Search results for sexualization girls

Kari B. sent in an example of the sexualization of teen boys, found at Evil Slutopia. Justin Bieber appears on the cover of the February 2011 Vanity Fair covered in lipstick, with a hand grabbing him by his necktie:

An image from the article:

Justin Bieber is 16 years old — just a year older than Miley Cyrus was when there was a scandal about her photoshoot for Vanity Fair, such that it appeared to potentially threaten her career at Disney by ruining her safe, clean-cut image. I think it’s safe to say that if Miley Cyrus, or another female teen star, posed in photos that showed evidence of being kissed or grabbed by male fans, people would be up in arms about the sexualization of girls. But as we often see, there’s a double-standard, based on the idea that boys are naturally sexual at earlier ages and that boys are sexually invincible. While we might see a teen girl surrounded by men as being in danger, we don’t think of girls as being sexually threatening to boys, or of male teen celebrities’ sexuality being as open to exploitation by publicists, photographers, or other members of the media. And thus, these types of images of Justin Bieber don’t lead to the same outcry as similar images of female teen stars, and don’t cause concern that his career as a teen idol is over.

We’ve discussed the adultification of Justin Bieber before, here and here; you might also check out our post on the sexualization of Jaden Smith.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

A couple of days ago, Lisa posted about the sexualization of young girls, specifically in a fashion spread in French Vogue. Erica B. found another striking example on the reality show Toddlers & Tiaras, a show about young girls entered in beauty pageants. In this case, 2-year-old Mia’s mother has her perform wearing a tiny version of Madonna’s famous cone-bra bustier from her Blond Ambition tour:

The whole performance (and note the video is titled “Mia Living Doll”):

M/p>

For another video of her doing the routine, watch the 2nd video at this Jezebel post.

Delia B. sent along this 80s-riffic, apocalyptic music video featuring Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen singing Make Me Wanna Die. Momsen is a 17-year-old teen idol who strips naked over the course of the video. Her naked body is eventually obscured, but not before we get a good look at her in her bra and underwear.

On the one hand, because Momsen is 17, one could argue that this video is encouraging the sexualization of underage girls and child pornography (which involves, by definition, children under age 18).

On the other hand, this video is, relatively speaking, pretty sexually tame.  I imagine that most Americans would not think that this would incite pedophiles and that many would argue that she’s perfectly old enough, given that she’s an actress/rock star, to be stripping down to her undies. Not to mention the fact that the average age of virginity loss in the U.S. is about 16.

The video is a great opportunity, then, to have a discussion about the social construction of age.  To start: What age is “too young” and what age “old enough”?  What’s the difference between 17 and 18?  Is the difference equally meaningful for everyone?  Should we codify such meanings into law?  And do today’s laws reflect our contemporary culture mores?  According to who?

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Doris G. sent in this commercial for Jack & Jones jeans, in which a man laments the way that women just want to use him for sex:

The website indicates that if you go to a store and buy a jacket, you can get a pair of headphones that come in packages that show different versions of Girl Toys. Here’s the “bad boy rebel wearing a bomber jacket”:

You can also choose from the “outdoor living macho dude wearing a wool coat,” “casual cool big-city guy wearing a peacoat,” and “urban sports hunk wearing a soft-shell jacket.”

Of course, the reason this works — the reason it’s supposed to be funny instead of disturbing — is because of gendered ideas about sex (masculine) and romance (feminine). Men are generally assumed to want sex any time they can get it, and to be able to completely separate it from emotions and love and such. Truly masculine sex is no-strings-attached sex for physical pleasure. The idea that a guy would be disturbed because hordes of conventionally attractive women want to have wild sex with him but require no greater commitment, is laughable if you accept an ideology in which that’s how girls act.

This ideology obscures the reality that men do want to make emotional connections with their partners. Michael Kimmel summarizes the research on gender and relationships in his textbook, The Gendered Society (2nd edition, 2004):

Men, it seems, are more likely to believe myths about love at first sight, tend to fall in love more quickly than women, are more likely to enter relationships out of a desire to fall in love, and yet also tend to fall out of love more quickly. Romantic love, to men, is irrational, spontaneous, and compelling emotion that demands action… (p. 227)

But the masculinization of sex discourages men from thinking about sex in terms of emotional (as opposed to primarily physical) satisfaction and prevents us from acknowledging that boys and men can, in fact, be uncomfortable with women’s advances, or even be sexually victimized by women (see our posts here and here).

