“Ditzy shopaholics. Mean girls. Boy-obsessed bimbos. Are these really the only ways for girls to be beautiful and cool?” (New Moon). Young girls are faced with a tough decision that marketers seem to force them to make on the spot. They can choose to be popular and cool or kind, pure, and happy. The answer may be clear at first glance, but upon further investigating the once crystal clear perspective becomes muddy with the sludge of a selfish society and the egotistical way of thought. Girls are choosing to be provocative and sexy instead of nice and happy. Girls are not born with those ideas in their head, they were planted by millions of advertisements telling girls that’s how they should look and act. America is losing the young girls of this generation to marketing tactics focused on outward appearance and social standing. Even though girls want to look older and parents are willing to pay for their daughters to feel that they fit in, advertisements put too much emphasis on looks and popularity and are destroying young American girls’ innocence.
Young girls are persistently trying to be the highly sought after “college cool girl” even though they aren’t even in college. Fitting in and becoming that “it girl” is mentally and emotionally tough on the girls. However it’s the parents who ought to being feeling the biggest ache right in their pocketbook. Companies are taking parents’ daughters pureness, they’re also taking a bite out of their checkbooks. Marketing strategies accompanied by an unhealthy dose of peer pressure is pulling girls in, and they’re only getting younger. While big businesses may not
be coming out and saying the newest lacy underwear line is designed for young girls, it’s the companies’ hope that the ...
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...3. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
---"Victoria's Secret Really Wants Teenagers To Shop There - Here's Proof." Business Insider. Business Insider, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
--- “Father Writes Letter To Victoria’s Secret Explaining Why He Doesn’t Want His Daughter To Shop There.” Business Insider. N.p. 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 20. Nov. 2013.
"Mom Says Victoria's Secret Okay for Tween." Interview by Abbie Boudreau. Yahoo. ABC News Network, 5 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. .
Shifrin, Donald L., MD, et all. "Children, Adolescents, and Advertising." Children, Adolescents, and Advertising. Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
“We Define Beauty!” New Moon Girls 17.5 (2010): 20. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 20. Nov. 2013.
“Frederick’s of Hollywood, brainchild of the inventor of the push-up bra and purveyor of “marry-a-millionaire” lingerie since 1947” (Blakemore, 2015). Frederick’s created the “sex sells” image for themselves especially marrying a millionaire. They cannot go back from this and just try to reinvent themselves to cater to the everyday women when the company was built from these products. Frederick’s of Hollywood’s catalogs have most of the women in bed in the most uncomfortable position in the most uncomfortable looking lingerie. Victoria’s Secret catalogs are on a beachy location or just on location, not just a set. “That is, demureness is sexy in a middle-class setting and directness is sexy in a working-class setting.” (Blakemore, 2015). The catalogs create the ambiance of where the girls are when they are wearing the lingerie, therefore, it makes us the people shopping from these catalogs feel like we need to be in that place or atmosphere to wear what they are
This past month I made my last visit to the popular teenage/college student retail store Abercrombie and Fitch. Finishing up some back to school shopping, I was on a quest for jeans, and I knew the place to get them. My last two favorite pairs were from Abercrombie and Fitch, and I was planning on buying the same kind once again. Happy and relieved that I would not spend the afternoon ransacking the mall for one pair of jeans, I entered the store to the pulsating beat of techno dance music. In front of me was the teenage Mecca of what is truly hip -- the first thing I noticed were the life-size pictured that covered the walls -- half-clad muscular and glistening young men, frolicking around with pouty faced but beautiful young women who were wearing either size 2 short shorts with bikini tops or 3 layered sweaters. The tables were covered with overpriced shorts, shirts, and sweaters, strewn about by desperate customers searching for the perfect outfit. The sales people who roamed the floors were definitions of cool themselves -- ranging from age 16-22, they modeled their employee discounts in a haughty way which encouraged the customers to strive for their ultra-hip look. And strive the customers did. What was the most noticeable upon entering the store (besides the blaringly loud music which made me wonder if I was at a clothing store or a dance club) were the herds of desperate young men and women, who seemed to range from age 12-25, strutting around the store and searching for anything that had the name A&F on it. I can only imaging how many nights of baby-sitting it would take some of these eager teenagers to buy one sweater. The young custome...
Girls try to copy the clothes the celebrities wear because it is what’s considered cool. They wear makeup because if they don’t have the perfect complexion, the sexy eyes or the right lip color, they are considered ugly. Society has taken away our say in what is beautiful and attractive. Society controls what to wear and how to look. The short story, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” by James Tiptree, shows how society can dominate the lives of the individual.
