Girls need an empowering, accurate, healthy understanding of sexuality that is in their best interests — and the media often do not give them that, says Meenakshi Gigi Durham, a University of Iowa researcher.
Durham, who will lecture this month at U-M, says sexualization — which refers to the distorted, objectifying, commercially motivated and often harmful representations of sexuality — proliferates in mainstream media. She says effective strategies can challenge the myths, prompting parents to raise strong, media-literate girls.
“We don’t want our kids to grow up to be passive media audiences,” she says. “We want them to be active, critical media consumers who can make good decisions for themselves as they get older.”
Durham will give the Motorola Lecture 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 in Palmer Commons, 100 Washtenaw Ave. “Combating the Lolita Effect” will feature a panel discussion with Sharon Gold-Steinberg, clinical supervisor, University Center for the Child and the Family; Lore Rogers, staff attorney, Michigan Domestic Violence Prevention and Treatment Board; and Patricia Montemurri, reporter, Detroit Free Press.
The lecture is hosted by the Women’s Studies Department, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, LSA and the Department of Communication Studies, and is free and open to the public.
Her work centers on media and the politics of the body, with an emphasis on gender, sexuality, race and youth cultures. She analyzes how marketing and highly sexualized media messages target girls from toddler to teens.
Durham, who authored “The Lolita Effect,” says media sexualization of young girls originated in the 20th century — most famously with a 15-year-old Brooke Shields touting Calvin Klein jeans in 1980. This phenomenon became pervasive in the mid-1990s, with then-16-year-old Britney Spears in pigtails and a Catholic schoolgirl uniform in her music video “… Baby One More Time.”
In subsequent years, other example of sexualization occurred with the emergence of Bratz dolls and accompanying children’s clothing line, Abercrombie & Fitch thong underwear in preteen sizes with slogans like “Wink Wink” and “Eye Candy” on them, French maid Halloween costumes in toddler sizes, and the “Peek-a-Boo Pole Dancing Kit” toy.
The prevalence is due to media industries having discovered that tweens (ages 8 to 12) and teens are a highly profitable market, Durham says.
“If girls are coaxed to buy into an ideology of female sexuality that fuels sales of make-up, high heels, diet aids and revealing fashions, the media have created cradle-to-grave consumers of these goods,” she says.
This worldwide, profit-motivated concept of girls’ sexuality is promoted as fun and empowering. However, this fosters body dissatisfaction, anxiety, lower self-esteem and, at worst, sexual abuse and exploitation, Durham says.
Parents and other caring adults can open dialogues about these issues with girls, encouraging them to think critically about the media and marketing they deal with daily, she says.
Girls also should be encouraged to create their own media — such as magazines, movies and Web sites — to help them take control of their environments and come up with alternative scripts.
Durham says it’s easy for society to dismiss the media as “just entertainment” or “harmless background noise,” but the research shows a different picture. Kids exposed to sexualized media tend to engage in sexual activity earlier. In the United States, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates are rising. However, Durham is an advocate for accurate and developmentally appropriate information about sexuality.
“Sex,” she says, “is a normal, healthy, and at best wonderful part of human existence. But when sex is commodified and commercialized, we get representations that are good for profits but not necessarily people. We all need to be alert to that.”
