Entries from April 2008 ↓

Because I was unable to attend the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s Sixth Annual Summit in Boston I have invited a guest poster to fill us in.

Lisa Ray, founder of Parents for Ethical Marketing and author of Corporate Babysitter has been kind enough to write this post for So Sioux Me to help us understand what sexualization of girls is costing us and what we can do about it. Thank you Lisa.

Not a day goes by that an example of the new sexualized childhood doesn’t rear its ugly head. This week, the U.K. is up in arms over a plunging, defining sexualization – when a person is sexually objectified and not seen as a whole person. The APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls identifies sexualization of girls by this criteria:

* a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; or* a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy; or

* sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

Sexualization is not about sex.

And the problem is not that children are learning about sex when they are young. Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne’s presentation, based on their upcoming book So Sexy So Soon: the New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, suggests that children are being robbed of positive, age-appropriate experiences and are instead learning to treat themselves and others as objects. Kids are exposed to – and mimicking – highly sexualized behavior long before they are able to understand and appreciate what a healthy sexual relationship means. Girls learn narrow definitions of gender and that their value is based on how well they meet a sexualized ideal.

The world of the sexualized child has reached into pornography, as we learned from Gail Danes, co-author of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. She discussed the prevalence of “teen porn” (using models who appear younger than 18) and the explosion of pornography on the internet, saying that “soft porn” has moved from adult magazines into marketing and advertising.

One of the primary messages of the Summit was that the sexualization of children is becoming a more integrated aspect of our culture. Since it’s out there more, we see it less. It’s becoming an accepted part of our lives and our kids’ lives. Parents complain about the clothing choices available for young girls, yet stores continue to sell them because parents continue to buy them.

What to do? Two solutions that were repeated by multiple presenters and attendees are:

* Ban advertising to children (age cutoffs range from eight to twelve); and

* Talk to kids about healthy sexual relationships, including a robust sexual education curriculum in schools.

The beauty of the CCFC Summit was the number of committed people attending who will continue to work against childhood sexualization. Levin and Kilbourne noted that we need to work together to “create a society that supports the healthy sexual development of children and that limits the ability of corporations to use sex to sell to them.”

Visit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Visit Corporate Babysitter

Visit Parents for Ethical Marketing

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by Tracee Sioux

Mom, what were you and Olivia’s mom talking about on the phone.

What did she say?

She said, did your mom tell you abut the neighbor?

I said, I don’t know. But that’s all.

You know the new neighbors?

Yeah.

The man was once in jail for hurting a little girl.

OH.

Remember our “don’t knows” and “kinda knows” from the Safety Rules?

Yeah.

He is a “Don’t Know.” We don’t go in his yard, we don’t go in his house, we don’t talk to him or chat with him or hang out with him. We are never alone with him and we don’t get in his car. He’s always going to be a Don’t Know.

Me and Olivia and Holly should be very careful around him. We shouldn’t ever go in his house.

That’s true. If he’s in his backyard while you are in the backyard you don’t need to talk to him. Ignore him or come in the house. And if you go play at the other girls’ houses then you have to tell me where you are and you must be back in time so I know you are safe. I want you to always remember the Safety Rules.

I have found having a common language, provided by the Stranger Safety video, to be invaluable in describing our safety rules. I highly recommend getting the video and periodically watching it with your kids.

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by Tracee Sioux

Hey Tracee, my neighbor said over the phone.

Hey, how’s it going? I asked.

What’s your address?

706 Walnut Grove.

That’s what I thought. My friend just called me and said she said there is a a sex offender living at 708 Walnut Grove.

The new neighbor next door to me? Damn it, I looked it up before we bought this house.

Well, you never know who will move in.

Do you know who he is or what he did?

No, maybe he was really young. Maybe it was his girlfriend or something.

I’ll look it up tonight and see who and when and I’ll call you tomorrow.

According to the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Registry my new next door neighbor, with whom we share a fence, is a sex offender. His was convicted of first degree sexual assault against a 9-year-old girl. He served one year in juvenile detention.

My feelings about it would be less conflicted, except he was only 13 or 14. He’s only 19 now. But the gossip on the street is that the men in his family have a history of getting arrested for domestic violence and that his step-brother “accidentally” got hung by a noose.

I can’t help feeling compassion for someone making a mistake as a child and being held accountable for it for the rest of their life. Is that fair?

At the same time, I have researched the statistics and the recidivism rate – the likelihood for repeated offenses – in sex offenders is very high. It is also true that statistically, adult perpetrators start perpetrating when they are young teens.

Our options are limited.

It’s really a matter of what kind of prison I want to make my own kids live in. I can’t control his interaction in the neighborhood or restrict his freedom of movement. In our last neighborhood – not a good one with multiple sex offenders – the children were basically prisoners, unallowed to play in their own yards without direct supervision. It was depressing and sad – I hated it.

This is depressing and sad.

Do we have to stop letting my children play outside in their own back yard to protect them from a potential sexual deviant across the chain-link fence?

If I do nothing, and hope it was a childhood mistake, and continue to let my daughter play on the street with the other kids her age, will we look like an incompetent parents if we end up on Dr. Phil because we were wrong?

Teen Violence and Sex Offender Statistics

Sex Offender Information
Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Registry Link

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I am not my roles: I am not a writer, that’s something I do. Though it is the purpose of my working life, an advocate for girls is not the essence of who I am. I am not my house, my car or my family. I am not mother, daughter, sister or wife – those are labels for relationships I play with other I AMs. I am not my income tax returns or my savings account. I am not even Tracee Sioux.

I AM – Jesus said it, Eckhart Tolle and Oprah said it last night. I echo I AM .

I get it. I get it more and more over the last few years of my own spiritual awakening. It’s a shame it’s so difficult to articulate.

Do you know who you are?

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The other day I was volunteering at Ainsley’s school for the book fair.

The music teacher came out of his classroom just to speak to me.

“Ainsley is such a leader. She always listens and follows directions. She remembers the words to songs and helps the other kids. She’s a great student and we’re so glad to have her at our school. You did a great job with her.”

Imagine the clownish grin spreading across my face.

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