On liberal media analysis of “The Sexualization of Young Girls”
Video from Sociological Images.
We have seen before that liberal media analysis consistently falls short of making meaningful political connections, or naming and explaining the foundations and mechanisms of male power. The point of liberal and even liberal feminist media criticism seems to be to merely point out various “inequalities” or perceived positional slights and to conclude that these inequalities are undesirable on their face — for example, pointing out that young girls are sexualized more than are young boys suggests that the statistical difference is significant without explaining why that is so, or how or even whether it is of political relevance to women and feminists.
What we have here is interesting, because the video itself does not even claim to be an examination of the sexualization of young girls in the media — the title of the project is “Media Sexualization of Children.” The only — and I do mean only — political analysis we get is the fact of Lisa Wade’s embedding of the video on Sociological Images, in a post called “On the Sexualization of Young Girls“. The fact that Lisa Wade thought it was relevant (somehow) to Sociology — and to specifically girls — is the extent of the political analysis of what is in reality an 11-minute video compiling and describing lots and lots of data. It’s interesting — and simultaneously very, very boring — because this is commonly what passes for media criticism in the liberal media, and it can be difficult to recognize it for what it is when we see it. The “analysis” and “interpretation” of the data start and end with graphing it, and noting correlations, and yet there exists a bizarre and unreasonable tendency to “read” this material as being meaningful political commentary, when it’s not.
In reality, the effect of these liberal media projects is thought-termination — we think we’ve done the work, but we haven’t — and the patriarchal intent and effect of both the patriarchal media and the policies and practices that produce sex-based statistical difference remain unexamined and obscured. In the case of the obvious sexualization of young girls in media images, the patriarchal intent and effect is of particular relevance to feminists because the pornification of girl children — and the infantilization of adult women — clearly and demonstrably support male power.
Within the video is a substantial compilation of evidence that young girls are indeed “sexualized” in popular culture — where “sexualized” is conflated with heterosexualized and pornified. This conflation instantly and totally shuts down any possibility of an examination of PIV and penis-centered sex, including the political significance of subjecting very young girls to male-centric sexualization.
Indeed, the vidder fails to differentiate at all between the sexualization of girl children and the “degrading sexual lyrics” and “objectifying images of women” generally (at 5:10). This is a mistake, because the age of the female-bodied person is relevant — the pornification of girl children serves a specific patriarchal purpose, because it evokes and then normalizes and invisibilizes the patriarchal policy and practice of boys and men raping very young girls. The true correlate of “sexualizing” girl children is not the sexualization of adult women, but rather, should be analyzed as correlating to the infantilization of adult women, because both presentations are evocative of the rape of very young girls by boys and men. There is nothing “sexual” about it at all, rather, the rape of girl-children serves a specific patriarchal purpose that demonstrably supports male power at women’s expense:
In real life, and as mirrored in media images, very young girls are sexualized and mature women are made to resemble sexualized girls. No girl is too young to be penetrated by men; older women who are both sexually experienced and of full mental and legal capacity to consent to intercourse are relatively unappealing, and can be made more appealing if their apparent life-experience and capacity to consent are removed by making them look like children. Both presentations are evocative of the rape of female children by boys and men.
Why? Because…
Pornifying girl children/infantilizing adult women — and raping very young girls — supports male power. Raping girl children is a powerful grooming technique, whereby men condition young, inexperienced girls to accept penis-centered sex and penetration under all circumstances and regardless of context, and to expect physical pain from it, before they are old or experienced enough to know what is “sexual” (ie. sexually pleasurable) for them. And raped girl-children are known to grow up to be “promiscuous” adults, often running away from home only to be recruited into human trafficking and rape-slavery, and often working in prostitution and porn. A permanent class of previously abused women for whom sexual abuse and pain, including painful intercourse, has been normalized and is expected, benefits men, who can “purchase” economically coerced women on whom to practice abusive sex, and who benefit from women’s “promiscuous” unpaid male-centric sexuality. See also Normalize porn/prostitution; Normalize abuse/neglect; Fetishize female vulnerability; PIV-centric narrative; Rape and rape culture.
