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Dear Target, Could you possibly make a range of clothing for girls7-14 years that doesn't make them look like tramps … You have lost me as a customer when buying apparel for my daughter as I don't want her thinking shorts up her backside are the norm or fashionable.''
This social media posting made by Port Macquarie mother and primary school teacher Ana Amini has reunited the
debate over the hypersexualisation of young girls.
‘
What are the Risks of Premature Sexualisation for Children?’ by Emma Rush for ‘
Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls’
[A] cultural process that sexualises children is relatively new. It involves sexualising products being sold specifically for children, and children themselves being presented in images or directed to act in advertisements in ways modelled on adult sexual behaviour (Rush and La Nauze, 2006, p. 1). To describe this process of directly sexualizing children, we have adopted a phrase first used by Phillip Adams:‘corporate paedophilia.’ Sexualising products are products linked to cultural norms of sexual attractiveness. Such products were previously reserved for teenagers and adults but are now sold directly to girls of primary school age, for example, bras, platform shoes, lip gloss, fake nails, and so on. Advertising for these products shows clearly that they are no longer being sold for ‘creative dress-ups’ purposes, as they may have been in previous decades. Rather, they are marketed as products to wear on a daily basis, to get ‘the look’ that is sold to primary school aged children, despite concern from parents and professionals in child health and welfare. What look is that? ‘Hot.’
So today’s children are not only exposed to hypersexualised adult culture, but are also directly sold the idea that they should look ‘hot’—not later, but now. This means that today’s children are facing sexualising pressure quite unlike anything faced by children in the past. What risks might children face as a result of such pressure?
