Packaging Girlhood

Reading the (Media) Signs: No Girls Allowed

Counting is so simple, so basic, so important. We counted the numbers of boys and girls on sugary cereal boxes, on the covers of board games, in the action section of toy aisles, in Newbury Award winning books, and we reported studies that counted the number of boys and girls in G-rated films, and other forms of media. This was our way of showing where the girls aren't, sure, but more importantly we did this because numbers give a clear and present message to girls (and boys) about who should be doing, wearing, listening to, reading, and playing with what. The results can have long-term impact. Consider a recent article in the journal Psychological Science (Vol. 18, Issue 10) called "Signaling Threat: How Situational Cues Affect Women in Math, Science, and Engineering Settings," by Mary C. Murphy, Claude M. Steele, & James J. Gross. Turns out the kind of low numbers we reported seeing in movies, TV shows, books, and so forth give "situational cues". The researchers found that simply watching a conference video in which women were outnumbered by men made the women-all math and science majors--feel like they didn't belong and feel like not participating. It also made them vigilant of possible threats to their identity. The situation they observed gave the young women that intangible "in the air" feeling that they were unwelcome and might be ostracized if they participate. Young men didn't experience the same threat. They were protected by the reality that they are almost always in the majority and expected to do well in these arenas, and so being in the minority this one time didn't phase them.

If girls see only one girl in a cartoon about geniuses or just one woman in the race for presidency - this gives them a very real and tangible message: you aren't welcome here. It also discouraged them from wanting to do the things they see primarily boys do and to be anxious, isolated, and feel out of place when they break boundaries. This is the reason to care about how media depicts girls and boys. We can no longer accept the lame excuse -- Girls will watch boys, but boys will not watch girls - used to justify the 75% male character rate in G-rated films. Yeah, maybe they will watch. But at what cost to them?

Increases in Suicide Rates among Teen Girls

A recent study by the CDC reports a huge rise in girls' suicide rates. Buried in the AP Press article is the statistic that still 3/4 of suicides are committed by boys. This seems to be the way the media works, packaging any new data about girls and boys as a battle of the sexes. It's really really important to understand this rise in girls' suicides amidst the purported flourishing of girls, but we can see the set-up already. Boy advocates will be saying -- don't forget the boys, and girl advocates will be saying, time to refocus again on the girls. We don't think either girls or boys are doing so well these days. The culture of violence vs. slacking that boys live in can translate in extreme circumstances to homicide vs. suicide. The pre-packaged sexy, diva media image vs. the idealized perfect student pressures can leave girls feeling empty and unseen, searching for escape. Of course we can't forget that boys too are committing suicide in scary numbers, but these new stats tell us we need to figure out why this is increasingly true for girls. First stop: media images and a huge marketing industry selling girls on the impossible.