The vidder then states unequivocally that “the problem is that children (sic) are not as equipped to differentiate between fantasy and reality as adults, since they have far less life experience. In fact, young children (sic) tend to believe that television provides an accurate picture of the real world.” (at 7:23). Really? That is the problem with the sexualization of young girls in the media — it causes both boys and girls to think that females of all ages are “sexualized” in the media and in real life? Why, because that’s clearly false? I don’t think so.
A radical feminist analysis would reveal that the problem of sexualizing very young girls in the media is that it is a critical and effective “gear” of the patriarchal propaganda machine — that the sheer pervasiveness of these images normalizes and invisiblizes the patriarchal policy and practice of raping very young girls in real life, and that this is intentional.
Then, we are given some academic speak about “Cultivation Theory” which postulates that “people who spend more time living in the world of television are more likely to see the real world in terms of the images, values, portrayals and opinions that emerge through the lens of television. In other words, you are bombarded by the same image or viewpoint so much that you begin to believe it’s true. For example, after watching a lot of action movies, you might think that gun violence is cool, even if you are morally opposed to it in real life.” (at 7:46) She goes on to say that “although many people might scoff at the idea that TV brainwashes us, there are plenty of scientific studies to prove that it affects our thoughts and behavior. A study was done to assess the influence of exposure to sexual content in TV, movies, music and magazines popular with kids (sic) ages 12-14. They found that the kids (sic) who consumed the greatest amount of sexual media content in early adolescence were more than twice as likely than kids (sic) with less sexual media exposure to initiate sex by the time they were 16.” (at 8:16)
The video does seem to hint at “underage sex” being “normalized” and we are invited to take that to mean that girls and boys both think it’s “normal” to have intercourse with each other, so they do it — but that’s not a political analysis of the data. It’s just the data, calculated — the verbal depiction of what the raw data looks like when it’s added up and graphed. In this case, the data-analysis reveals that there is a positive correlation between 12-14 year olds’ consumption of sexual content and early initiation of intercourse.
But so what? Unless we are prepared to make a value judgement at this point, the correlation is meaningless — it is literally without meaning or political meaning, and is value-neutral. It just sits there, illustrating the world of difference between political analysis and correlating the graphic representation of data.
And then, of course, we are confronted with this: “Still not convinced that TV has a big effect on us? Neither did anthropologist Ann Becker. To try and prove it, she did a study in Fiji, a place completely cut off from television. Eating disorders were unknown there in 1995, and being on the heavy side was considered attractive. In the experiment, Fijians watched a few hours of television per week. After less than three years, eating disorders were rampant. By 1998, 11% of Fijian women were using self-induced vomiting, 29% were at risk for an eating disorder, 69% were dieting to lose weight, and 74% felt too fat. A few years of limited TV exposure changed and entire culture’s thought patterns, behavior, and perceptions of beauty.” (at 8:45)*
A radical feminist observer would recognize that handmaiden of the patriarchy Ann Becker apparently destroyed the bodies, minds and sexualities of Fijian women, in order to make a point.
From this, we might also conclude, based on what could arguably be considered tainted, unethically-obtained data based on human experiments involving politicized torture, that even limited, minimal exposure to patriarchal media, in this case, television, has the demonstrated effect of destroying specifically girls and women — it is not reported whether there were any negative effects on Fijian men — and that this is known and documented. The fact that patriarchal media continues on in spite of that, demonstrates intent — destroying women is the point.
If destroying females wasn’t the intended outcome, whomever is in charge of these things would stop doing it.
So what conclusions are ultimately drawn from this data, if any, in this liberal media critique? In the end, the vidder states with conviction that the “effects of sexualization” are as follows: poor body image; low self-esteem and depression; eating disorders; impaired concentration; risky sexual behavior; and unsatisfying relationships. (at 9:32)
Nothing about male power, patriarchy, or the patriarchal intent and effect of voluminous, pervasive media images used as a deliberate political tool to undermine women and support male power at women’s expense. Clearly, when it comes to political analysis of the patriarchal media, while liberal and liberal feminist sources might be useful in providing the data, radical feminists must perform the meaningful analysis ourselves.
*ETA: See the comments for further discussion of — and a link to — the Fiji study. The plot thickens. –Eds. 6/16/12
21 responses to “On liberal media analysis of “The Sexualization of Young Girls””
Radfem-ological Images 
Excellent break-down, as usual. Thank you.
