. Our whole mechanism of judgement has been degraded by the perversions of thought which have infected our logic with virus efficiency.
We need to quarantine ourselves from each other, not out of fear, but to fast ourselves from the addictive stimulations the cultural environment attacks our senses. Only after we have had our cold-turkey deprivations from the hyper-stimulations, and experienced the tranquility of the peace within the uncluttered mind without distractive, diverting chatter will we have a focus to determine the essentials and essence value of ourselves and others in a social and civic environment.
It will take the courageous few to begin to undo the predations of the audaciously callous.
United States | Tuesday, 15 April 2008 at 4:19 am
Jennifer Simpson said...So glad that finally something is happening here. When one feels that one is alone, the feeling of helplessness to anything at all is almost overwhelming. And I have a beautiful child who has suffered from this - both in the form of sexual assault as a very young child, and who has battled with anorexia since the age of seven. I’d like to think that this would never happen to any other little girl.
-- | Thursday, 17 April 2008 at 9:50 am
KARMA said...My TV has an OFF button it works a treat....wow what will they think of next!Go even further, do not have a TV in your house try it for a year, I have watched about 20 hours this year it is liberating.
The home is your home, and advertising of any type should not be
allowed in, I have a no junk mail sign on the mail box, I do not read the newspaper much, I do not listen to the radio and watch almost no television.I do not know why more people do not try this for a year or two.The only way to shut down the media is to get them out of your life there is no other solution.We do not need TV, radio, newspapers etc etc.
Australia | Monday, 16 June 2008 at 2:00 pm
Merlin said...Karma,
I so agree. I had noted to someoneelse how we create our media in our communications in what we receive and transmit.
The person was seeking to “reform” a segment of the mass media. My point was to create one’s own media, which included excluding those forms and modality that pollute one’s own aesthetic purpose.
Bugsy
United States | Tuesday, 17 June 2008 at 9:02 am
How to stop anxiety attacks said...Great article..Gender sensitivity is the burning issue of the hour..!
Iceland | Tuesday, 1 July 2008 at 8:10 pm
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