Diego Costa recently pointed out to us the sexualization of Jaden Smith. In that post, I wondered if race played much of a part in this process; while non-White boys are often adultified, it wasn’t clear to me that it was a major factor in this case. Diego followed up by sending along some photos of White teen heartthrob/pop star Justin Bieber, who you may know better as that kid on the cover of magazines whose hair you desperately want to brush out of his eyes. He’s a bit older than Jaden, so the idea of him dating or talking about girls isn’t surprising, but the specific example Diego sent in is.

Apparently Justin Bieber, who is 16, met Kim Kardashian, the 29-year-old reality-TV personality and model, earlier this year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (and no, I didn’t know teen pop stars go to the Correspondents’ Dinner, either). Apparently after she Tweeted that she had “Bieber fever” and he joked about her being his “girlfriend,” Bieber fans flipped out and sent her death threats and such.

Following this, the two recently posed together for a fashion shoot for Elle, presumably making fun of and capitalizing on the earlier frenzy and publicity regarding their friendship. The photo shoot had them walking on the beach, in the water, holding hands, and in other ways hinting at romance; in some cases, Bieber’s light-colored shirt is wet and you can see his entire chest through it:

Diego asks how this would go over if the roles were reversed: if Elle had images of a 16-year-old female teen star in a see-through shirt walking on the beach with, or getting a flower from, a 29-year-old male celebrity “mostly known for…posing nude several times and making money off of his condom-free sex tape…” (after a sex tape of Kardashian with her ex-boyfriend appeared, she sued and settled with the company distributing it for $5 million).

I’m not trying to stigmatize Kardashian; I’m not interested in her, or why she’s famous, here. But I think Diego has a very good point: it’s unlikely many people will think this is an inappropriate sexualization of Bieber (though perhaps Kardashian will need some extra security guards when Bieber’s fans see these). As the reaction to Jayden Smith indicates, we accept the idea of boys being sexual, or sexually interested, at younger ages than girls, and any interest they show in older girls or women is a sign of their sexual precocity — and, of course, heterosexuality — not a sign that they are either in danger of being preyed upon or that they are tempting Lolitas (and thus dangerous to men). We simply don’t worry as much about a 16-year-old teen boy shown in a photo like this because we don’t think of sexuality being dangerous for them in the way we think it is for girls.

UPDATE: Sorry comments were previously turned off — some type of glitch.

Cross-posted at Love Isn’t Enough.

Diego Costa sent in an image of Jaden Smith, star of the remake of The Karate Kid, at a recent promotional event in China. In it, 11-year-old Jaden has lifted his shirt to show off his abs, while co-star Jackie Chan and a man I presume is the event host marvel at them:

What struck Diego is how this image was received differently than a similar image of an 11-year-old girl pulling up her shirt to show off her abs might be seen. For instance, The Huffington Post showed the image without any comment about its content. We might compare that to the public outcry over the images of Miley Cyrus wrapped in a sheet that came out two years ago. I also suspect The Huffington Post article might say something about the adult men in the above photo if it were a girl rather than a boy they were touching/ogling.

Apparently when he went on The View, Jaden said he’s “already a great kisser” and the audience cheered, though I can’t find a video of it.

Diego says,

Why is the exposure of boy bodies deemed appropriate whilst the revealing of girls’ bodies must always accompany relentless probing, judging and outrage? If we agree that we shouldn’t sexualize children, then let’s not do it to any child. And, while we are at it, let’s also not assume infantile heterosexuality by asking if boys already have “a girlfriend.”

Excellent points. I suspect if an 11-year-old girl went on The View and said she was a good kisser already, she and her parents would be attacked in the press, people would express horror, and rumors would circulate about whether she’s been sexually abused, is already sexually active, etc. etc. But when an 11-year-old boy does it? That’s cute! He’s on his way to being a smooth-talking ladies’ man!

I can’t decide if, or to what degree, race might be at play here. There is certainly a tendency to adultify non-White children — that is, to treat them as mini-adults rather than children at much earlier ages than White kids are. This includes sexuality (for instance, teachers often assume Black girls are sexually active at younger ages than White girls). My recent post on the hypersexualization of a 13-year-old Latino boy discussed this topic.

