What does it mean to grow up female in the UK?
As the definition of gender roles becomes even more blurred and the hyper-sexualised cultural landscape becomes more difficult to escape it's obvious that the sexualisation of young females is a total juxtapose experience to how it affected our mothers.
This topic seems to reoccur in society on a wide scale on a daily basis with multiple scapegoats to put blame on. Young girls dressing provocatively does not justify the laddish rape culture that seems to have plagued the 21st century, with females seen as the supposed problem and never the victim.
As this trend has developed, politicians have shyed away from decisive action and culturally influential companies like Arcadia have only encouraged sexualisation of young females through delectable raunchy slogan t-shirts and citing Miley Cyrus as godlike. The reason for this is because it is in their interest.
As this trend has developed, politicians have shyed away from decisive action and culturally influential companies like Arcadia have only encouraged sexualisation of young females through delectable raunchy slogan t-shirts and citing Miley Cyrus as godlike. The reason for this is because it is in their interest.
Sexualisation is not a new phenomenon. It seems that the panic that surrounds sexualisation, especially of young people, has been a closely observed topic for many years. In the past, religious leaders believed that sexualisation, especially when it came to masturbation, would cause a person severe problems and could even result in insanity and death. During the Victorian Age, it was thought that aggressive sexual activity and normalising of sex would leave the country morally and financially bankrupt. It was seen that exposure to anything sexual would become so seductive an option that not only would people take part in it but they would become obsessed with it, whether that be pornography, masturbation, gay sex or anything seen as unnatural. Even in 1963 - “Mrs Mary Whitehouse began her mission to ‘clear up’ television and purify the nation” This was because “Of her conviction that young people were sexually at risk.”So why in 2015 is it such a poigniant issue!?
It has been said that: “Sexualization is a ubiquitous force infecting the lives of girls”. Although sexualisation has been an ever present force in the past, it has transformed into different meanings for different people over many generations. Sexualisation of girls in 2015 contains different experiences to that of their parents but all still falls under the umbrella term. Egan says that:
“Each generation is said to be facing and doing something their parents did not, and it is the imminence of peril which often legitimates calls for social and political action.”
It is the fear of the unknown that causes blind panic in parents. Sexualisation can be suitably defined as “The twining of defiled innocence, precocious sexual promiscuity with a clearly defined antagonist – popular culture.”
A variety of writers in newspapers, Think Tank reports and books have commented on sexualisation over the last number years and have used a range of severe and emotive language available to describe it, warning people of the dangers that sexualisation is having not just on society but on your own sons and daughters. The sensationalising of sexualisation and its dangers has made it the topic on everyone’s lips.
“The combination of girls, sexuality and pathological outcomes grabs our attention, insuring both its newsworthiness and its need for action”
We live in an age where it isn’t abnormal to wake in the morning and read an article that is sending out the panic signals to parents, whether it be a risque t-shirt available on the high-street, a statistic on the percentage of young girls seduced by sexting, being a victim of revenge porn or a celebrity like Rihanna bringing sexualisation to the forefront of conversation. Publications like The Guardian, amongst others, have recently highlighted the issue on a wide scale, enhancing its ‘hot topic’ status. With numerous calls for padded bras for 7-year-olds, playboy bunny motif stationary and slogan t-shirts that read ‘Future Wag’ to be banned, David Cameron 'branded the sale of bikinis at Primark disgraceful’
The key ideal of the market is to get young girls to become obsessed with consumption, which is aided by sexualisation – “The goal is to turn children into shoppers for life, and marketers know a huge amount about how to do it”. Even from a personal point of view, I was seduced as a young teenager to consume products that not only alluded to sexual innuendo but in hindsight, could have possibly made me a possible target of a sex attack or unwanted sexual attention
A significant difference in sexualisation of girls in 2015 is the level of sexualised coverage and the culture of consumption.
Papadopoulos says that “Children and young people today are not only exposed to increasing amounts of hyper-sexualised images, they are also sold the idea that they have to look ‘sexy’ and ‘hot’. As such they are facing pressures that children in the past simply did not have to face”
As the rather horrific picture of myself at 13 and many newspaper articles about sexualisation of girls, it’s seen that consumption could be at the heart of sexualisation in the 21st Century. The amount of disposable income that teenagers have has been on the rise since the 1950s and thus when the idealist sexual aesthetic is marketed and sold to young girls, they will consume it with every penny they can get.
