A Mother’s Day wish for our daughters….
May 9, 2009
by Amy Siskind
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Now Who's Got the Coolest T-shirt on the Block?
This past week I went to a birthday dinner with a group of friends. We met nine years ago when our daughters were in nursery school together. I count among my blessings having women like these in my life. We have all had our ups and downs over the years since we met, but we have always had each other.
With this group of friends, the conversation usually turns to issues facing our daughters. We first met when our daughters were in “Mommy and Me” at nursery school. This year, our daughters entered middle school. As the years have passed, our birthday dinner conversations have transitioned from potty training, to separation, to mean girls syndrome, to teacher issues, to graduating from grade school, to preparing for menstruation, and now – to a much graver topic: how our teenage girls have been sexualized and how we can protect them.
What we discussed will not be news to anyone reading this blog; but it really did get me thinking. I don’t remember things being quite this bad when I was a girl. Yes, the media back then did portray girls and boys differently; but now the content of what our girls (and boys) are exposed to is truly frightening.
It’s not just the old concerns about the unattainable models pictured in magazines that cause our girls to feel insecure and fall victim to eating disorders. It’s not just the same pressures we felt as young teenagers to be liked by the mean girls and the boys, to dress a certain way, and to be good little girls. This generation has all that and more, and frankly, at dinner, we were all worried about what lies ahead.
"classic shorts"
How are our girls sexualized? There are some more conventional means, like clothing. Frankly, what the girls are wearing seems to shrink each year. Tighter with less fabric is all the rave: like the ”classic shorts” from the ever popular Abercrombie and Fitch. I’ve noticed a direct correlation between growing older and wearing less fabric. To say nothing of the images flashed of the scantily clad boy and girl models on the website, store and hey, even their shopping bags. Let’s face it: sex sells.
Burger King Commercial
So what is are the modern weapons of sexualization? One is not so new, but the content sure is: our television programming. Now I worked on trading floors for most of my career so I am hardly Pollyanna, but I can hardly believe what our children get a daily dose of each day. The girls in the shows are often sexual objects and more often that not, valued by how they look. Take for example the Burger King Commercial, which continues to play in prime time, showing Burger King measuring the derrierres of dancing young ladies. And I remember as a young teen thinking it was unfair on The Brady Bunch that the boys got more sports time than the girls. Oh how far we have fallen.
Or the music that our children hear each day. Forget Eminen and his misogynistic rants, how about Britney Spears’ latest tune. I had my bubble burst big time at dinner with my pals. Here I was thinking that it was kind of neat that Britney’s song “If You Seek Amy” had my name in it (although I couldn’t make sense of the lyrics when I listened). My friend Michelle who has an 8th grade daughter clued me in to the lyrics: All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy…..which if you say it slowing “F-U-C-K ME”. Here’s the YouTube with over 4 million hits (skip to 0:25 and listen at 0:50):
And if the girls escape from the television or music for a break, it’s usually because they are on the computer or their cell phones texting. The New Agenda recently spoke out on PBS about three Pennsylvania teens who who were arrested for “sexting” (sending semi naked pictures of themselves via a text message). The arrest was made on grounds that the girls were sending child pornography. Arrested? What is this? I’ll tell you what it is – the sexualization of our young girls. And as Nancy Pfotenhauer put it on the PBS show:
I think that technology has turbocharged the sexualization of the teenager and it’s downright frightening.
As I sat at dinner that night, here’s what I thought: I thought about unity. I thought about how wonderful it is to have a group of friends who support each other and have each others back. I thought about how powerful it would be if women from around the country could support each other and have each others back. I thought about how, if thousands or millions of women (and men) could focus on creating awareness about the sexualization of our teenage girls, we could finally put an end to it. And it’s not just the moms that care — I’ve had similar conversations on innumerable sidelines with dads who are equally upset about what is happening to our daughters.
Can we all work together? Can we do this thing? There is hope (trumpet please)…The New Agenda. Our work has just begun. Please join us in our battle to improve the lives of women and girls.
P.S.: And if you want to be cool and hip like the girls in the beginning of this piece, you can order your shirts here.
My little girl is now 30 and I remember worrying about body image issues and concern about her friends who had problems with anorexic or bulimic – but who could imagine that things would/could get worse? The internet’s social networking with great assistance from the mainstream media and advertisers has created a nearly impossible environment for parents to be able to protect their young women. The statistics tell the sad tale-increased incidence of rape and sexual harassment etc.
Thank you Amy and TNA for shining a light on these in plain sight yet often unseen issues and giving us a forum to unite in order to work on finding solutions. This is the best gift anyone can give a mother!
Well, I see few men here, as usual but I suppose as mentioned in the Post, that is not to say they are not worried and concerned as well. One would hope and really expect them to join a good system of support and unity, such as TNA, and make stronger the collective power and intent on behalf of not only young girls but boys as well.
Tonight my next to the oldest granddaughter is going to the prom. It’s all about the dress. I felt so powerless and I wondered if the times I told her, and excuse the language as I waited until she was 16 and better able to handle the vehemence of my words, ” don’t you ever under any circumstances take any shit from any boy, ever!!” had sunk in and would stay sunk in. She is so intelligent and creative and friendly and maybe for one night it is ok for it to be all about how she looks, I just don’t know. I can hope but that is not enough. There is an almost lethal urgency in the words of Amy’s blog entry that more people need to be feeling and reacting to.