But I’m not sure if that’s playing a major role here, or if gender assumptions and him being the son of a much-beloved celebrity couple are the more important factors. Thoughts?

For another example, see our post on the Rolling Stone cover with Taylor Lautner.

NEWS:

A new intern! We are proud to introduce a new Sociological Images intern, Lauren McGuire.  Lauren is a liberal arts graduate working as an assistant to a disability activist who blogs at The Deal with Disabilty.  She lives with four boys, one bathroom, and a dog in Pasadena, CA.  She is also an enthusiastic amateur in writing, blogging, sewing, photography, and general creative buffoonery.  Look for her first Guest Post soon.

An award!  I am so pleased to have been awarded the Early Career Award for Innovation in Teaching Sociology from the Pacific Sociological Association!  If any of you would like to celebrate with me, I will be at the PSA conference in Oakland, CA, on the evening of Friday, April 9th.  Email me at socimages@thesocietypages.org for details.

A new partnership!  We are so excited to have entered into a partial syndication agreement with Jezebel!  You may see some of our posts re-posted there, and vice versa.

SocImages in the news!  This month Gwen was quoted in Adweek (on children’s toys); Gwen and Lisa were both quoted in ABC News (on the pricing of black and white barbies); and Lisa was quoted in Women’s ENews (on the sex of traffic signals), interviewed on WEOL am 930 with Les Sekely, and her top ten favorite blogs were featured at blogs.com.

Social networking!  Don’t forget: you can follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook, where we update with a featured post everyday .

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Mar. ’10):

To our post about laws and taxes forbidding yellow margarine, we added another fascinating vintage ad.

Caity sent us a video than an Australian bank created to try to explain why they were increasing interest rates. We added it to our post of a cartoon that explains the credit crisis.

Race

A nice example of the way that people of color are frequently chaperoned by a plurality of white people was sent in by Caitlan V.d.W.  I added it to my post on the topic, one of a series on how people of color are included in advertising aimed primarily at white people.

Previously we posted a popsicle sold in Spain with an Asian caricature on the package. Now we’ve added ice cream that came in a container shaped like a stereotypical Asian character, also sold in Spain.

Anina H. sent us a New York State Department of Health flier encouraging breast feeding that featured women of different races, but had the white woman modeling ideal motherhood.  We added it to our post on materials that include a diverse group of people, but somehow always manage to put the white person up front or on top.

Sarah G. found another example of black dolls being sold for less than white dolls, we added it to our post on the recent Walmart scandal.

We recently posted about the objectification and fetishization of Asian women on the dating website Classy Asian Ladies. Rachel K. sent us a t-shirt that illustrates this obsession with Japanese women, in particular, so we added it.

Martha sent us a commercial for MetroPCS that featured two Indian men with strong accents. We added it to our post on two ads that ran during Super Bowl 42 that featured characters with thick accents (Indian and Chinese).

We updated our post on contemporary blackface in the fashion world with a mini-movie by Karl Lagerfeld that includes White actors made up to appear Asian.

Sex

Christina W. sent us another great contribution to our post: selling the most unlikely things with sex!  It started with organ donation, but this addition involves cheese.

Dmitriy T.M. sent in a flyer for a techno party that is a great addition to our ejaculation imagery post. And Kristyn G. found an Australian commercial in which white liquid squirts all over Pamela Anderson and another woman. Thanks, D. and Kristyn!

We updated our post on reframing the abortion debate to associate abortion with genocide by adding a Polish billboard that claims Hitler introduced abortion to Poland. Might be mildly unsafe for work — there are images of bloody aborted fetuses.

Joe told us about the video game Mass Effect, which allows heterosexual or lesbian couplings but not gay male ones. We added a link of a scene where a female character does a sexy dance for a male character to our post about the video game Sexy Beach, which is about what you’d think it is. Probably NSFW.

To our post in which we asked whether a store display seemed to imply violence or consensual bondage we added a photo SOM took of a shoe store window display showing a woman’s bound feet.

Gender

Renée Y. and Corina sent us two more examples of breast cancer research fund raising that privileges saving boobs over saving women.

We added images of chocolate Easter bunnies and pink computer cables to our ever-growing post on pointlessly gendered products.

We added a commercial, sent in by Emma H., in which a man is humiliated because he loves ice dancing to our post of ads telling men that they better eschew femininity or else.

