Zero Figured Girls
I’ve always liked Christina Ricci as an actress, and after reading a Blackbook interview with her, I like her as a woman, too. Says Christina:
“I think people are learning to actually aspire to be objectified. It’s like the highest form of flattery for teenage girls. The culture we live in right now seems to reward behavior that we used to frown upon. We used to teach our daughters not to be like this…
“We don’t really know what’s going to happen to this generation of children. I just know that things seem wrong to me. I mean, I just feel like sexism is alive and well, and misogyny. And we all like to pretend that it’s not. That makes me feel a little crazy.”
The husband and I walked last night around a popular outdoor air shopping/entertainment plaza. A kiosk sold t-shirts with phrases like “I’m a virgin - but this is an old t-shirt” and “Who says size doesn’t matter?” in girl sizes. My 14-year-old cousin - the one who idolizes Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera but blanks on Susan B. Anthony and Betty Friedan - looks and dresses older than I do and I’m teetering precariously close to 30. I once mentored a 13-year-old, average-weight biracial girl from my city’s projects who was extremely smart in math and science, and yet constantly downplayed her academic skills while lamenting how fat she was .
From body-baring bikinis for girls as young as 6, sexual dolls designed for girls ages 4 - 8, tweens posing in suggestive and provocative ways in magazines and the sexual antics of young celebrity role models, what kind of messages are young girls receiving today on how they ought feel and act? As a report released last year by the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls reveals, those messages can be devastating.
Instead of collectively wringing our hands while bemoaning the sad state society has devolved to, I’m more interested in what we can do to fix the problems. The challenge seems daunting: how can one person or even a group of people tackle a mega-billion dollar media and entertainment industry? How can we work to change national opinions and culturally ingrained beliefs? I think the answer starts one girl at a time.