A Study Conducted by the American Psychological Association Task Force concluded that sexualization occurs when a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified- that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person. The APA Task Force reported many example of the sexualization of girls, such as toy manufactures duce dolls wearing black leather miniskirts, feather boas, and thigh-high boots and market them to 8- to 12-year-old girls. Clothing stores sell thongs sized for 7– to 10-year-old girls, some printed with slogans such as “eye candy” or “wink wink”; other thongs sized for women and late adolescent girls are imprinted with characters from Dr. Seuss and the Muppets. In the world of child beauty pageants, 5-year-old girls wear fake teeth, hair extensions, and makeup and are encouraged to “flirt” onstage by batting their long, false eyelashes. Journalists, child advocacy organizations, parents, and psychologists have become alarmed according to the APA Task Force, arguing that the sexualization of girls is a broad and increasing problem and is harmful to girls, and I for one agree with their proposition.
In “Is It Now Slutoween for 7-Year-Olds? Really?” Emily Shire addresses the question of whether or not to wear gender-prescription Halloween costume for girls. Published on September 29, 2015, this is one of the many articles that Shire has contributed to thedailybeast.com, most of which covers popular culture, women’s issues, health and sex and date. There appear to be no Kairos event. However, Shire against little girl to wear costumes that are provocative. The target audiences of thedailybeast.com is women. Shire is a reporter and cheat sheeter for The Daily Beast. Her work has appeared in The Week, The Atlantic, Salon, Slate, and The Forward. She is a writer
Posnanski, Tony. “Dear Abercrombie: Thank You for Allowing us ‘Fat, Uncool’ Kids to Buy Your Clothing Online.” Huffingtonpost.com. Huffington Post, 6 December 2013. Web. 15 January 2014.
However, despite their success, all the negative press and controversies has lead to Abercrombie coming under pressure from activist investors to shake up management, who this month said they want to see more dramatic changes at the company, saying the retailer needs a new strategy after four straight quarters of declining sales. Bloomberg News reported“As part of its turnaround effort, Abercrombie is repositioning its brands… aimed at shoppers with more money to spend, rather than teens. The Hollister brands… will use low prices and rapidly changing styles to recapture customers who’ve turned to chains like Forever 21.” (Bloomberg, 2014)
Rather than feature and promote unnatural body weights, society can benefit from the promotion of a healthy physical appearance. This would increase self acceptance for young girls of their body. After all, women and girls come in all sizes and shapes. If society cares about the future of our young girls, steps should be taken to minimize eating disorders. With the knowledge that young girls can be very impressionable, society and the media have a responsibility to stop promoting unrealistic body images. The need to have clothing look better on the runway is not more important than the health concerns of young women.
should listen to, and how teens should act. The desire to buy products which are
Adolescents is a time of significant life transitions in which young adults learn to cope with changes that are brought about by physical and emotional maturation (Sands and Howard-Hamilton, 1994). During this time girls begin to become more aware of themselves as females, and learn to identify society’s signals to conform appropriately for their gender (Sands and Howard-Hamilton, 1994). The highschool girls that are present in this writers program are starting to unders...
They use thin models who wear provocative lingerie with windblown hair modelling to seductive music in the commercials that are aired nationwide. After releasing that controversial advertisement there has been multiple backlash from consumers protesting for the campaign to change and for Victoria’s Secret apology. Women are flooded with commercials and advertisements that are aimed towards making them feel insecure about their bodies. This promotes even more low self-esteem within women who are made to feel a certain way about their bodies because they do not fit into a certain slimmer standard of
In a world where young people are only living for themselves, the corporations and brands are booming. Having expensive clothes, the newest phone and an overpriced cocktail in your hand on a weeknight has never been so important. This is the essence of youth, going to parties to show off your brand new purchases, buying a whole new wardrobe for your one week holiday to Ibiza. Major fashion brands have caught on to this and youth culture has began to feature heavily in campaigns.
Have you ever noticed walking into a large shopping complex and seeing children as young as 6 years old wearing midriff bearing t-shirts and short skirts? And wondered to yourself why the younger generation of today portray themselves like that and why their parents allow it. It all goes back to the strong impact that sexualization portrayed in media and marketing has on everybody in today’s society especially young children from toddlers to late teens, both girls and boys. They see it everywhere from movies/television shows, magazines, clothing, computer games, toys, the music industry and of course the internet.
Children use clothing as a form of identity, and when their families cannot afford the latest trends, it can lend itself to feelings of low self-worth and can even make children targets of bullying. Children are inundated every single day with advertising and marketing, and these kids are connected to media a good portion of their day. This allows advertisers to creep into our children’s lives and target them multiple times every day. Corporations are guilty of putting financial gain ahead of children’s health and well-being, and the fashion industry has been identified as one of these industries (L...
Tight clothes are the status quo. It is popular in American culture to show off curves and allow women to express themselves and show off their bodies with tight-fitting jeans and crop tops. While girls should know what is and is not appropriate for school, sometimes it is hard to meet dress code standards with the fashion trends of today. Loose-fitting or non-skinny jeans are hard to find for teens and pre-teens anymore, and leggings com...