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Hypersexualization of American girls
In the United States and Canada the phenomenon has existed for decades. Beauty contests, television shows, little girls are idolized, staged on the small screen,in small outfits. Recently, Jenny Erikson, in California, told the blog “The Stir” that she would allow her 9-year-old daughter to wear the new collection from the sultry Victoria’s Secret lingerie line. She even had to explain herself to the millions of viewers of a very popular TV show, “Good Morning America”: “I don’t think it’s wrong to have cute panties and bras from of a boutique for adults. I will not tolerate my daughter Hannah being “the girl with ugly underwear” during stays in youth camps or at sleepovers with girlfriends. ” Mind boggling. Symptomatic, French shrinks will say.
Another example, recently, an Australian mom Amy Cheney, made a funny discovery in her 7-year-old daughter’s bedroom.She had written down her program… slimming! So young, she imposes herself to “Do 17 push-ups a day”, manger “Three apples, two pears, two kiwis”to stay in shape, “Jog and go down the road three times a week”. Her mother, Amy Cheney accuses the thinness cult and the media of “perverting” her little girl.
In France: prevention rather than cure …
Several ministers, senators, and president of NGOs have sounded the alarm bells for the past ten years. Important decisions have already been taken to protect children.
In December 2010, the French Vogue magazineposted photos featuring a young girl in suggestive outfits and postures. Following this media outcry, in February 2011, the school doctor, Doctor Elisabeth Pino published an online petition against the eroticization of the image of children in advertising. In 2012, Roselyne Bachelot,Minister of Solidarity and Social Cohesion, had been given a charter on “Protection of the child in the media”, signed by members of the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) and the Syndicat de la presse magazine (SPM). The signatories of the text, drawn up by Jacques Hintzy, the president of Unicef France, undertook not to “disseminate, including in advertising spaces, hypersexualized images of children, girls and boys, in particular in erotic scene or wearing clothes, accessories or make-up with a strong erotic connotation ”.
A French law against hypersexualization
One year later, in March 2012, Senator Chantal Jouanno submitted her report entitled ” Against hypersexualization, a new fight for equality “. She paints an inventory of the image of young girls and its use in the press and advertising.
March 2013, this time, the senator goes further:she tabled a bill on the subject to regulate the use of children’s images for a brand or on television.
She denounces a society which “uses the precocious sexualization of young girls to” sell “dreams or a commercial brand”.
Recent event, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister of Women’s Rights and Dominique Bertinotti, Minister Delegate in charge of the Family, have decided to supervise the next sessions of the regional “Seed of miss” competitions.Open to girls aged 6 to 13, these competitions will take place in 2013, but with specific guidelines. Two French deputies raised the question during the selection for the Bordeaux competition in September 2012. They asked the government “to prohibit the promotion of sexualized images of children as well as appearance competitions featuring young minors. “.
… Or be alarmed for nothing?
Even if France is less exposed than the USA, there are, according to Catherine Monnot, anthropologist, a hypersexualization of the body in particular through the media and the cosmetics and clothing industry.
Hypersexualization: the opinion of the experts
The sociologist Michel Fize, on the contrary finds Ms. Jouanno’s bill excessive.“We are right to be alarmed at the projections of certain parents when we talk about the mini miss competitions, but we must not mix everything». Author de « New teenage girls »Published in 2010, it portrays the little girls of 8-9 years old living their “Little adolescence”. His observation: “the latter were not experienced at all like small lolitas. The symbols of their femininity were assumed, sought after and lived with great pride. The passage from childhood to adolescence has been accompanied in girls by pre-pubescent attitudes since the dawn of time. Applying makeup in front of the mirror, putting on mom’s heels, all the young girls (or boys) have done it, or almost “. He denounces the term used by Chantal Jouanno of “woman object”. “These young girls don’t see themselves as objects at all. These are adult fantasies. If an adult has difficulty with images of young girls wearing very simple makeup, it is the adult who has the problem, not the child ”.
For the sociologist the real question lies in the border between private and public: ” parents must be the guarantors of the boundary between private and public spheres. They must educate their daughters to avoid any public slippage. As for wanting to prohibit the use of very young girls in advertising, that would be an illusion! That we create a new law to ban certain images will not solve the fact that young people are anyway exposed to feminine and gendered images on television or on the Internet ”.