The conversation I had with my friend about why a girl would post nude photos of herself continues to nag at me. It is a conversation we have had before and one that we often simply avoid. We know that we have this difference of opinion. He takes a biological approach and tends to think I see conspiracy around every corner. My protestations that I’m not overly sensitive to sexism or misogyny only it makes me seem overly sensitive. He recognizes my concerns and appreciates them, just thinks they are not the primary cause of things. I see his point as well – we do have biological urges. His view that men are visual, leads women to make themselves attractive to males, leads to procreation and then boom: evolution. It’s built in. Sure, sure. But, there is more to it than just appearance. It’s more than just ‘baby got back’, it’s big hips are better for bearing children. Same with those little finches in the Galapagos. Oooh baby what a nice small beak you have!
All these things were kicking around my head when I came across this article in Newsweek. I wanted to shove it in my friend’s face and say “Ha! See! I’m right!”
I wanted to point out the line, “From clothes to the hair to the nails, school is like No. 10 on the list of priorities.” Or, “Today’s girls are getting caught up in the beauty-maintenance game at ages when they should be learning how to read – and long before their beauty needs enhancing.” I could go on for hours, pulling examples from what the kids wear at school to a story on This American Life about an all girl talk show that devolved into “Which boy is the cutest” because they were unable to answer any of the questions. I could even construct a nice conspiracy theory about the corporations behind the products marketing to younger and younger girls. Get them early and keep them on the treadmill. But, really, it is all anecdotal evidence. So, what about these quotes from the article then? “…by the time your 10-year-old is 50, she’ll have spent nearly $300,000 on just her hair and face.” Or, “Eight – twelve-year-olds in this country already spend more than $40 million a month on beauty products…”
It is not the 8-12-year-olds buying this stuff, not really. They may be asking for it, they may be using their allowance or trying to earn money for it even, but it is ultimately the parents that perpetrate this on their daughters. Perhaps that is the saddest part, that it gets passed down like a bad gene.
The old joke, “Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heals,” keeps coming to mind. The problem isn’t new. Women have always had to do what men do and look good while doing it. It was never either or. It is just more pervasive and the standards keep being raised to ever more increasingly impossible to reach levels. Reality cannot compete with an air-brush and that fact does have an effect on girls’ self-esteem.
It makes me angry. I do not think that this is a conspiracy perpetrated on women, not really. Women buy into the fiction as much as men. They allow themselves to play the game. They are the victim and the perpetrator.
The thing that makes me sick, however, is “Toddlers and Tiaras”. I remember seeing the ad for this show on TLC before it came out. I thought it was just a special before some other show about Ms. America or something or other. But, no. This is an ongoing series. My god. It’s sad enough that TLC is no longer the learning channel as it has been morphing into The Exploitative Channel over the last few years as it finds families of small people or families with gaggles of kids. This is just beyond… I went to the website and watched clips. I cannot tell if they are serious or they are mocking these people. It just simply is nightmarish. Do you remember how outraged people were of all the clips of JonBenet Ramsey and how they blamed her parents because they dressed her up in sexy clothes? Now there is a tv show devoted to watching toddlers be dressed up and taught to shake their hips and blow kisses.
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