“Most often authors and activists turn their attention to individual outcomes of the effects of consumption in lieu of an analysis of cultural production.” Activists can easily claim that if the products were not readily available on the shelves then sexualisation would not be an issue. Although forgetting other factors, it is true that a change in consumer habits since the war has ran alongside sexualisation, with the media often concentrating on its power over the young and Egan has said that “This phenomenon is seen as an outcome of a culture bent on enticing unwitting girls into becoming lifelong consumers and ultimately passive female subjects". Consumer obsessed females are often the butt of jokes, regarding their intelligence and synthetic consumer needs, seen as putting buying products and money over everything.
“Most often authors and activists turn their attention to individual outcomes of the effects of consumption in lieu of an analysis of cultural production.” Activists can easily claim that if the products were not readily available on the shelves then sexualisation would not be an issue. Although forgetting other factors, it is true that a change in consumer habits since the war has ran alongside sexualisation, with the media often concentrating on its power over the young and Egan has said that “This phenomenon is seen as an outcome of a culture bent on enticing unwitting girls into becoming lifelong consumers and ultimately passive female subjects". Consumer obsessed females are often the butt of jokes, regarding their intelligence and synthetic consumer needs, seen as putting buying products and money over everything.
Young girls seem to be constantly bombarded with sexualised images of airbrushed women and men in the media through dozens of outlets since the beginning of the internet and social media age, alongside that of television, music and influential magazines. A survey in 2013 claims that “96% of girls aged 11-21 use at least one of the main social media sites” and “49% of 11-21 year-olds say they would like to look more like the pictures of girls and women they see in the media”. Even more worryingly, 75% of 11-21 year olds feel boys want them to look like girls and women in the media.
Patriarchy has long played a role in the sexualisation of girls and women. Years of viewing women as decoration and nothing else are not gone, with young girls wanting to conform to the now overtly sexual norm in order to attract men and boys. A woman’s sexuality becomes passive and as Germaine Greer explains - the female is considered as a sexual object for the use and appreciation of other sexual beings, men. Sexual inequality remains to be vast and well documented. The No More Page 3 Campaign highlights the archaic patriarchal driven sentiments of sexual culture that still trivialises what it means to grow up female today when surrounded by salacious and not only accessible but promoted material. Lucy-Anne Holmes, founder of the No More Page 3 Campaign has said:
“Women are held up to an impossible airbrushed beauty ideal where how their look becomes more important than what they do, think or say. One gender is allowed to be fully clothed, look old and overweight while the other isn’t. The impact this has on girls and young women is sad and unfair.”
Girls are not told in so many words by cultural influencers that they should conform to the specific ideals they are subjected to, but when shown success through these means on a daily basis, self-sexualisation is fulfilled. Young girls are biologically vulnerable to this conditioning to begin with but there’s argument that the consumer markets are cashing in on the damaged image of forgotten innocence by feeding ‘normative sexy’ down their throats. It's thought that “If girls learn that sexualised behaviour and appearance are approved and rewarded by society and by the people (e.g. peers) whose opinions matter most to them, they are likely to internalize these standards, thus engaging in self-sexualisation.”
Like anything in life, if you are exposed to a viewpoint enough you will internalise it into your own life. So what does that do to the rigid class system that functioned outside of 21st century sexualisation previously? All young girls from all social classes are susceptible to sexualisation. So is that why the media outlets that criticize sexualised products like padded bras are promoting a feeling of danger and extreme coverage, because it is not just affecting the working class but the middle-class that they tend to represent?