Miss South Carolina

Multiple reactions abound to the youtube video showing Miss South Carolina, contestant for the Miss Teen USA pageant, fumbling over an answer to the question she received in the pageant's nod to intelligence. Some saw a scared teenager who couldn't find her words and these people rushed to protect her, as one would one's own child. Some saw the failure of the U.S. education system. Some saw stupidity, and compared her to our fumbling president. Some just felt sorry for the poor girl and depicted her as simply dealing with a brain white-out. Why so much attention? Perhaps it speaks to a very public recognition that beauty pageants are a thing of yesteryear, losing ratings, and quite out of sync with what we really want to know about and hear from young women today. Or perhaps because her answer was so terrifically bad in that recognizable way that makes for countless beauty pageant jokes and spoofs, that we recognized it wasn't the girl but the packaging of the girl that fell apart. In that moment the pretty blonde hair, the over-made up face, the gown, the "poise", the figure, became part of the joke. (It's odd that those who defend her intelligence point to a cogent interview she gave the next day after her packagers had, of course, helped her with the answer to the question! Odd only because these folks seem to forget that there is a behind-the-scenes packaging element to these pageants, the after-pageant interviews, and, well, to TV in general.) For those who saw a morality tale of what emerges when girls spend too much time practicing walking in high heels and choosing the right push-up bra for the gown, they have some support: A swimsuit study that randomly assigned college students to a group: half of the women got into a swimsuit in a dressing room, and half got into a sweater. Same for the men. Then they gave them a bunch of surveys to fill out and a math test hidden within. Turns out that the women in the swimsuit group did worse on the math test than any of the other groups. The authors concluded that chronic attention to physical appearance leaves fewer cognitive resources available for other endeavors. And fewer cognitive resources is a good explanation for South Carolina's speech. What else is a beauty competition about but chronic and excessive concentration on physical appearance. Even the talent competition revolves around beauty, so much so that we hear tell girls take up the xylophone or marimba at an early age because it's such a good pageant instrument! Why? Does it give a girl more room to flounce around than a tuba? Speaking of talent, there was another kind of pageant this summer, called "So You Think You Can Dance", an American Idol of the dance world, featuring teens and young adults whose bravado "yes they do think they can dance" paid off. They were amazingly talented. Sure they were packaged for the viewing public--lots of "hot" moves and racy outfits adorning a diverse group who, off the dance floor, were polished up to look wholesome and earnest, the purported "arrogance" knocked out of some. But the talent was there. And those kids looked absolutely beautiful dancing. Will beauty pageants survive? Probably not for very long with so many better reality show competitions on TV -- except for the pure campiness of it, a chance for us all to critique, laugh at, reflect on, and deride the spectacle, and sometimes, the witting or unwitty participant.

BRATZ Movie --

We wrote this before the movie came out -- tried to get it published as an Op Ed but no luck.

Bratz Dollz. Bratz Bralettes. Bratz Cartoons, Bratz Computers? Those “hot to trot” babes sure do have it all. Now, they are finally movie stars (even though they’ve been living the movie star life for years). When BRATZ: THE MOVIE comes to your local theater, you might be hard pressed to recognize “the girlz” since the profiteers have cleaned them up a bit with a makeover, yet still their PG rating loosely warns “some material may not be suitable for children.” The real life actors playing our least favorite dollz won’t be outfitted in anything remotely dominatrix or soft porn “esque” because let’s face it: if cute little dolls look sleazy in those outfits, real girls wearing them would look, well, obscene (and the producers would have to kiss the PG rating—and all the allowance money that comes with it--goodbye).

No matter how they clean up the movie girlz to mimic every other perky wanna be a teen girl flick, it’s important for parents to see the sexualization that defines the overall Bratz package. Yes, like all teen girls, the Bratz--Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos), Jade (Janel Parrish), Sasha (Logan Browning) and Cloe (Skyler Shaye)---are proud to be"BFFs" - Best Friends Forever, but unlike real girls who play sports, love math and want to be scientists, writers and explorers when they grow up, the Bratz only solidify the same old stereotypes. We haven’t seen the movie yet, so we can’t predict where the specific product placements will show up (we’re willing to guarantee this movie will be one long commercial for various “must have” products), but we are certain the script will include the following:

• A popular mean girl who gets what’s coming to her at the end of the movie (the mean girl usually comes with her own posse of dimmer but just as mean followers)
• A crazy fun makeover and/or shopping spree scene set to music by a teen pop star
• A “once in a lifetime” chance to model, perform in front of a band, or get dressed up for a special dance or concert.
• An embarrassing moment (which aims to make a Brat more likeable and relatable to her audience). This moment will probably occur in front of a cute boy.
• A “cool” boy who helps the girlz understand that they should just be themselves. On the way to learning the value of friendship, at least one of the girlz will “get” this “cool” boy in the end.
• Frustrating use of the word “power” It will be used to reference how a Bratz feels powerful shopping, choosing a special look, getting a make-over, or picking friends over a mean girl.

