We haven’t come a long way baby at all

Then there’s the “Peek-a-boo pole-dancing kit” for six-year-olds. It comes with “sexy garter” and DVD “demonstrating suggestive dance moves”. The kit promises to “unleash the sex kitten inside. … Soon you’ll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars.”

A little girls’ underwear line is pitched this way:

Gone are the days of voluminous, bulky and cumbersome underwear meant to be worn under layers of clothing. These days underwear has become briefer, bolder and more stylish. There is even underwear to complement different moods you wish to portray: frisky, seductive or mysteriously alluring.

Sex is glamourised even in girl’s magazines aimed at readers aged five to 13. Gossip magazines aimed at a pre-teen readership also encourage girls to behave in a sexual manner, with pages devotes to grooming and relationships - even with older men. In advertising catalogues children are dressed up, made-up and posed in the same way that adults are - suggesting children are interested in and perhaps open to, approaches for sex.

Girls are exposed to sexually brutal music videos which suggest that the highest goal for a woman in life is to receive anal sex from multiple men.

We haven’t come a long way baby at all.

And we are seeing the results in the bodies of girls. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on health of young people aged 12-24 shows that eating disorders and mental health problems are among the leading causes of burden of disease in young women. Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne recorded a surge in number of children under 14 with anorexia - some as young as 8.

Fortunately some are speaking out. Last October, the Australian Institute issued a report titled Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualising Children by Advertising and Marketing.

The American Psychological Association just published “The Sexualization of Girls” which concluded that an entire generation of young women is being psychologically damaged by a culture which prematurely sexualises them. The result is anxiety, low self image, self harm, eating disorders, depression and lower academic performance.

Initial research by Women’s Forum Australia back these findings. Our report Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women’s Magazines, will be released in July.
 
We must oppose the pornographising of culture. Why aren’t we as worried about creating an environment destructive of the physical and mental health of girls as we are about greenhouse gasses? We need a new global movement prepared to stand up against corporations, advertisers, the sex industry, the makers of violent video games and demeaning music clips and Internet sites. We need the same momentum as we’ve seen drive recent movements against global warming and world poverty propel a new movement for fighting this toxic cultural environment.

What we are witnessing is not liberation but oppression. It is not liberating for young women to be told everyday that their only power is in their sexual currency. It is not liberating to convey to women that their freedom lies in participating in their own exploitation. To portray young women as only sexual is to oppress them.

On International Women’s Day, it’s time to take back our daughters and empower and equip them to resist - and fight back against - a culture that tells them they’re no more the sum of their sexual parts. Let’s make this day a rallying cry for genuine - not false - liberation. Then we might have something to celebrate.