Blimey. I’m gobsmacked that someone thought that the whole point of Fijian women, was to be hamsters in an experiment, to prove something that we all know anyway so it doesn’t matter that we can prove it because as you rightly point out, if it mattered, they would stop it.
That really is shocking.
For the rest, thanks for this, it’s a really interesting analysis.
Curious that an analysis of race wasnt included as well. I noticed that many of thr images in the video were if white children, which is evidence of the white supremacy of patriarchy. It would also be benegicial to point out the problematic wayd in which childrrn of color are portrayed as these highlight important nuances in thr sexualization tactics. Great analysis otherwise. Thanks for the work!
Reblogged this on A Female Dinosaur and commented:
After watching the video, which is a standard “sexualization of girls is bad” video complete with examples of Miley Cyrus’s dancing and Bratz dolls in lingerie, read the thorough analysis below it. It breaks down why videos like this don’t address the real problems of normalization of male-centric sexuality, which makes the problem of patriarchy invisible to those living under it..
what an odd thing to say, as it leads to this conclusion: sexualization of white girls in the media is beneficial to them, and is an aspect of their white privilege. it also leads to this: if nonwhite girls were more frequently sexualized in the media, like white girls are, it would promote race equality between white and nonwhite females.
if anything, i think its obvious that white females do not benefit from their whiteness in the standard ways, ie. in the same ways white men benefit from their own whiteness. sexual objectification is not an aspect of privilege, ever, for the female who is being objectified.
As to the objectification of minority women, I think that was made clear in the use of Fijian women as lab rats. Why would more words be needed to indicate their subhuman status?
Of course, under patriarchy, all women are subhuman. Being white doesn’t erase that reality.
But the point of the essay, to me, was that women are not receiving the depth of analysis they deserve in this video or other forms of media that are not rad fem. Why isn’t patriarchy being openly discussed in all media since it is the underlying social system that harms all women? There is no shyness in discussing the underlying structures of politics and economics, so one has to wonder why the patriarchal social structure receives no comments in popular media at all?
The obvious answer is because men still control the media and they will not allow feminist analysis have any depth. But with the Internet, more of the media is controlled by women, and they aren’t doing it either.
also, this:
it is also “curious” that there is no response in mary porter’s comment to anything that was actually said in the post, including the analysis of the experimentation on fijian women. nor is the comment responsive at all to the part in the video that addressed this disgusting experiment which apparently produced no significant effects on fijian men. based on the description of the experiment by the vidder, who says that “fijians” (all of them, or at least a representative sample including both women and men) were subjected to the experiment it seems as if the both the predicted and actual outcomes were that the fijian women, not the men, would be destroyed by this media exposure. the effects of this racist (classist, nationalist, colonialist, etc etc etc) policy — to experiment on fijians — were only, or mostly, or at least uniquely experienced by fijian women, not the men. this is significant.
it is classic liberal policy to focus in on statistical difference, without specifically and deliberately addressing the effects on women, or the political context of patriarchy. this is misogynistic, and pro-patriarchal by design. mary porters comment addresses statistical difference only, (in this case the quantity, or perhaps even quality of white experience versus nonwhite experience, without more) and therefore evinces a liberal, not a radical perspective. and furthermore, no illumination came of it. this is very “curious” as the post also addresses how thought-terminating liberal discourse is, and we see that clearly wherever we see it, including where liberalism encroaches upon radical space. it changes it, and not towards illumination, but away from it.
advancing liberal arguments or perspectives is not radical feminists intent or responsibility, and radical feminists’ true intent (and responsibility) is clearly articulated in this post and others. see here for more:
The people who “experimented” on the Fijian predicted they would destroy the women’s healthy self-image, they then went ahead and destroyed those women. More than that, they destroyed the Fijian culture that produced their healthy self-image. That arrogant narcissism infects their video too. Women as lab rats is apparently just fine with them because it enhances their own self-importance.