Amy –
How can I get one of those T Shirts that promote TNA?
Have any of you seen the new Direct TV commercial. Disgusting!
I mean the one wear an unsuspecting woman gets slaped on the ass. I couldn’t find it on the web-site but I saw it on Fox and on E-network so far.
Thanks for a great piece, Amy. This is something that I think about a lot since I have a two year old daughter. What will things be like in 10 years. I’d like to say it can’t get worse but unless we take drastic action it will. I think about what Alice Paul did, the sacrificis she made and I have to ask American families – is it too much of a sacrifice to make the biggest statement toward these advertisements and turn of our cable? Throw out our televisions? I really don’t believe the occasional letter writing campaign will work in the long run. We need to cut them off.
Very good article Amy. I was taking a walk today with my friend and we were having this same conversation today. I have 4 children 3 girls and 1 boy. My 14 year old is going on about 19 my 8 year old is about 12 and the 6 year old girl is about 11. My girls are so different then I was and they see sex in practiclly everything they watch its terrible. Everything they see and hear in music has to do with sex. What can we do I ask. I thinks it’s time to march on washington and let them start regulating all the sex and other stuff that is aimed at children today.
Here is the deal. We need the OPTION of cable TV a la carte because if you spend endless hours you can block the programing Amy refers to however under the current system you will still be subsidizing it and so misogynist content will continue to be made. Parents Television Council has been working on cable choice for years. Here is the web site http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/cable/main.asp .Women’s groups do not need to reinvent the wheel on this topic they could simply join forces, of course all the people from PTC are not liberal Democrats and there are actual Republicans involved in this effort so groups like NOW will likely prefer to live in the sewer that is corporate media TV.
Here is a Parents Television Council web site where you can check only the cable channels you wish to receive and then it will calculate how much your monthly bill would be when you stop subsidizing misogynist content. Again this is a Conservative web site, they are working for consumer choice, they are not trying to control what anyone other than themselves pay for or watch.
http://www.howcableshouldbe.com/
Turn. Off. The TV.
Just THROW IT OUT. Life does not end when you don’t have TV. If you can’t, then just keep the thing and use it to play DVDs on. I do that with opera. My roommate ordered cable and watches TV, I just don’t. You have no idea how lovely your life gets without that ceaseless yammering in your ear. It’s like those effed up videoscreens in “1984″ that yammer at you 24/7 — except YOU HAVE AN OFF SWITCH.
No, you will not be the worst parent in the world if you THROW IT OUT. Although you may find that your husband will become as much of a sullen toddler as your kid will be, and probably for far longer.
TURN THE STUPID THING OFF and leave it that way.
You are very right Janis. However it is the poorest kids who have the least adult help who are influenced the most by the toxic misogynist crap on TV. They don’t have so many other options, their neighborhood might not be safe to walk around in, they can’t pay the fees for sport leagues etc. For those kids the corporate media environment needs to be controlled and it can easily be controled by forcing it into a free market. Let’s just see how much of a market there is for misogynist garbage. It needs to be made clear to Corporate America that they can not control what we subscribe to and they can not dump their misogynist garbage in our living rooms and then send us a bill for it.
Bes,
I don’t think it’s poverty that keeps us from having a nationwide movement to throw out our televisions. It seems very New Agenda-ish. This movement could include Republicans, Democrats, socialists, libertarians, whomever. And it doesn’t need 100 percent participation. Imagine if 10 percent of households were to throw out their televisions or only use approved videos in their households? Television stations and corporations would go ballistic.
I think it’s laziness. I mean come on! What sacrifices did women make to gain the right to vote? What sacrifices did African Americans make to gain the right to sit wherever they want on the bus? We are a complacent culture. Honestly, everyone. Let’s throw out our televisions once and for all! And if you don’t believe that you should have to throw out your television, anyone, please tell me why it is worth it to keep contact with this crap.
[...] I sent an email to some mothers and fathers in the community where I live a few weeks ago about this subject. My email included the shocking statistics of what is happening with our girls, as well as my PBS interview on sexting and a piece that I wrote for our blog titled A Mother’s Day wish for our daughters. [...]
My daughter is 12. We boycott Abercrombie, and used to boycott Limited 2 when they were in their thong phase. I’ve taught her all about how girls her age are sexualized. I’ve tried hard to teach her about the messages sent by television, movies, and music and how false and ridiculous they are. She knows that most writers and people who produce television and movies are male. She’s already quick to recognize actions and situations that are sexist.
When she was 11, a boy asked her out. She said “well, we’re 11 so, what’s the point?” She doesn’t plan on dating until she is 16. She’s not in a hurry to grow up. She still plays with her littlest pets. Her more precocious friends love coming to our house because they can just be silly, goofy kids. She’s very popular. She’s been a gymnast since she was six, and her goal is to do more pull ups than the boys at the Presidential fitness test.
Speaking of boys, I’ve taught the same things to her three older brothers.
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