We’ve done our research and let’s face it, when it comes to the portrayal of girls in popular culture there is an abysmal lack of imagination. The “special” talents of movie teens won’t include engineering, drumming, or skateboarding. They’ll all be sexy pretty with perfect bodies and yet at least one of them will make an insecure comment about how she looks. They will look “hot”—PG Hot that is—not as hot as the little dollz.

Bratz have been on the “What were they thinking?” radar screen for some time, and for good reason. Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker described them as “little hotties”; London’s Daily Mail called them “a clique of sultry-eyed trollopes”; and bloggers all over the net refer to them as mini “hookers” and “prostitutes.” It’s not just the fly-girl fashion that is troubling to their critics, it is the lifestyle scenarios they come with--hot tubs, party planes, “juice” bars, and boyz. All of these suggest imaginative scenarios to little girls that they can reenact as they play with their little hotties.

Isaac Larian, CEO of M.G.A., (or as he’s been renamed by bloggers, the “pimp” to the Bratz ho’s), may have a point when he complains, about the less than positive media attention focused on his dollz. After all, there are countless other poor models of teen girlhood jiggling about. Just flick on the TV and check out any recent music video. The message to young girls? Clearly, shaking your bootie and moving “those humps, those humps, those lovely lady humps,” is the best way to get power. And in Larian’s defense, the Bratz are the first truly popular group of multicultural dolls for girls? They shook Barbie out of her pink suburban reverie and gave real cache to urban chic.

So really, why pick on the “passion for fashion” girlz? Maybe because the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls found that the Bratz are the best example of the way a marketers have taken a product and targeted the very youngest girls to exploit their desire to be like the big girls they see in pop culture--hanging out with boyz, shopping for fashion, and partying all night long. While some unwitting friend of the family might buy a four-year-old a t-shirt that says “Little Flirt” or a underpants that say “eye candy,” literally millions of girls, moms, and relatives are buying the Bratz dolls for this age group.

Girls are bombarded every day with invitations to self-sexualize, self-objectify, turn themselves into cute, sexy, hot, shopping divas, and to do so by their own choice, because that’s what makes them feel empowered. Is the Bratz movie one such invitation? We’ll see, but in a post-Paris world, parents ought to be worrying a teensy bit that playing with Bratz, might just lead to becoming one of them.

(Let us know if our predictions are right. We can't bring ourselves to go watch this movie!)

"New?" Math for Girls

Just caught the NEWSWEEK article on Danica McKellar, the actress who played Winnie on "The Wonder Years". I always loved that character. She was an especially thoughtful and real girl and I knew that she had gone on for an advanced degree in math rather than partying, drinking, flashing pantiless, burning out, going to rehab, etc. --you know, the way of most teen stars? I guess she has a new book out and I haven't seen it but I'm applauding it already, even if, as the Newsweek article writes,

"Still, is it necessary to teach a girl about ratios, for instance, by asking her to figure out how much lip gloss she owns compared with her sister?"

UGH. But perhaps this is simply one of those marketing strategies we seem to be endlessly writing about -- even the really good stuff for girls has to be packaged to appeal to a stereotype of girls in order to even get out the door and onto the market.

"McKellar acknowledges that her "Pretty in Pink" approach might not work for everyone." But I'm willing to give it a chance... I mean even if it's pink and full of slumber party mentality and "girl talk", it's still math, and we know that being good at math leads to a host of other good things for girls.

