In case you haven't noticed, girls are growing up much faster these days...or rather, looking grown up, much too fast. I'm sure you've noticed it-it would be hard to not notice the growing selection of grown-up looking clothing, makeup and even underwear (let alone tv programming, movies, Hollywood 'idols', and pre-teen magazines) that is now being geared towards younger and younger girls.
Anytime I browse through the little girls section at a store for my niece, I end up finding clothes there that I would wear (and unfortunately, some clothes that not I would even wear). Not simply clothes, but shoes as well: since I've been cursed with a 4.5 shoe size, I always find myself in the little girls aisle shopping for shoes, and the heels and strappy sandals I've seen in there were never something I would imagine a ten year old naturally wanting to wear around.
I just wonder: are we ever going to let our girls just be girls? Is this some crazy marketing and consumeristic exploitation to just get girls 'in the mold' younger and younger so they fall into all the trappings that are normally reserved for young women? If you didn't think so before, you probably will after viewing the provocative pictures popping up all over the web of ten year old Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau (I mean really, what ten year old can afford those expensive stiletto's and designer gowns?)
So wait...let me get this straight: we are bombarded daily with stories about sexual predators, about how young girls shouldn't be allowed to join social networking sites, and even parents fearful of posting pictures of their babies/toddlers online for fear of predatory/exploitative behaviors of others....but if we throw some makeup and stiletto heels on her, it's 'art'. So it's ok, as long as it's in the name of fashion (consumerism)?
We can look at the images above and KNOW that these are the typical looks that sell for advertising: posed and premeditated down to the every demographic they can reach. They are designed to draw a viewer in to sell the product, the dream or the idea. On the other side of things, we can also know that, inherently there's nothing wrong with the concept of a little girl running around without a top, with a necklace on, playing dress up. There IS something wrong with sexualizing that same little girl for the sake of selling something. (by the way, what is that picture selling, anyway???)
When you look at that second picture of her on the rug, you are used to seeing these types of shots with models that are women, and we are used to seeing those models in a highly sexualized way. There is a sort of gaze being taught, being sold to both men and women who view these ads. There is a fantasy being sold, there is a desire being sold. The positioning, the makeup, the parted, pouty lips, the placement of the hip---it's no accident that models are posed a certain way, with certain lighting and makeup. What is it that they are selling to you when they pose models in this way? Well, plainly it is sex, and everything that comes with it (being sexy, being desired, being glamorous). And then it is put in the context of this ten year old girl and it says what? That we accept the sexualization of a ten year old? I mean it's bad enough that we are bombarded with these images of women being sold this way. Now we have to fend off the idea that it's okay to view girls this way?
Tell me your thoughts....
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