Lianne George’s article “Why Are We Dressing Our Daughters Like This?” (2014) focuses on the societal issue of an increasingly earlier development of young girls. George states that companies facilitate this early development by producing adult like goods for children that push an adult mindset and behaviour. Through the use of various examples George argues that this trend is ill advised and should not be continued. George starts with the example of the Christian schoolgirl outfit, once meant to represent sexual purity and chastity, it now has been fetishized to the point where it represents sexuality bursting at the seams. She states that it does not help that older women are now wearing promiscuous outfits adorned with childlike slogans and logos. The increasingly scantily clad nature of grown women acting as role models for children causes them to dress like their role models. That is, in a provocative manner. George says that such clothing blurs the line …show more content…
This demonstrates her viewpoint that a trend such as this could lower the age of becoming sexual in children. George says that possibly this trend is an overcorrection of the 70’s when women dressed more conservatively as to not distinguish themselves from the males. Lianne brings up that until the 18th century it was uncommon to see a child as anything but a little adult, that the concept of having a unique children is a relatively new prospect. She also brings up that historically children dressed like and were expected to behave like adults. She says that this is similar to what is happening currently. That children are losing their childhood in an attempt to seem older, even when they don't necessarily know why, how or what they even are attempting to be perceived as older. Lianne calls this “age compression” and says that it is possibly brought on the wealth of information that children have access to.
The start of change in children’s clothing started back in the late 18th century during the romantic period. People wanted to have the idea that children are a separate marvelous, terribly fragile, and innocent kind of creature that wants to have all the freedom and liberty that they can. As the Victorian age started there was a more structural way of everyone’s apparel. “It was very important that the girls wore short dresses and the ladies wore long dresses.” Many girls always had their hair down and then would put it up as their dress got longer and they got older. The idea was to start to dress young girls to look “innocent”. As the 21st century started girls started to dress like women and women started to dress like little girls. George writes, “A girl is a women by the time she’s 8 and a women remains a girl until she’s 80.” The idea was that
Mary Pipher goes on to say that the problem faced by girls is a ‘problem without a name’ and that the girls of today deserve a different kind of society in which all their gifts can be developed and appreciated. (Pipher,M). It’s clear that cultures and individual personalities intersect through the period of adolescence. Adolescence is a time in a young girl’s life that shapes them into the woman they become. I think it begins earlier than teen years because even the clothing that is being sold for younger girls says sexuality. Bras for girls just beginning in every store are now padded with matching bikini underwear, Barbie dolls are glamour up in such away that these girls believ...
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.
With the dismay of a certain demographic of the population upset by the direction that the United States was heading, there was a growing amount that wanted to return to the “Family Values” era of the 1950’s. No other person depicts this “Prim and Proper” image better than the Sunday school teaching, store manager, Mr. Lengel who chastises the three girls in the story (queenie, plaid, and big tall goony-goony) for their attire while they were in the store shopping. Furthermore, Mr. Lengel doesn’t stop there and goes further to tell them that they must have their shoulders covered the next time they enter the store and that it is the company’s policy in some lack luster...
In Zhou, Li’s article “The Sexism of School Dress Codes,” she explains how the dress codes are diminishing children's self-esteem and, is mostly sexist towards girls as well as the LGBT community. To reach a wide audience including students, parents, and high school administrators, she relies on a wide variety of sources from high school students to highly credited professors. Zhou creates a strong argument against strict dress codes and encourages audience to take a stand against out of date dress codes that schools implement, using the rhetorical tools ethos, pathos, and logos to advance her argument.
In the article, “Little Girls or Little Women: The Disney Princess Affect”, Stephanie Hanes shows the influential impact that young girls, and youth in general, are experiencing in today’s society. This article goes in depth on the issues that impressionable minds experience and how they are reacting as a result. “Depth of gender guidelines” has been introduced to youth all around the world making it apparent that to be a girl, you have to fit the requirements. Is making guidelines of how you should act and look as a gender going too far?
...for Parents." Media and Clothing Market Influence on Adolescent Girls: Warnings for Parents. Ed. Sarah Coyne and Stephen F. Duncan. Forever Families, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2014. .
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.
On Halloween night, one will inevitably see tween-aged girls adorned in sexed-up skeleton, vampire, and doctor ensembles. Costume companies design these provocative outfits specifically for children who want “a sexy look to give you the perfect butt” (Jones, 2014, p.7). The sexualization of girls’ clothing and, consequently, the girls wearing the clothing is not limited to one day per year, however. Popular retailers, such as Abercrombie Kids and Victoria’s Secret PINK, market children’s thong underwear adorned phrases such as “eye candy” and “call me”; push up bikini tops are commonplace in sections intended for young girls (Goldfarb, 2008). Even television shows such as My Little Pony are marketed to sexualize girlhood. The sexualization of girls is inescapable in today’s society, where it is pervasive on virtually all media platforms. This issue must be addressed immediately, as it damages not only the individual, but the well-being of society as a whole.
Victorian clothing changed hand in hand with societies’ development throughout the 19th century. From the moment children were born to the moment they became young adults, there were expectations of how they should look and act. These “limits” and “guidelines” were always changing, and the new shapes and styles of clothing always followed. In the new and improved societies, children’s clothing was a very big part of their everyday life, as it still is now. Children’s clothing truly represented the society as a whole, during the Victorian era. The idea of an always changing and improving society is fully shown in both Victorian boy’s and girl’s fashion. They went from looking like miniature versions of their parents, to children, who could actually play and not be
Defying fashion can be as difficult and ambiguous as an attempt to defy art and sex. What is fashion? What can be defined as fashion? and what is the purpose of it. The definition of fashion has always fascinated many fashion writers and many have attempt to conceptualise it. In this essay, I will focus on the principles of fashion by looking into its history and trends to try and understand how it is defined and what purpose does it serve. In addition to this, I will look more closely into fashion and its relationship between sexuality and eroticism and how extreme fashion trends have affected us as consumers.
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.
When taking a closer inspection at the girl’s toys, similarly to the last assignment, almost all of these toys expressed the similar themes as the infant’s clothing did at Target. They were focused on beauty, sexuality, delicateness, and domesticated roles while exhibited an overall sense of what our cu...
6. Hammond, Colleen. "Dressing with Dignity - History of Women's Fashion Industry - How to Fight Sexual Revolution and Immodesty in Dress!" N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
Often beauty pageants feature an “outfit of choice” portion where parents and their children can collaborate in deciding their desired ensemble. On the TLC hit series Toddler and Tiaras, a three-year-old child entered a glitz beauty pageant, and in the “outfit of choice” portion, she dressed as Julia Robert’s character from Pretty Woman (O’Neill 20-21). In other words, a mother dressed her three-year-old child as a prostitute in hopes of winning a pageant. Young girls all around the country compete in beauty pageants that, on the surface, seem like harmless fun, but the negative consequences of juvenile beauty pageants drastically outweigh the benefits. Modern-day