The Sexualization of Early Childhood

The reading, So Sexy So Soon, was unfortunate but not altogether shocking. Whether it is movies, books, TV shows, music videos, or the images in children’s games, often too often girls are viewed as sex objects and boys are portrayed as aggressors. These images are not presented in a way that would be alarming to children, but instead normalized as if they were reminiscent of everyday life children should expect to experience. Thinking about movies, such as Frozen the central character Elsa sings about being free while her dress updates from covering her body to cleavage baring with a thigh high slit. 

The male who her sister Ana decides she wants to marry also uses a sexual act, kissing her, as a trick in the movie. More recently for girls the Descendants movies specifically address being more desirable to boys by using spells to change their hair, and clothes. The girls then approach the boys in the movie with suggestive body mannerisms, while the boys make it literally a game to go after a girl not in a love and friendship type scenario, but for more physical relationships. 

These movies are not only marketed to children, their messages are reinforced through books, toys, and clothing made for a variety of young ages and based on the movie. When the girls play with these toys, wear the suggestive costumes, and read the books, they are further integrating the messages of sexualization (Levin and Kilbourne, 2009).

Children have access to shows that are developmentally appropriate, but what I have experienced in listening to children, is that they have a desire to watch and act beyond their age. The girl may express interest in “being a big girl” or doing things like the “big girls” do. Society tells them through images on tv where the most attractive girl (in the dominant culture standard of female beauty) gets the advantages, and is the most popular. Children learn from their experiences, and use those interactions with the older children to develop theories that shape their social identity (Derman Sparks and Edwards, 2010). When society surrounds children with these images, that identity then gets skewed by both boys and girls as more sexualized. In addition, families where parents are working multiple jobs, there is only one parent in the home, or childhood trauma involved may struggle to develop and model healthy gender relationships for the children (Levin and Kilbourne, 2009).

           In my class last year, I had a student who had been exposed often to her mothers behaviors as a dancer and bar tender. She was very familiar with the sexual culture complete with steaks of hair color and makeup. Children's play often mimics their experiences, and their dramatic play is used as a time to act out issues they have seen in order to make sense of situations. This girl used recess to act out ways she had witnessed at home meaning she danced around the room with moves not appropriate for her young age, and spoke to the boys with language more mature than a second grader vocabulary. She aggressively pursued the boys in class, offering physical affection, and taking any opportunity on spirit days to push the boundary of the dress code with the amount of skin shown. These actions were not the fault of this young girl, but a reaction to experiences she had at home, things she had seen in life, and media messages she had encountered. Her social identity had been shaped by her interactions (Derman Sparks and Edwards, 2010). Her expectations, reinforced by her home experiences impacted her view of what it meant to be a girl, and how she should interact with the children around her in that her dramatic centered on teen and adult themes instead developmentally appropriate games. 

Students are impacted by the world around them. It is vital, then, to reduce the impact when possible of these sexualized images. One step is to challenge the students' previously held notions about gender roles and expectations. For instance, when exploring the classroom, we can make available books, puzzles, or computer activities centered around students' experiences with quality role models. We must be aware of what messages we are sending or reinforcing with the images in our classrooms. The popular books in the media may not be the best books for our grade level or they may perpetuate the sexualized culture (Lee, 2008). In addition, conversations using a persona doll help students discuss what makes them feel uncomfortable as a boy or girl, and what is their expectation as a person without sexualization (Derman Sparks and Edwards, 2010). Also, modeling developmentally appropriate actions, and acknowledging positive interactions between students guides them toward a less sexualized environment. Finally, we must acknowledge the impacts of the home environment, and hence the need for increased family school relationships as we work to build a stable, appropriate, environment focused on student learning and healthy interactions.Through awareness and direct interactions, we cannot completely shield students from the sexualized messages, but what we can do is to teach them to think critically, to question the actions that are different at home or school, and to open their minds to positive interactions.

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

Lee, L. (2008). Understanding gender through Disney’s marriages: A study of young Korean immigrant girls. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(1), 11-18.