First, I am disturbed by the trend in our society of sexualizing young people, especially girls. We talked about this a little in class. Our body ideal for women is one that is prepubescent. It is not a surprise, then, that prepubescent girls also become sexualized. Our toys, clothing, and appearance expectations for girls represent them as miniature adults. Some of my favorite examples of this is clothing from stores like baby gap and old navy selling miniature versions of adult clothes - down to low rise jeans for toddlers. Really, nothing is more practical then low rise jeans for kids who are still wearing diapers. It reminds me of the SNL commercial for thong diapers. Which brings me to my next example: thongs being sold at abercrombie for kids. I'm sorry, but I don't think that any 7 year old should be wearing a thong. There is also the current trend of selling girls' dress shoes (for kids aged 3 and up) with heels. I think libby lu is also a good example of this weirdness. I am so glad that they have gone out of business!
As for the beauty pageant business, as creepy as we all seem to think it is, I would venture that some of us are watching toddlers in tiaras, a new show on TLC, I think, about child beauty pageants. Why do we watch them? I think I do because, honestly, it's like watching a sideshow act. You can't look away. It's why the film "Little Miss Sunshine" was so funny. But I recognize my culpability in indirectly supporting beauty pageants by watching this show. I should probably stop watching it. By the way, did you know that many child beauty pageants now have swimsuit competitions as part of the pageant? I don't get it. Kids on toddler with tiaras get spray tans, bleached hair, more makeup than you can shake a stick at, and these things called "flippers" which are false teeth so that their smiles are perfect during a time when they might be losing their baby teeth. oy. The question, to me, is not IF these practices are damaging to young girls, but rather, what can and should we do about them?
On the other hand, the stats from the teen bashing article are confusing. I agree with other posts that he seems to both critique and support some statistics in order to make his point in ways that seem hypocritical. I also agree that there have been article written more recently (Barry Glassner has a whole chapter in his book, "CUlture of Fear" that deals with the myth of killer kids.) that may seem more relevant. But I think it is important to point out that this doesn't mean we should reject the use of statistics entirely, but rather, make an informed decision about which statistics have the most credibility. I think a lot of the people in this class grew up in the wake of Columbine, and this has affected our understanding of youth violence. But, it's important to point out that although school shootings seemed like an epidemic for a while, this is largely because of the media coverage. School shootings are incredibly statistically insignificant. As Males points out, youth are exponentially more likely to be killed by an adult family member than they are to kill anyone, themselves. I think Males' best point is considering WHY the problem is constructed in this way. The answer is that it benefits groups who make a living based on this idea - the media - who sell papers and commercials based on this premise, government politicians who run campaigns based on these beliefs, and "specialists" who make money treating the "violent kids."
I just realized that as I read everyone's blog that I think I read the wrong reading. However, I found that I agree with what you wrote about the sexualization of children. I remember hearing a couple years ago how a retailer had attempted to market thongs to elementary/middle school aged children. And that seemed really disturbing me. I find myself feeling uncomfortable seeing babies walking around with two piece bathing suits...I don't know to me it feels too much like they are wearing underwear and that just makes me feel really uncomfortable when I see it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is my own bias but I feel as though whenever there is school violence that occurs in a surburban school the big question by media is "why are these kids doing this?" or "how could this happen" but when this happens at a urban school where most of the demographics of the students are non-white the focused question(s) aren't the same at all. It's as if well it was bound to happen or it makes sense that this happened hear but if it where to happen in the suburban school then there's something wrong that needs to be fixed.