The Sexualisation of Children's Fashion

I love playing dress-ups; putting on a costume and becoming someone else for a while.  As a girl, I remember finding great delight stomping round the house in Mum’s high-heels, her flowery skirts billowing up under my arms and beads trailing on the floor.  Sometimes we’d pull on her old swimsuits and sarongs and pretend to be ladies at the beach.  We were playing: we knew that those clothes weren’t little girls’ clothes.  

But the line between women’s fashion and girls fashion is blurred these days as the fashion industry has realised that young children are ripe targets for their marketing.  The ‘girls’ fashion’ industry has boomed and has resulted in girls’ fashion simply being smaller sized versions of what teenagers and women are wearing.  At face value, this doesn’t seem something we need to be concerned about.  However when this means that lacy lingerie, sexy jeans and high heels are now seen in the ‘girls’ clothes section, I feel horrified.   

Yesterday, UK clothing chain store Primark withdrew from sale its range of padded bikini tops for girls as young as seven, following widespread criticism and outrage. The $4 bikini sets have been available in candy pink with gold stars and black with white polka dots.  (Side note: Why do pre-pubescent girls need to wear bikinis anyway? In Europe I noticed most girls in similar swimming attire as boys until puberty – this made sense to me).

Primark has apologised to customers for "causing offence" and said it would donate profits to a children's charity.  The company refused to discuss the bikini's padding but an anonymous source “familiar with the product said the extra fabric was designed to preserve a girl's modesty and prevent any signs of a developing breast from showing through”.  ‘Preserve a girl’s modesty’!!!  What an oxymoron. By tying a padded bra on them? Need I say more. Even more saddening, this comment furthers the attitude that somehow girls developing bodies are somehow shameful.

A number of UK politicians have condemned Primark for stocking such a bikini and several people have referred to the bikini as the “paedo-bikini.”    But this phrase seems to be implicating girls for the behaviour of paedophiles, which in turn minimises the blame on the perpetrator.  Girls and the clothes they wear are not to blame for paedophilia: paedophiles are to blame for paedophilia.

As the American Psychological Association (2007) report on the sexualisation of girls stated, "If girls purchase - or ask their parents to purchase - products and clothes designed to make them look physically appealing and sexy, and if they style their identities after the sexy celebrities who populate their cultural landscape, they are, in effect, sexualising themselves."

Mumsnet (UK) have launched a Let Girls Be Girls campaign.  This campaign asks retailers to pledge not to sell products that prematurely sexualise children.  They have an excellent list of reasons why we all should be worried about the sexualisation of girls clothing:

• It introduces children to the world of adult sexuality, when elsewhere we are rightly encouraging them to resist the pressure to become sexually active at a young age

• It tells girls that the most important quality they need is 'sexiness' and that female sexuality is all about pleasing others

• It encourages a culture in which children are viewed as sexually available

What a worthy campaign. Perhaps we need a similar one here in New Zealand?  Both Jay Jays and Cotton On have had clothing lines withdrawn after public outcry.  Recently I saw a young girl (age 10-ish) in a white t-shirt with the play boy bunny plastered across her prepubescent chest. And I sadly noted that even 'My Little Pony' has sexy 'come hither' over-the-top eye makeup. (Please comment on examples of sexualised clothing produced for children that you are aware of).

The upside to the Primark bikini debacle is that the  media outrage has been universal. No one is suggesting that on any level are these bikinis acceptable.   Let's take this opportunity to  take a stand against the companies marketing sexualised clothing. On a personal level let's ensure that we all consciously clothe our children: they are children and they don't deserve to be sexualised.

---