It has become very clear to me that women are no longer considered sexy in todays culture, but rather media has enjoyed exploiting young girls as being the new ‘it’ identity for women of all ages.
Sure, people might argue that they would prefer a woman, to a girl, but is it possible that average people have become brainwashed to the idea that innocence, naivety, submission and girlish-youthfulness are more attractive than strong, empowered, bold, and free-minded women?
I am not trying to say everyone wants to sexualize children, but I am saying that society, media and culture have been working rigorously to taint our idea of femininity as being mature and womanly. Take the pictures above. One is of a young girl dressed as a woman, while expressing that young girls possess a sexiness about them, which referes to their ‘purity;’ where as the other picture represents a beautiful woman dressed as ‘jail bait’ in an over sexualized high school uniform. So let me get this straight, we have a sexualized young girl dressed as a woman and a woman dressed as a sexualized young girl. So far – there are two reoccurring themes – SEXUALIZED YOUNG GIRL.
What are the sexualized traits of girlhood? Why might society strive to sexualize that of young girls? Well common themes among young women depicted in media are: purity, virginity, naivety, submission, and chastity… and then they take those traits and add: naughty, flirty, bad girl, the want to disobey. Disobey who?
Media has always depicted girls in a way that expresses an inner sexual defiance covered by an overt innocent and nieve nature, yet it does not stop there. Culture has defined womanhood based off of this DISGUSTING obsession with young girls, even as far as pre-pubescent!
Every adult woman seems to feel a certain ‘social’ pressure in some way to keep their youth in tact, because becoming smart, worldly, and wise is not sexy anymore. Take the common 90’s trend (and still often found amongst mainstream ladies) of shaving their pubic region BALD.. as if having a womanly vagina is considered unclean and definitely unsexy. We have mature women going into ‘vaginal rejuvenation’ so that their pussy’s can LOOK YOUNGER! We have models posed in high school gear or even worse – as little girls, to sell products in a seductive way, such as the commonly ‘innocent’ poses of putting a finger in your mouth and looking shyly away, or crawling on all fours. These are not empowering positions… but quite the contrary, these are very submissive, youthful and fragile depictions of femininity.
Then we have the opposite spectrum, the over sexualization of young girls in media. Too often do I hear about [very] young people getting breast implants or wearing makeup and mini skirts in elementary school! We have shows about young beauty pagent girls attempting to look like grown adult women and being pushed to do so by the people whom are supposed to protect them – their parents! We have young girls in movies depicted as sexual prey and enjoying it. For fuck-sake, we have clothing companies making lingerie for GIRLS! Little girls are buying dolls that portray angsty sexualization, as well as we let our girls grow up idolizing pop stars that cave into violent men, or sing about being raped by aliens. WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO.
We need to take back femininity. We need to steal it back from the hands of capitalism and advertising, because big companies and lobbyists dont care how our young girls end up.. they only care about money and power, and if sex sells, well they will exploit anything, even our childhood innocence.
Its a loosing battle for equality if our young girls are growing up in a society where they cant express themselves in a way that is safe and explorative, because they are expected to grow up too fast – while we women are expected to go back in time and regain something that we were happy to let go of – our youth. I am proud to be a strong, empowered woman. I am proud to have a womanly figure and the hair to prove it. I am proud to be powerful and dominant. I am proud to be strong and sturdy.
I AM PROUD TO BE A WOMAN.
9 Comments
I know there have been a few whole posts on this –hairy—topic on Feministing in the past, but if it needs to be addressed again so be it. For the most part I agree with you, and I’m not going to claim to know why “mainstream ladies” do anything, but I do know that some BDSM practitioners (not just women FWIW) prefer to be hairless because it heightens sensations of some things, not to look infantilized or because they think hair is dirty or anything like that. And this has gone on well before the 90′s.
BTW, what pop star is singing about being raped by aliens? All I know are The Misfits late 70′s “Teenagers From Mars” and my own band’s late 90′s “Alien Abortion” (which was written NOT that this was sexy, but part of a patriarchal plot to breed right-wingers) Is someone in Slop-40 music hitting on this now?
To be honest, I had no idea that shaving bald had anything to do with BDSM – nor do I understand what that has to do with this article? All I am saying is that the popular trend of shaving pubic hair is often times (obviously not every time) used for superficial reasoning, often in response to masculin desire – which I find as a problem in our society. Thanks for your comment.
What picture excatly?
I originally had two pictures up here with a child dressed as a woman – selling perfume and it said “innocence can be sexy too” and a picture of a woman dressed up scantily in a high school hall way (with lockers) sucking a lollipop, both of which, I find less than progressive.
exactly?*
What song are you talking about here?
The only pop song I can think of about sex with an alien in the last couple of years is Katy Perry’s E.T., but there’s nothing about rape there…
On the contrary, that is EXACTLY the song I was talking about. It does not say overtly that it is about rape.. however, if you read into the lyrics it is rather obvious that it has unhealthy connotations.
‘take me, I want to be a victim, ready for abduction’
‘see I abducted you, I tell you what to do, I tell you what to do..”
Now, working with sex offenders and being a rape victims advocate – I understand that mainstream culture might not realize what they are listening to, however, those are all common themes among domestic violence and sexual assault. I think its sad that our 12 year old girls are looking up to both of those singers/performers and singing lyrics about themes that reinforce rape culture.
I have to admit that the word “obsession” crossed my mind once or twice while reading this article, with all the WRITING IN CAPS, exclamation marks and the old pubic shaving trope.
I am sorry, I am confused as to what you are geting at here?