No Time For Women

Anyone harping on a boy crisis has to explain how a 72 page national news magazine can justify an issue with just two articles on women: one about a “bootilicious” Serena Williams (do we have to sexualize every major female athlete?), the other a generic article about “fashion brides” and “matrimonial bliss”. Apparently there’s only room for two archetypes: the sexy girl and the pure innocent bride. Of course the woman modeling the wedding dress is white. Maybe we can address the subtle racism here while we’re at it. This anemic representation of women is set against a sea of feature articles on men---Al Gore’s decision to run, Michael Moore’s new movie, an interview with Don Cheadle, commentary on Giuliani and Romney, an arts feature on actor Seth Rogen, an article on gay life in Texas (nary a lesbian in sight), etc., etc., etc. Female faces show up in ads and there are photos of women spotlighted here and there—Al Gore’s wife and daughters in supporting roles and a very brief comment about Jennifer Lopez “under fire for fur”, but none merit serious or sustained attention. In our world there are women politicians, actors, comedians, authors, athletes, office workers, explorers, visionaries. You’d never know it from reading Time.

Sexualize This!

Don’t you just love the way people like Isaac Larian (his company makes Bratz dolls) call those concerned about the sexual objecification of girls “twisted” and dirty minded? He’s just a tad defensive these days in the face of a compelling American Psychological Association Report on the sexualization of girls that implicates products like his. His response? "Kids are very smart and know right from wrong," he tells the Washington Post, referring I suppose to the 5 year olds he markets to; you know the ones who can’t yet tell fantasy from reality, much less grasp the persuasive intent of advertising. All those Bratz party planes with juice bars, hot tubs, and “hot to trot” accessories are, according to Larian, “beautiful and inspirational.” Who’s twisted? You tell us.

Funny how those making a ton of money at the expense of girls’ health and well-being feel they can lecture an impressive collection of APA research psychologists (Sharon, being one of them), who spent two years examining the effects of sexualization on girls and women. They found that sexualization affects girls' cognitive functioning, their physical and mental health, their healthy sexual development, and their attitudes and beliefs about what it means to be in healthy relationships.

As Sharon says in the WA Post article, it’s not sexuality that’s the problem, it’s “the way marketers and media present sexuality… Being a sexual person isn't about being a pole dancer," she chides. "This is a sort of sex education girls are getting, and it's a misleading one."

Check out the full Washington Post article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602263.html .

And we highly recommend you read the APA Task Force report. Find it online at www.apa.org

Every Girl or Any Girl

Dakota Fanning is in the news a lot these days. As a talented young actress who looks like a real girl and not a Bratz doll getting ready for a night of clubbing, we should be celebrating Hollywood's use of her in movie after movie. But when grown-ups start taking extra long looks and a special interest in a twelve-year-old girl, we get a little nervous.

Dakota is in the news lately because she’s featured in the role of a rape victim in the forthcoming movie, Hounddog, and because little girl clothing has given way to very adult fashion. The last time a twelve-year-old girl got so much attention of this kind was when Brooke Shields starred as a child prostitute in the 1978 movie Pretty Baby. The ensuing public outcry focused on child pornography and whether a mother should be allowed to give permission for her child to act such a sexualized part. Brooke went on to pose provocatively in “nothing comes between me and my Calvins” jean ads and so begins a history of designers with designs on little girls.

Even with such precedent, we have reason to wonder why the child star of Charlotte’s Web is chosen to do a brutal rape scene or to model Marc Jacobs' new fashion line in the February issue of Vogue. It's been reported that Jacobs had to make especially small versions of his outfits to fit her. Is it because adult female models can't be anorexic enough to show off his clothes as only a preteen body can? Or is there something especially appealing about a little girl in makeup and grown up clothes—the flip side of grown up women in baby doll dresses, sucking on lollipops and twirling their hair?

Oddly enough, it’s Fanning who is asked to defend her twelve-year-old self as a serious actress with the maturity to accept the role in Hounddog. And it’s Fanning who’s asked to defend her mother for letting her play such a part. Lucky for the film industry, there’s a long history of mother blaming. This makes it so much easier to condemn Fanning's mom instead of directors and producers, just as we condemned Jon Benet Ramsay's mother instead of the Beauty Pageant Industry, just as we condemn all mothers instead of the department stores selling wink wink thongs and padded bras for eight-year-olds. But who’s the real stage mother behind this latest Lolita? Who’s pushing her up to the mike and telling her to "smile pretty" or rather "smile maturely"? We suspect it’s not just her mom, but directors, producers, designers, and financial backers waiting nervously in the wings.