This is a continuation of how science and medicine has treated all women since inception. How much longer will women have to endure lab rats status because their media will not address that reality?
yes loretta, what radical feminists accept, and what others do not (yet) is that this “experimentation” and quest for knowledge or scientific knowledge has a lot to do with narcissism and other things, but also with the desire of the “scientists” — even “legitimate” ones — to commit abuse and torture. that is their goal, and it is in fact what they achieve. even if the value of the “data” is significant and leads to positive advancement or change (and in the case of the fijian experiment IT WASNT significant at all, but just proved something we already knew, and werent prepared to act on anyway, as H&H said above) there are serious problems with using unethically-obtained data. the data collected by nazi doctors for example is notoriously tainted because it was collected unethically, and in the context of politicized abuse and torture. there are parallels to be made between that and the fiji experiment — parallels, they are not identical. we are prepared to say in some cases that it is not legitimate science at all, it is in fact deliberate, sadistic and politcally-motivated torture and abuse. in *some* cases, but not all. what are the differences between the ones that are and those that arent considered torture? what are the similarities?
then of course after we examine obviously and arguably “unethical” data collection, we *also* have to realize that even where there are not recognized ethical problems, there are unrecognized ones, like how and why is it ethical to cause harm or to place others in harms way, and particularly when “experimenting” on women, ever? we have to realize and accept that there are people who enjoy the harmfulness and torture aspect of it — or the results the torture produces, like trauma and trauma-bonding for example, and that they do it for that reason. if they didnt want that outcome, they wouldnt do it, or keep doing it. this is “intent” as described by mary daly in quintessence.
http://factcheckme.wordpress.com/tag/mary-daly/
i am now motivated to learn something about the fiji experiment. i will look further into it shortly. if others know anything about it, please share.
heres the paper
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/180/6/509.full
from the paper:
ok, from what i can ascertain, the experimenters are not the ones who initiated the exposure, but rather they swooped in “within three weeks” of the “naturally-occurring” introduction of tv to the area, got a group of school girls (not boys) to agree to be observed, asked them some baseline questions, and then asked them the same questions 3 years later.
so this would be similar (i guess?) to taking a group of people who you knew were being subjected to politicized torture, and although you were not the one torturing them, observing the effects of the torture over a period of time? and the liberals who are using this data not only have no problem with that at all, but are even prone to misinterpreting it (as rather incorrectly summarized in the video) to seem even worse than it actually was, and they saw no ethical problems with that version, either?
wow. still thinking about what this means.
ok im done thinking. also, to correct what i said above, there were 2 separate groups that were tested, one pre- and one post exposure. each is meant to be representative of the girls in the entire region for each point in time (and the researchers note that this is an assumption they made, which is probably accurate IMO).
so, the picture gets even more interesting once youve read the paper. WRT to the vidder’s interpretation and use of the study, she probably managed to get the data right WRT the fact of the change on the fijian women and the percentages of the change (i didnt check) but thats literally all that can be gleaned from her narration and description of the study. the way she described it was misleading or ambiguous as to the method and ethical considerations etc, but that would be exactly what you would expect if she was not concerned with what happened or how (or why) but only with the “result.” intersestingly, this supports the conclusion of this post, which is that liberal and liberal feminist sourcces can *only* be relied on to provide data, and thats it. we have to do literally all the meaningful political analysis ourselves. obviously its good to have a jumping off point for that, and i am glad we have somewhere to go to get the data. its the tendency to think that this is meaningful political or even feminist analysis thats stunning, because its clearly not.
the fact that this vidder thought THE DATA was the most interesting part of the fiji study is very revealing of liberal intent and priorities generally, i think. the fiji experiment itself, and that fact that harvard medical school funded it, is not irrelevant, and is at least as if not more telling than the data, if the point is to observe, name and critique patriarchy, and the effects of patriarchy, on women. data, data, data and more data is very boring compared to that.
and she didnt even bother to note that it wasnt “Fijians” who were the subjects of the study. it was exclusively Fijian girls. i suspect this study was talked about in a college course, (i recall that the vidder is a college student?) and as per liberal policy, only the DATA was deemed relevant to the discussion, AND that class:female was erased, as it often is in the patriarchal academy. she was probably just repeating what she heard.
Wow, apparently attempting to participate in critical discourse using my mobile was a bad idea. I apologize for the poorly articulated (and spelled) point that I was attempting to make in a hurry.
