Sexualizing Young Girls

Media in all forms has become a very important aspect of North American society. It helps us connect with people ad discover new things with the click of a button or the tap of a finger, but is it causing any harm? Media as a whole is not harmful, but the inherent messages it sends to young people; specifically young girls is. The sexualisation portrayed in the media, creates a very negative impact on young women as it leads to harmful effects on their growth development, and negatively affects our society overall as it creates harmful ideologies. The ideas and harmful ways of thinking affect their physical and mental health, encourages the continuing sexualisation and the cognitive and emotional development.
The sexualizing of young girls
and teenagers can do serious harm to their physical and mental health and cause permanent damage in these important years of development and self discovery. When a girl begins middle school her appearance becomes much more important. Friends also become a very important support system and the more popular you are the more friends you have so for many girls maintaining or gaining popularity also becomes very important. This is also the age when young people start to idolize their parents less and celebrities who are quite popular more and the easiest way to become more like their favourite celebrity is to dress like them. The only problem with that is that fashion trends are becoming quite revealing, but young girls don’t have a choice if they want to maintain their status. In middle school children are quite harsh and judgmental; more so girls than boys at this stage so they are pressured to fit in any way they can. Media and advertisement prey on the insecurities of the young girls in order to sell their product. They create an illusion that being thin is an essential and that to be liked you must look a certain way, which is quite powerful and will resonate with someone who is in the early stages of creating an identity for themselves. In fact in a study conducted “…About 80 percent of girls (….ages 9 and 10) say that they have dieted in an attempt to lose weight” and“... Over fifty percent of 9 and 10 year-old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet”. Diets and weight loss regimens can be dangerous to anyone, but especially to those who are going through important stages of development. Most diets suggest limiting or completely eliminating carbohydrates from their diets. Not only do carbohydrates provide energy to the body, but it helps cognitive functioning. Although it may help them loose plenty of weight in a short period of time it is not a healthy or permanent solution because re-introducing carbohydrates into their diets will lead to even more weight gain, thus re-starting the vicious cycle. In another study conducted on grade 7 and grade 10 girls that assessed their body dissatisfaction, physical appearance comparison tendency, internalization of thin-ideal, self-esteem, depression, identity confusion and body mass index before and after being shown either images of idealized females (experimental condition) or fashion accessories (control condition).The girls who were shown the experimental condition (idealized women) were most affected. The 7th grade girls had a decreased sense of body satisfaction as well as further internalization of the “thin-ideal” concept and increased appearance comparison, analysed through assessments. Grade 10 girls had similar results, along with an increased state of depression. This study shows how even short-term exposure to these sexualized and idealized images of women affects a young girl’s mental health. They feel significantly worse about themselves after seeing these images, which proves that a girl’s self esteem is influenced by these images and that the younger they are the more impressionable they are. Girls are exposed to these images and similar forms of media who show content that is just as harmful if not more harmful from birth. These physical and mental consequences of sexualisation of girls are detrimental to their development, but the media not only teaches them to conform but also to continue to sexualize themselves and for others to sexualize them.
The sexualisation of girls in the media not only teaches them to sexualize themselves but also encourages others to continue to do so. The sexualisation of young girls and women in the media encourages and normalizes sexism, sexual harassment and violence. “…men who perpetrate violence make a choice to do so. Yet to dismiss possible associations between representation of women’s bodies as sexualised commodities, and practices of gender where men sexually violate women’s bodies is intellectually evasive”. These ideas and the causal sexism that is everywhere in the media are taught to young children and are normalized. Media not on sexualizes girls but puts men on a pedestal, make them believe that they are strong sand powerful and must dominate. Thus this harmful double standard is normalized, and young men learn that it is ok to be sexist and to overpower women, to get what they want whether it be sexually or in any other aspect of their lives. These ideas teach young boys that being male makes them “superior” and “dominant” and young girls learn that it is ok to think of them as “lesser than” and that they should be submissive. It encourages these ideas and normalizes them in society. These ideas being normalized encourages people to think of women as objects and that what a man wants he can get and further perpetuates sexist ideas, rape culture and that violence against women let alone anyone is ok as long as you get what you want. In order to sell more products corporations began to use to incorporate unethical marketing tactics in their advertisements. Corporate paedophilia is a metaphor used to “describe the selling of products to children before they are able to understand advertising and thus before they are able to consent to the process of corporate-led consumption… The metaphor draws a parallel between actual paedophilia, the use of children for the sexual pleasure of adults, and corporate use of children for the financial benefit of adults who own and manage corporations.” The more that people buy into sexualized images of women and girls the more that corporations will continue to do so. As long as girls are taught to believe that they are sexual from a young age and that