On the eve of the release of an eye-opening American Psychological Association Task Force Report on the Sexualization of Girls (February 19, www.apa.org), we all should ask ourselves why. Why do they need to have a 12 year old play this scene? Who benefits and who loses? Did anyone consider how this would play out in the media? Did anyone see a connection between the media hype and a climate that supports a rising porn industry focused on ever younger (“barely legal”) girls? Did anyone consider how this might affect all those tweens crazy about Dakota, dreaming of being her and living her charmed life?

Princeton philosopher Martha Nussbaum writes on "objectification" that it's important to distinguish between the objectification or dehumanizing of one character by another, say in a play or movie, from the objectification of a real person, say by the media. A 12-year-old character gets raped in a movie by another character. That's one thing. And we've seen plenty of horrifying rapes in cinema in the context of stories designed to move and educate audiences, as in The Color Purple, Boys Don't Cry, or The Accused. But in this Britney-Lindsay-Paris world where divas and movie stars become indistinguishable from their characters and the persona they create for public viewing, we can't help but feel shock and awe when little Dakota Fanning is raped on screen and used in real life as an object by the filmmakers to both horrify and titillate.

So, yes, the question is why. Why all the designs on Dakota? She is a muse, we suppose – part wide-eyed-innocent little girl, part creepy (of horror film fame); part woman (in designer clothes), and part sex object to be used and thrown away, as in a rape scene. As a muse, she is every girl...but not like any girl we know. Why does this bother us? Maybe because as every girl, we can too easily imagine the worst of these things happening to any girl.

The BritPack on the Cover of Newsweek

Just as I was bemoaning the fact that NEWSWEEK did not turn to Packaging Girlhood for advice for their Girls Gone Wild feature article, it struck me that Paris, Britney,a nd Lindsey must be thrilled to be covered in Newsweek. Hey, they are now REAL news, and not just fodder for People Magazine. But is this real news or just another way we all glamourize girl pain and girl antics, giving short shrift to real girls and their lives. Lyn and I have an op ed on this very topic that we're trying to get out there, and it may end up here, but until then, a few comments:

Raina Kelley and Kathleen Deveney (the authors of the article) do just want marketers and the media want them to do which is blame the parents, blame the girls.  Parents can feel oh so superior to "other parents" who buy their daughters Bratz lunchboxes and allow them to watch MTV, until they wake up and discover that these messages about teens gone wild are everywhere and a just say no approach won't work.  If our solution is to police little girls, take away any healthy sex education they might get in the schools, and make moms feel guiltier and guiltier, we just leave more room for marketers and the media to surround and bombard girls with images of pop star diva teens who either get attention when they are crazy wild sexy like boys, or when they get depressed and alcoholic and go downhill.  We call that "the glamour of being Ophelia."  There's a solution, but it means joining together with other parents and working with grass roots organizations like Hardy Girls Healthy Women, Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, ACME, etc. to make these advertisers and media more responsible,  not Paris, not Lindsey, and not the mom next door. 

The Wonder of Success

Click on this little red rectangle to see the full ad:

If this ad for Wonderbra is supposed to be funny or clever, it does so on the backs of those relatively few women CEOs who struggled their way up the corporate ladder with smarts and business savvy. It suggests that the new Power Woman doesn't play by the old-fashioned (stodgy?) rules of her older sisters. She makes it to the top not by reading the Economist or honing her business acumen, but by looking the full-busted part in the right bra. Beyond the insulting anti-intellectual message, this ad is another lame marketing attempt to redefine real power for women as an IMAGE of power through sex appeal.

Thanks to adrants.com for this tidbit.