I am outraged. No, it’s not the death of picture books this time but something even more serious -the death of childhood.
Don’t know what I’m talking about? On Saturday I went to a conference for women in our area. One of the speakers was talking about the media’s influence on our children and the sexualization of girls. For a lot of us there I’m sure it was a real wake up call.
I admit recently while looking for an outfit to buy for our young granddaughter I was horrified at the sayings on some of the t shirts and the trampy look of much of the clothes, but I hadn’t realized the situation was bad as it was till Melinda Tankard Reist spoke and showed visual aids to back up what she was talking about.
The attitudes towards sex and the sexualization of girls and how insidious it is even from a young age is horrifying. We’re not talking about teenagers here but young children.
Things like padded bras for 6 year olds, trying to make them into something they are not and some of the slogans on clothing which imply females no matter how young are only there for sex and the convenient of guys are bad enough. But have you ever looked at the topics on some of the magazines for young girls or the video clips for many of the current pop songs? I haven’t because they are not my scene and I don’t have a young family. But having seen a sample during this talk on the weekend they are nothing short of pornographic.
What effect is this having? It is desensitizing society. People think it’s okay to target and exploit young girls and that attitude is being reflected in a culture which sees children as young as 5 molesting another child, a boy banned from pre-school for sexually molesting girls, children of 6 being asked in the playground for sex and girls of 11 feeling they need to lose their virginity. I am sickened by some of these things.
But you may think that is just the way society is going, what can I do? Plenty. Come back tomorrow for some suggestions.
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