More mocking of the Disney princesses!  Courtesy of Kristyn G.

We added three more examples of beer advertising that compares beer to a “good woman.”  See both here and here.  Thanks to John for one of the examples!

We added another image, this one a photo of Reille Hunter from GQ, to our post featuring infantilized women.  Thanks to Jeff H. for the suggestion!

Katie P. sent us a pair of gendered onesies: one said “I’m Super” and the other, “Super Cute.”  Guess which one was pink.

Halley M. and Ryan both sent in additions to our recent post showing how anatomy is gendered.  One is another educational image and one is the image of humanity attached to the Pioneer spacecraft in case any extraterrestrials ran into it and wanted to know what we’re like. We added them to the original.

We  added a product called Shrinkx Hips, a product to “guide” your hips back to their “pre-pregnancy position,” to our post on the BeBand.

Mindy sent us a video she was shown at a couples retreat that demonstrates how men and women are so different! We added it to our post on medicalizing gendered marriage.

French Elle‘s April 2010 issue has a long feature dedicated to women with larger bodies. We added it to our post on some recent images from Glamour of women’s bodies that don’t fit the size-zero model ideal.

Katrin sent us a video about a marketing campaign for Lynx (the British version of Axe). The campaign, called LynxJet, presents sexy women as sexually-available airline stewardesses, eager to please. We added it to another post on Axe/Lynx products.

We updated our post on the sexualization of female employees in an Avis ad with an ad for Ansett Airlines that shows a female flight attendant in just a towel.

Martha sent us some images from the book Who Killed Amanda Palmer? in which Palmer is posed as though she’s been murdered. We added them to our post on images that show dead-looking women.

Ryan let us know about a video of Filipina activist Sass Rogando Sasot speaking to the United Nations about the need for more recognition of transgender rights. We added the video of her speech, “Reclaiming the Lucidity of Our Hearts,” to our post of a spoken-word performance about being transgendered.

We updated a post on the sexualization/adultification of children with some images from the clothing company Zara that have similar themes.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Ada A., Katrin, Filip S., and Missives from Marx all let us know about PinkStinks, a campaign in the UK that “challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls’ lives”.

The aim is a worthy one: the webpage discusses concerns about girls’ body image, self esteem issues, the sexualization of young women, and so on.

They link to this video, which I thought was neat:

While I totally get the idea and support the effort to provide girls with a wider set of images of what they can aspire to do or be like, the “pink stinks” name, and some of the t-shirts on the site, give me a some pause.

If you read different parts of the site, it’s clear that pink is a stand-in for the socialization of girls into a particular type of femininity, and the campaign is attempting to combat the narrowing of girls’ aspirations and role models. But it brings up an issue I face whenever I’m trying to pick out clothes for my 3-year-old niece: how do you reject the trappings of that socially-approved version of femininity without devaluing femininity, girls, and women themselves? All things equal, I’ll usually pick a green t-shirt instead of a pink t-shirt for my niece because I feel like giving her a pink t-shirt signals to her an approval of all the things we associate with “pink culture”–valuing looks over smarts, worrying about boys, and so on, and because I know she is frequently encouraged to declare pink her “favorite” color by those buying her gifts.

But we often see that in the attempt to provide girls with more options, those who accept elements of mainstream femininity are devalued. My students who are trying to distance themselves from ideas of passive femininity often disparage “girly-girls,” those they see as unambiguously accepting pink culture. Thus, wearing a sparkly barrette or painting your nails pink becomes inherently problematic, a sign that you must be boy-obsessed, dumb, superficial, and so on.

I don’t think this campaign overall is doing that–if you read through it, the message is more complex and clearly about giving girls a wider array of options to choose from as they construct their identities. But much of the online discussion of it seems to miss the nuance and veer more into the simplistic interpretation of “pink stinks” as “empowering girls means rejecting and devaluing everything currently associated with femininity, as well as those who do it,” and the t-shirts seem to play into that a little.

Many of the things associated with femininity–being nurturing, say, or liking to cook–are, in fact, quite lovely, and problematic only when we say that only girls can/should like them, that all girls ought to, and that they’re less worthwhile than things boys do. Adding to the devaluing of women and femininity in an attempt to resist gender norms is, ultimately, counter-productive.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.