Sexualisation of children has made the middle-class vulnerable to doubt and lack of control, something significant of the times and society we are currently in. But research says “Girls are having less partnered sex than they did 20 years ago, are more responsible in terms of birth control when they do have vaginal/penile intercourse and often have strong values and beliefs regarding sex and sexuality.” If this is the case, why the sudden epidemic of sexualisation? and why do these ideas get reproduced with such ease in the western world? That would be the answer to most conundrums, power and politics. Sexual cultures commentator Danielle Egan says that “It is my supposition that the discourse on sexualisation is ultimately a culture defence mechanism” Sex has always been dictated by politics and it is hinted that the extreme coverage of sexualisation could purely just be a political tactic in order to hide wider cultural issues. This could also be why newspapers have fixated on the sudden rise of padophiles regarding the Jimmy Saville case or why the media claims that children are addicted to porn, thus ruining their views of a functioning sexual relationship, in order to mask wider scale economic issues. This is a tactic that is not unknown – “Economic despair and futility often spark populist responses, wherein impotence gets displayed into xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination and violence”.
With sexualisation being a hot topic, as previously discussed, is it possible that it is simply a scapegoat for a society with massive unmanageable cracks in the economy? Is it just the political equivalent of waving a pair of keys in front of a baby to grab attention away from something all the more scary and real, in this case a government trying to hide the painful realisation of its corrupt core? By making an issue of a topic that can be seen to be easily changeable and for a positive outcome, our social anxieties can be deterred-
“By displacing our impotence onto something more manageable and potent – the cultural and sexual corruption of the girl child – our rage, disgust and anxiety can be voiced and a fantasy of the future free of such defilement can be sought.”
“By displacing our impotence onto something more manageable and potent – the cultural and sexual corruption of the girl child – our rage, disgust and anxiety can be voiced and a fantasy of the future free of such defilement can be sought.”
The topic can now touch a raw nerve with every parent who now assumes that their daughter is being forcefully sexualised, through the influence of the media and peers. A key tactic that political figures, including The Prime Minister, have used previously is the imaging of childhood being unfairly stolen and a loss of innocence. This can be seen as something that cannot be re-obtained once taken and it’s seen to rip away the veil of innocence, then, is to rob children of a childhood. Claiming to be as incensed as those threatened by sexualisation of children and promising to vastly change how sexualisation operates in this country by stopping its causes will always sit well politically and will only again exaggerate its supposed epidemic status.
It seems that the only platform to voice concerns comes from social media, proving how much it has influenced the lives of the 21st century. As seen before, a large percentage of the population use social media which is good in order to voice your opinion to a larger audience but also a disadvantage in terms of how many people will see this opinion. This isn’t to say that sexualisation of girls doesn't exist (because by gum it does!) just that it could perhaps be exaggerated to meet the needs of those in power,
“This is not to say that the child is never endangered or that capitalism is inert, but rather that the child in the fleshy sense is replaced by the girl, a figure, into which middle-class advocates project the vagaries of postmodern capital and its reluctant social insecurity”. The sexualised girl is used as a scapegoat for middle-class anxieties.
So what actually causes the early sexualisation of young girls when it does occur? It’s impossible for people to claim that sexualisation is purely caused by hyper-sexualised products that are available in high-streets, like some forums have. It could become very easy to blame one individual reason on sexualisation of young girls but it seems that it’s a combination of causes that girls are exposed to that aids sexualisation. Danielle Egan sees it to be classically caused by "consuming sexually salacious materials, playing outside the watchful gaze of parents and interacting with ‘deviant’ and/or socially marginal individuals.”
The rise of social media tends to exacerbate the issue further with all three of the classic causes becoming easier to occur on it. Sexually salacious materials are not only easily available on the internet but in reality, difficult to escape from. Acting outside the watchful gaze of parents can also be happening in their own homes on social networking, alongside the ability to interact with deviants they may not have outside of the internet.
Although the ability to understand how sexualisation of young girls is heavily represented in the media, little is mentioned of how sexualisation can affect young girls, both physically and mentally. The expectations that fall on the shoulders of young girls when surrounded by images of women in porn, page 3, films, music and modelling to name a few, can scar future relationships for girls. Especially with how porn is presented, this can result in an abnormal approach to sex –
It’s not just future relationships that could be under jeopardy due to sexualisation – The toxic mix of sexualising media and commodities (e.g Bratz dolls, thongs, tee-shirts) transforms girls between the ages of 8-12 (or ‘tweens’) into self-sexualising subjects at risk for a host of mental, physical, cognitive and relational problems. How girls see themselves against the ruling ideal of what makes women sexually attractive is something that heavily affects the mentality surrounding confidence, weight and their aesthetic as a whole. Depression and eating disorders are heavily represented in young girls and this is often blamed on the sexualisation of the media and marketing companies –
“As children grow older, exposure to this imagery leads to body surveillance, or the constant monitoring of personal appearance. This monitoring can result in body dissatisfaction, a recognised risk factor for poor self-esteem, depression and eating disorders. Indeed, there is a significant amount of evidence that attests to the negative effects of sexualisation on young people in terms of mental and physical health, attitudes and beliefs.”
