Sarvesh Koyande (16304)

Maninder Pal (16183)

Sexualization of childhood (MMM)

With the advent of social media, there is a new generation of internet users have emerged
who like to call themselves as tweens. This group could start from people with age as low as
5 to late 20s. Major network sites have put in age restrictions for users below age of 18 for
their site usage. But due to inadequate compliance and monitoring measures in place, this has
been exploited from time to time. The retailers are well aware of the presence of this group
and understand that these are going to be their future buyers. Therefore, they have gone full
throttle to attract these kids and this has led to sexualization of child models in
advertisements on TV and internet. This involves both young guys and girls advertising
products, which their parents might not even like them to know twenty years back. But
situation has changed with the ease of availability of information through various mediums.

Sexualization of young kids means depicting them in a sexual way or projecting them as sex
objects. This means the sexuality is imposed on these kids through media to encourage them
to act in adultery ways. Internet is full of such sexualized advertisements and with simple
browsing, people could find such advertisements. Instagram is another such platform where
these tweens are putting some objectionable photographs, dressed like grown-ups in under
garments. These Instagram users with some good number of followers are approached by
advertisers for selling their products. And who is to blame for this changed scenario? These
tweens follow and imitate their new generation idols like Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus,
and today, its quite normal to see these tweens in provocative advertisements.

It has been found that children can identify brands even before they can read. Therefore, they
become prime targets of advertising industry to sell their products to and make them their
future buyers. While shopping, children have close to 70% control on the products purchased
by their parents which is almost $60 billion business only in US.

10-year Vogue Supermodel

One such instance of sexualizing kids was 10-year old child model, Thylane Blondeau,
getting featured on French Vogue. Per Teen Vogue website, Thylane started modelling at age
of 4 and is in industry from past 10 years. This story caused a controversy when Thylane was
shown sprawling seductively over leopard print bed sheet and wearing heavy make-up. If you
ask parents, they are no way in favor of such conduct from child at such small age and their
outburst was normal. Also, many MPs also condemned these images. But an internet survey
majorly of teenagers found nothing wrong with the pictures. According to them, most of the
kids these days post their pictures on social media and such images only give them
aspirations to get into model career through this route.

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UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, strongly condemned Vogue for these pictures at a
summit and Labor Party MP Helen Goodman called Vogue disgraceful and irresponsible. She
added that Vogue has descended into gutter by publishing these pictures. Even though many
child models have come before Thylane, but her entry has given way to this heated discussion
of sexualization of children in modeling and entertainment industry.

Following this incident, the trend has said to continue and paved way for child models like
13-year-old, Elle Fanning and 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld who have recently signed contract
with major fashion brands. The ideal body image has always been created by media industry.
What to wear, which shoes are good, which color is in fashion is all dictated by media
industry. Therefore, the advertisers always target women and young girls as commodities as
well as primary consumers of their products.

With current situation, we could say that many have already accepted the young female
models in fashion industry. Time is not far when we will be debating on whether to let these
young models do sexual photoshoots. Many countries have already imposed age limit of
young models participating in fashion shows, but situation is not that good everywhere. Paris
Fashion Week has banned the participation of models below age of 16, but few incidents have
emerged that has put doubt on reinforcement of these rules. In recent Paris Fashion Week,
Valentino sends very young looking model with her chest exposed. This case is still under
investigation if the model was really over 16 or designers lied to the show organizers.

Such type of sexualization of female kids has started showing the long-term ill effects. These
effects on young female population includes
Giving false hopes to young teenagers who believe that looking sexy and beautiful is
important for validation and it gives them false values. Kids find it difficult to accept
their bodies and this results in anxiety, and depression.
Clothing preferences change at rapid rate. Like adults, fashion for tween population
changes rapidly and it becomes difficult for middle class parents to fulfil all needs
which is exactly what marketers want from them.

