Comments on: Sexualization of Girls in Media – New Report

By: Chantelle

Chantelle — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:08:43 +0000

Great post and comments. I work for the YWCA Metro Vancouver and just finished reading the APA report as this is a key area we advocate for and are actually hosting an upcoming panel discussion on this very topic. You do an excellent job of breaking down some of the impacts cited in the study.

Sexy Inc. is a film co-created by the YWCA Montreal and the National Film Board of Canada that provides some great perspectives from both academics and youth about this hyper-sexualization. You can find the link here:

http://www.ywcavan.org/content/Hypersexualization/1421

Where are you located? Perhaps you can join us at our panel discussion, regardless I would be happy to discuss this with you further.

Keep up the great work!

Chantelle

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:52:23 +0000

Its just to bad that nice, innocent girls, wont be the wife that they one day could be. This will result in many unhappy marriages and/or lack there of

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:18:28 +0000

Thank you for the post.

I find it very alarming that more and more parents think they can’t do anything about it because these kinds of messages are ‘everywhere’. I have teenage sisters and I saw the shocking jump from when they were 10 years old to 12. When I talk to them, I can see that they are already buying into a lot of these lies and wanting to look ‘good’. I can tell that their self esteem is slowly being destroyed and I can see how they ‘need’ to look a certain way in order to fit in. It really does break my heart to see my sisters and other teenage girls like them fall into these these kinds of lies.

Personally, though parents have a big role, if we are in a position where we CAN influence these kids lives, we can make a difference by living out our lives in such a way to show them that we are more than our bodies. We can show them that there is much more joy and fulfillment when we relate to one another as people and not objects.

Thank you for posting this and raising this awareness.

By: Steven

Steven — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:07:50 +0000

Wow, what a disturbing trend. The degradation of adult women is bad enough, but to prey on the insecurity of little girls through marketing and images is just despicable.

By: Joshua Linville

Joshua Linville — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:08:16 +0000

Thank you for the exhaustive post. It is quite clear how detrimental the objectification and sexualization of women is in today’s media. However, there seems to be no boundaries, as girls as young as 7 are being targeted by advertisers. In the past few years, advertisers have shifted their focus onto “tweens”, that is, children between the ages 8 and 12. And one of the most important issues to this group is their sense of identity. This is leading young girls to find their identity in how “sexy” they are. So girls are abandoning the development of their intellect and character, focusing on their outer appearances instead.

What can be done? Other than monitoring a child’s media intake, I think parents can have discussions with their daughters about self-worth. Girls need to learn that they should not be valued for their physical beauty alone. Furthermore, parents can make it clear to their young daughters that “sexy” behavior is not only inappropriate, but an insult to one’s intelligence. A generation raised up only focusing on their appearance is going to be a shallow generation.