their looks are more important they will continue to buy into this idea they encourage corporations to continue to sexualize them. The corporations will advertise in whichever way gets them more revenue and will find another approach if the public no longer approves of that set of ideals. Not enough of the public disapproves of these methods and unless a large portion of the population or a corporation’s target demographic take a stand or boycott the company they will not stop spreading these harmful messages. These ideas that girls are sexual objects and are just a marketing ploy is harmful because it encourages the idea that a young girl is “sexy”. " it revolves around the fact that male pedophiles are using their dicks…as well as their own perverted urges as an excuse to objectify(and) exploit… young girls around the world .". Not only does this encourage the objectification of children it also encourages adults to think of children in a sexual way which should not be tolerated. AS the internet has become more popular and more ingrained into our society Canada has seen an increase in the sexualisation of girls along with an increase in police-reported child pornography. According to a study conducted by the Department of Justice Canada in 2013, 99% of grade 4-11 students had access to the internet outside of school, putting them in a more vulnerable position to be taken advantage of. From 2003 to 2012 the amount of police-reported cases of child pornography has increased by 91%, showing that with the rise of the internet and such easy access to it adults have the freedom to exploit children from the safety of their own home using the anonymity of the internet and children are in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of. Another example being the case of Amanda Todd who was taken advantage of by an online predator, cases like her’s are more common and the sexualisation of girls has become normalized and is used to take advantage of them. Sexualisation of girls not only affects the way that adults treat them and think of them but also how girls think of themselves, this is called objectification theory. When a girl adopts a third-person perspective on the physical self and constantly assessing their body in an effort to conform to the North American society’s standards of beauty and worth. Self-objectification enforces a culture in which a woman is considered an “object” when she meets cultural standard of “sexy”. This leads girls to look at themselves in terms of sexual desirability to others than in terms of their own desires to be a kid, to be healthy, to achieve in school or sports. Sexualisation of young girls creates many barriers and prevents them from being normal kids, playing sports and having fun. In a study conducted girls were asked to throw a softball as hard as they could. The results showed that those who were more concerned about their appearance had poorer aim and throwing skills. By being concerned with their own image (self-objectification) they became less concerned with their performance. Physical activity has been proven to also improve your mental health, decrease stress and improves your mood and girls who participate in less physical are more likely to be diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders. The effects of sexualisation that are spread through self-objectification, the general public and have a profound impact on cognitive and emotional development.
The Sexualisation of young girls not also has profound impacts on a girl’s cognitive and emotional development.
Strasburger and Wilson theorized that teens and pre-teens test out different identities and ‘social masks’ while trying to discover themselves. This emerging sense of self is fragile and malleable as teens ‘try on’ different appearances and behaviours…” “From who’s in which clique to where you sit in the cafeteria, every day can be a struggle to fit in”. In this fragile state of self discovery and cognitive development, girls may be more susceptible to marketing and sexualized messages. Because they feel pressured to fit in and by trying to become these idealized figures they will become accepted. The rise of the internet and social media has impacted the way teens explore and create their identity. One study found that in 2002, 50% of 9-18 year olds pretended to be somebody else online. Meaning that teens have so many more opportunities to explore and create an identity for themselves, but at the same time through the internet they are much more vulnerable to harmful messages and can be influenced by people of all ages throughout the world. The sexualisation has severe effects on cognition, though the long term effects have not been studied the short term results are shocking. While alone in a dressing room, college students were asked to try on either a one piece swimsuit or a sweater. After waiting for 10 minutes wearing the article of clothing, they completed a math test. The results showed that young women who were wearing swimsuits did significantly worse on the math test than those wearing sweaters. This demonstrates that “…thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity”. Furthermore, more research has been conducted with young women of other ethnicities including African American, Latina, and Asian American who all experienced the same disrupted mental capacity for math problems as well as for
logical reasoning and spatial skills. This shows that the girls wearing the more revealing clothing were focused on their appearance and could not complete the math problems as effectively. People who feel shame consider themselves as inadequate and may have the strong desire to hide or disappear. Current fashion trends Including: crop tops” can lead to anxiety and constant checking that any” imperfections” may be showing. Studies conducted by Tiggemann & Lynch show that girl’s who internalize sexualisation have more anxiety about their appearance as well as girls who view pictures of idealized women’s bodies and those who view sexualized words in magazines such as “shapely” or “sexy”.
Sexualisation of young girls negatively impacts not only the physical and mental development but also the cognitive and emotional development, and even affects our society by influencing the way young girls view themselves when they are most vulnerable and how society views them. These views create harmful ideologies that can hinder a young girl’s development