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 Not only adult celebrities, social media has given birth to many young celebrities who
have found their short-duration fame via viral posts or pictures. But once the cloud
clears, it is found that those celebrities are just like any other young kids.
Researches have also found that sexualization of such kind has negative impact on
self-esteem which leads to low confidence, poor performance in schools and even
drug uses among kids.

Sexualization of toys

Disney princesses have competed with Barbies in implanting the image of perfect woman in
the minds of young girls since their childhood. With the rise in marketing of Disney
princesses the Barbies seem to be lagging the race. Disneys presentation of women has
negative impact on young girls conception of themselves and what it means to be female.
The princesses have been sculpted with ultrathin bodies with accessories that convey a
commercialized stereotypical image of womanhood and beauty. This phenomenon is also
observed boys with relation to superhero/ action figures. In case of young girls, the
elaborately constructed fantasies steer them towards a view of femininity based on
stereotypes of beauty, race, social class and behaviour. Whereas, a similar phenomenon points
boys towards a tendency to violence.

Children are seldom rational thinkers and one of the issues with them involved with brands
that cover media and toys is that when left to their own devices, the content of the play is
dictated by the brands. An overexposure to commercial culture, reinforced by repeated
viewings and branded toys, means that childrens own devices are no longer their own. Just
as the Batman and G.I. Joe brands lock young boys into violent plays, young girls immersed
in Disney brand can be locked into playing at being helpless females waiting to be rescued.
This further feeds into body dysmorphia that men and women experience as they grow up
trying to live by these visual standards. Mass produced action figures a have evolved through
the millennia and have become increasingly muscular over the past decades.

Luke Skywalker (1978), Luke Skywalker (1998)

Eg. Star wars released the first set of realistically proportioned toys when the movies were
released from 1977 to 1983. But After going through updates for the last 35 years the features

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of the action figures have been strategically modified to make them unnaturally muscular,
that it is physically impossible to attain these dimensions.

For both young boys and girls, these marketing campaigns reinforce that physical more
important than any other quality for a human because it is the easiest of the qualities of the
protagonist that you can convey. Other important attributes like heroism, courage,
intelligence, honesty and courage can only be imbibed by watching the source media and
hence is difficult of a marketer to sell its products using these ideals.

For years, eating disorders and self-confidence issues in women have been attributed to a
subconscious desire to emulate their childhood Barbie dolls. These problems of the modern
times will continue to persist as long as the problem is not realized by masses and the toy
designs are carefully assessed before being marketed

Conclusion

The sexualization of media that children consume can having a looming effect on daily
existence of kids. Sexuality becomes a major player than it should, irrespective of a childs
age. Childrens curiosity from other things is diverted towards sexuality. As a result we see
things like following too frequently.
Children using sexual slangs without knowing what they mean.
Some children may display adult like behavior, making sexual advances towards other
children and adults.
Children are interested in sexual matters they were previously in purview of adults
and the greater the exposure the greater the consequences can be.

On the other hand, presenting children in sexualized fashion might act as potential triggers to
unwanted adult attention that is sexually motivated. In order to tackle this problem it has to
be first realized that children are not wary of their actions and the effects their behavior can
cause. They are only capable of mimicking attributes that are presented to them as desirable
and interesting. So it is the responsibility of the adults and parents to monitor the content that
reaches children and realize what is not suitable for them. Social groups that trying to
deconstruct these unethical agendas havent found the impetus to fight against the behemoth
marketing campaigns. Only when the negative effects of these marketing campaigns are
understood worldwide, we can start resisting them unanimously.

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References
Gunter, B. (n.d.). Media and Sexualization of Childhood.

Olfman, S. (n.d.). The sexualization of childhood .

The Hypersexualization of Young Girls in Advertisements Affects Body Image- . (n.d.).

Retrieved from Trusted clothes.

Wells, J. (n.d.). Are action figures giving boys body-image anxiety? Retrieved from The
telegraph.