What I was hoping to contribute was an inclusion of a critical discussion on the effects of these sexualized images (or lack of images) for People of Color. I would lean towards understanding the negative effect of a bombardment of sexualized images of primarily white women on People of Color (children and adults, men/women/trans folks) who are faced with the false reality that sexy is white rather than focus on the possibility that white women (or white people in general) somehow benefit from this.
A lack of images of Persons of Color has been shown to lead to an added sense of inadequacy that contributes to very harmful practices of things like skin whitening and dangerous hair straightening methods.
And just to add the classism that most often comes along with racism, how about the image of Selena Gomez as a sexualized MAID? It is not a coincidence that she is a person of color and the only image in the video that brings forth a working class or poor persons frame of reference. That image was not just a gendered, sexualized image. It was also a raced and classed image.
I personally think it is impossible to talk about patriarchy without talking about white supremacy. Simplifying oppression to a binary (e.g. men and women) is harmful to the people who experience it along with other forms of oppression (e.g. racism, classism, ableism, ageism, heterosexism, transphobia, etc.). It also holds us back from understanding and fighting the root causes of patriarchy. I don’t believe that patriarchy stems from some random hatred of women. It is based in systems of power supported by economic control of resources, and those systems of power have many methods of oppressing those without power.
I really do appreciate the analysis and am trying not to take the critique that my comments were made solely from a liberal perspective personally. Though somewhat harsh for someone who suffers from PTSD, they were taken to heart. My comments were not well formed. I would suggest, however, that as a community, we try to mindfully and gently challenge and encourage each other to deepen our understanding of the issues rather than put each other into categories (a form of silencing those already silenced). We are all in this comment thread because these issues affect us, and I would assume that we are all invested in fighting the causes of our oppression despite our differences in approach.
So thank you again to the person whose hard work went into this analysis and to the people participating in this thread.
Hi Mary, I’m having trouble with the form on this page. I’ve had to ask for admin help when it cut off my comments. I’m working on another project right now, so I’m going to keep this short until I have more time, hopefully tomorrow.
I too suffer from PTSD, so we have that in common. I prefer not to expand this discussion into areas that are not included in the original topic which is about sexualizing girls. When we try to discuss any topic by using it as a catchall for all the ills we can think of, it loses its focus and its impact. As a writer, I prefer to stay very focused.
I’m going to think about the rest of your comments. But I’ll leave you with one more thought: I agree with FCM in her comments that you seem to be saying white girls are somehow helped by this sexualizing of them in their tenderest years and girls of other races are missing out because they too are not being sexualized. Even though that seems to be the subtext to what you are saying, I don’t really think that is what you mean, so we may be misunderstanding one another.
So think about it and hopefully we’ll both have more time tomorrow.
lore
Mary, this post was about the sexualization of girl children in the media, and what a god-awful job the liberals do with that subject, and how and why their treatment of the subject (and all their media criticism and all their analysis in general) is inadequate. Liberal analysis on all subjects is also boring as hell, and thought terminating. Your comments — both of them — are completely nonresponsive to anything that was written in the post, or to anything that’s been written in the comments. If you have an actual relevant point, it would be nice if you would make it.
Liberal analysis of the sexualization of GIRL CHILDREN in the media, is the topic. Number one, it’s a meta analysis, so we aren’t speaking only about the images, but also the standard liberal protocols for “examining” them — which is not to. Secondly, this post is primarily about the sexualization of GIRL CHILDREN, not sexualization of PEOPLE in the media, or even of women in the media, which is another analysis entirely. I know its tempting to derail into talking about other things, but please resist the urge. Everything under the patriarchal sun is telling you to derail this discussion, or to change the subject. Please don’t. Thank you.
“A person”?! No mention whatsoever that it’s ALL GIRLS? WTF?
I highly advise you all to move abroad to a country where you don’t speak the language very well. Well I actually do speak it now, but I’ve had a sort of 7 year hiatus from all this patriarchal propaganda, and I honestly believe that *this* breathing space is how I managed to make the connections and become a radfem. I really admire those of you who reached this point while being swamped in woman-hating media being broadcasted in your native tongue!