It could be argued in many ways how, why and to what extent sexualisation of young girls occurs in our society in 2015. One thing that cannot be argued is its constant presence. There is no denying that the sexualisation of girls happens on a daily basis and that its coverage in media has made it a hot topic with Egan describing it as: “As omnipresent as oxygen and as toxic as poison, it seems impossible to escape this phenomenon”
Although sexualisation of young girls has existed through the ages, the newly redefined status of it is a completely different creature. The use of social networking, the internet and easing of censorship gives sexualisation a more powerful platform in 2015 and Papadopoulos believes that its hyper-sexualised content and attitudes is slowly seeping into society: “It’s a drip, drip effect. Look at porn starts, and look how an average girl now looks. It’s seeped into everyday: fake breasts, fuck-me shoes…. We are hyper sexualising girls, telling them that their desirability relies on being desired. They want to please at any cost.”. The costs being to their bank balance, health, mental wellbeing and judgement from others, whether positive or negative.
Questions about class stability, the ideals of the family unit and whether consumerists and political figures are massaging the scale of sexualisation should be considered but no matter, there is still evidence that sexualisation of girls exists. It could be argued that academics have narrowly focussed on white middle-class girls but I think it is a universal issue.
“Sexualisation is said to defile innocence, leaving in its wake a promiscuous, emotionally deficient and culturally bankrupt teenager”
Social class dictates also how the media covers sexualisation and is used in political rhetoric in order to ignite response and in turn using the idea of the sexualised girl as the root of society’s issues – “Underneath the hyperbole lies the desire to defend against the unbearable costs of living in an increasingly fragmented, alienating and unequal cultural landscape.”
Proving how relevant and encompassing sexualisation is shows how vital sex education is to young girls. Being taught about self-confidence, healthy sexual relationships and how the market uses sex to sell will aid in battling the number of girls influenced by the hyper-sexualised society they come into contact with every day.
“Children are learning lesson’s from today’s sexualised environment that can undermine the very foundations they need in order to grow up to be capable of having caring relationships of any kind, including those relationships in which sex plays a role.”
Although sexualisation of young girls has existed through the ages, the newly redefined status of it is a completely different creature. The use of social networking, the internet and easing of censorship gives sexualisation a more powerful platform in 2015 and Papadopoulos believes that its hyper-sexualised content and attitudes is slowly seeping into society: “It’s a drip, drip effect. Look at porn starts, and look how an average girl now looks. It’s seeped into everyday: fake breasts, fuck-me shoes…. We are hyper sexualising girls, telling them that their desirability relies on being desired. They want to please at any cost.”. The costs being to their bank balance, health, mental wellbeing and judgement from others, whether positive or negative.
Questions about class stability, the ideals of the family unit and whether consumerists and political figures are massaging the scale of sexualisation should be considered but no matter, there is still evidence that sexualisation of girls exists. It could be argued that academics have narrowly focussed on white middle-class girls but I think it is a universal issue.
“Sexualisation is said to defile innocence, leaving in its wake a promiscuous, emotionally deficient and culturally bankrupt teenager”
Social class dictates also how the media covers sexualisation and is used in political rhetoric in order to ignite response and in turn using the idea of the sexualised girl as the root of society’s issues – “Underneath the hyperbole lies the desire to defend against the unbearable costs of living in an increasingly fragmented, alienating and unequal cultural landscape.”
Proving how relevant and encompassing sexualisation is shows how vital sex education is to young girls. Being taught about self-confidence, healthy sexual relationships and how the market uses sex to sell will aid in battling the number of girls influenced by the hyper-sexualised society they come into contact with every day.
