History of Feminism
Related: About this forumEven Candy Land Isn't Safe From Sexy
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Toymakers say they are reflecting the changing taste of their demographic. Maybe, but then it's the change that's so disturbing. Consider a recent study on body image among elementary school-aged girls. Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 60 girls ages six to nine recruited largely from public schools. The girls were shown two dolls: One was dressed in tight, revealing "sexy" clothes and the other in a trendy but covered-up loose outfit. Both dolls, as you can see, were skinny and would be considered "pretty" by little girls.
Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, was the girl she wanted to play with. In every category, the girls most often chose the "sexy" doll.
In another study, researchers engaged three-to-five-year-old girls in games of, yes, Candy Land as well as Chutes & Ladders, asking them to choose among three game piecesa thin one, an average-sized one and a fat oneto represent themselves. While in the past children that age showed little ability to distinguish between average and thin weights, today's wee ones grabbed thin pieces at higher rates not only than fat ones but than those of "normal" weight. When asked by researchers to swap a thin figure for a fat one, the girls not only recoiled but some refused to even touch the chubbier game piece making comments such as, "I hate her, she has a fat stomach," or "She is fat. I don't want to be that one."
There's ample evidence that the ever-narrowing standard of beauty creates vulnerability in our girls to low self-esteem, negative body image, eating disorders, poor sexual choices. Not to mention the negative impact fat-shaming has on overweight kids. I think a lot about something that Gary Cross, a historian of childhood, once told me: that toys traditionally have communicated to children our expectations of their adult roles. What are we telling girls we expect of them with this?
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/even-candy-land-isnt-safe-from-sexy/275283/
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)i made it by a decade with my boys.
mercuryblues
(14,537 posts)Be the 1st one to dance at the ball. Who thinks this shit up? What was wrong with the original version, you know where the value was placed on learning colors.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,998 posts)I don't watch it, my husband does once in a while the topic was, apparently, the sexualization of little girls and bathing suits. I head 'if someone thinks a little girl in a two piece is sexual, THEY'RE the weird ones' and someone trying to explain was implying breasts where there are none was the point. Anyway, I didn't hear it all.
What bothered me, and what I picked up from a distance by the stories and the laughter, was the trivialization of the topic, by a group of women who should know better.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)is considered fringe, out-there, being oversensitive, making a big deal out of nothing, etc.
We see that shit on DU. So of course its worse in mainstream places. The only respite, the only places you can count on people getting it, is in dedicated feminist spaces.
Sad, huh?
That's it exactly.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)ya. they miss on a lot of these issues.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)this shit about making little kids "sexy." I mean, I'm a heterosexual man, I'm attracted to women, not little girls. All this is pretty bewildering, not to mention disgusting, to me.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)It's encouraging girls to see themselves as sex objects (e.g. the studies where six year olds seem to already understand how important it is for them to be sexy), and encouraging boys to see girls as sex objects.
The fact that this also encourages pedophiles (and ephebophiles -- gotta be specific, lest those who constantly yammer about how they believe 13 year old girls should be fair game feel left out) is another serious issue.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)attractiveness is even an issue. The fact that that particular issue is blown far out of proportion, and seriously distorted, in our culture is an obvious problem in itself.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)eyelashes.
the baby boy, wow he is active, look at those legs move, he is going to be a little runner.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)The sexes are conditioned in general to think of their bodies in very different ways.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)nt
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Yeah, the Bratz doll fairy was more than I was going for. And I grew up playing a really old one with my grandma. I wanted the same one.