Mary – Yes, we, as women, are often told that we have to take care of everyone else before we take care of ourselves – thus the “intersectionality” analysis is pushed in liberal circles, and we are told we MUST apply it to everything before we allow ourselves to simply point at something and say “this hurts females”. It’s safer for us to try and water down our argument by appealing to racism or any other -ism as well as saying it hurts females. So while its clearly tempting to you try to use this place to say “and these images also hurt (fill in the blank) – no. This happens every single place one tries to talk about the harms done to females by males/patriarchy. As pointed out above, you are derailing. Please don’t beg off from being called on this by virtue of having PTSD, I do too.
On Fijians and EDs – and as disgusting as that study is – sadly it isn’t as obvious to some people as you may think. repeatedly I see the argument that females are simply not affected badly by the vile, hateful images with which they are flooded. In fact, among ED circles and studies now, the prevailing opinion is that anorexia is probably inherent within the body of the sufferer, likely genetic and some sort of “chemical imbalance” treatable with medication. Anoerxic recoverers are flocking to this idea like rock stars. Not their “fault”! Not the fault of society! They don’t have to be angry or blame anything except their faulty body/brain chemistry! Never mind that outside of Western society, the disorder hardly exists.
I noticed many feminists (or at least those who call themselves such) bring racism into their discussions/analyses.
Not only derailing, but also making the analysis less general.
Because, then, the Americans talk about “blacks” or “natives” but, newflash, different countries have different minorities (e.g. Turks in Germany).
And also, not every country actually *has* significant race-based minorities (I believe Japan is pretty racially homogeneous.)
So incorporating “racism” makes such an analysis/theory simply less encompassing and less relevant.
Whereas of course sexualization of young girls is a very general cross-cultural issue.
~
Btw, I found this post very insightful. Especially the part “there is a positive correlation between 12-14 year olds’ consumption of sexual content and early initiation of intercourse. But so what? Unless we are prepared to make a value judgement at this point, the correlation is meaningless — it is literally without meaning or political meaning”.
* — Here goes a so-called trigger warning (?) for pedosexuality victims — *
They used to have serious discussions about pedophilia over here (because a politcal party advocated it) and people were simply divided like “sex at 12, why not? consent, etc.” versus “no you are not ready for sex at 12!”. But nobody tried to dissect sex in separate acts (like, intercourse, oral, etc.) and name the agent, which is male penetration. Some people are even so stupid as to say that it is so unfair that victims of female pedophiles (yes, female pedophiles do seem to exist, I’ve read confessions by anonymous women) are not being treated as seriously as victims of male pedophiles. Well, perhaps that’s because a female is highly unlikely to want to physically harm kids (and incapable of impregnating them) during “making love”?
Seriously, people don’t even dare to go to the relatively superficial point of pointing out the physical danger related to the size-of-body-organs differences when acting out penetration on kids – since that would name the agent too much.
See this abolished political party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_Neighbourly_Love,_Freedom,_and_Diversity
They were all sweet-talking, like “we want to make love to kids and be romantic with them… we love them…” just like men talk to women.
Truth of the matter is, people (the population, of which 99.99999…etc.% did not vote for them) know the double-speak. They don’t want kids (which also encompasses boys!) to endure what they know these men (also) want. But they think it’s fine for adult women to be treated that way.
Many males and funfems do seem to have a hard time with pedophilia, they get confused, it kind of shows them when you talk about them on this subject. All going on about consent, but really, kids are perfectly able to say of what they want (in terms of primal desires) and quite egoistic even in that. And they always have their parents to fall back on (unlike most grown women). But most people acutely know, consent means shit, because lots of times it will be violated if a man can, and mere physical strength + societal status/power (which kids can not have acquired yet – except by means of their parents, but that would violate them being seen as individuals) is the thing that matters here. If one wants to confront or confuse males and funfems – talk about pedophilia and it will happen instantly.
Not sure about children expressing authentic desire or falling back on their parents (?) but yes to the part about fun fem discourse around pedophilia. It’s another problem with framing the issue as one of consent, and the harm of rape being a violation of consent rather than an issue of men causing reproductive harm and targeting female genitals for torture and abuse. Listen to them waxing moronic about the alleged agency of child sex workers (what normal humans refer to as child rape victims and victims of human trafficking) at your peril. Stop listening before they advocate against infantilizing infants, is my advice.