- Too much, too young?
- May 2010
In 1979, the song "Too Much Too Young", by the Specials reached number one. The title is a very apt message for all those retailers who are choosing to market and sell overly sexualised clothing to young girls.
This month, retailers again came under increased pressure to take sexualised clothing for young girls off their shelves, after it emerged that shoes for eight-year-olds with three-inch heels were being sold in New Look stores. Picture
Justine Roberts (Mumsnet website), called for the shoes to be withdrawn from sale, describing them as horrific. "They're totally inappropriate for an eight-year-old," she said. "Aside from the issues of young girls dressing to look like sexually available women" Justine Roberts continued, "heels as high as this are all wrong for growing feet."
The New Look controversy, is the second one in recent weeks. On 14th April Primark joined the ranks of high profile retailers like BHS (Little Miss Naughty knickers aimed at 8 year olds), Tesco (padded push up bras aimed at 7 year olds) and Asda (lace pink and black lingerie aimed at 9 year olds), who have come under criticism for selling overly sexualised clothing to young pre pubescent girls. The controversial product was a £4 bikini sets complete with padded bra.
Blog.
A recent survey by the Guardian found an array of items available in major chains, from a T-shirt for a three-year-old bearing the slogan "Future WAG" to a top for a toddler with a pink bikini appliquéd on the front. A mother of a four-year-old girl said it was "too old for a little girl. A bikini is for teenagers or adults. You'd expect a more childish image for a two-year-old."
At Next, you can purchase pink sandals with a one-and-a-half-inch heel in a child's size 12 and wedged flipflops with 'Beach Babe' on the strap.
Olivia Lichtenstein (Daily Mail) addressed the issue in article titled 'What a sick, world when women yearn to look like girls... and little girls are dressed to look like women'. She ten asks the question. "How on earth did we reach this depressing state of affairs? Is it the mothers, the fashion designers or the media who are to blame for sexualising girls as young as three"?
Anna van Heeswijk, of Object, which campaigns against the sexual objectification of women, told the Guardian, "These clothes are a worrying example of how girls are being groomed at younger and younger ages to fit into a sex-object culture, in which women are viewed as a sum of body parts, always sexually available, and whose value lies in how sexy they look to boys and men ... The early sexualisation of girls is not harmless, and, if we are serious about achieving genuine equality between women and men, it is time to put an end to women and girls being viewed, treated, portrayed and groomed into sexual objects through clothing ranges like these," she said.
Penny Nicholls, of the Children's Society, said "We have to ask what effects some of these products have on children and young people's ideas of body image and what is appropriate for their age ... Unless we question our own behaviour as a society, we risk creating a generation who are left unfulfilled through chasing unattainable and inappropriate lifestyles and values."
mybodybeautiful.co.uk fully concur with Penny Nicholls. The proliferation of sexualised images and clothing has a strong impact on young girls (and on how boys view them). It ultimately determines what they see as valuable and worthwhile, and how they see themselves as they get older..
mybodybeautiful.co.uk is calling on retailers, the media and parents/guardians in particular, to let children be children.