Hypersexualization must be challenged. »
IMost disturbing is the increasing pressure on young girls to adopt the attributes of adult sexuality before they can even begin to understand the consequences — to be sexy too soon.
n Canada, we’ve come a long way since the United Nations proclaimed gender equality as a fundamental human right in 1945. We’ve achieved a measure of legal equality that is not shared by most of the women in most of the countries around the world. But socially and culturally, we still have a long way to go.
One area of increasing concern for the YWCA is the hyper- sexualization of women and girls in contemporary media and sport.
There is evidence that women are three times more likely than men to be portrayed as sexually provocative in advertising and are frequently featured as decorative objects rather than as active users or consumers of products. We see this in the media coverage of female athletes — which often focuses more on sexual attractiveness than on athletic skill — while male athletes are rarely depicted as sex objects.
Adequate funding for women’s sport continues to be a challenge and we’ve recently seen the suspension of the Women’s Professional Soccer League. At the same time, the Lingerie Football League has emerged across Canada — a sport where female athletes play full contact football in bras and panties and minimal safety gear, with the explicit expectation of “accidental” nudity as part of the terms of their involvement.
While this is a particularly egregious example, it is certainly not isolated. The examples are so ubiquitous in our environment that we’ve become inured and desensitized. We don’t even notice them — let alone question and challenge them.
It is well- accepted that such sexualization can contribute to low selfesteem, body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, depression and other health concerns and can impair the ability of both women and men to establish healthy relationships.
What is less well understood is the link to societal tolerance of sexual violence and exploitation of girls and women.
Most disturbing is the increasing pressure on young girls to adopt the attributes of adult sexuality before they can even begin to understand the consequences — to be sexy too soon.
The evidence surrounds us in numerous examples of adult sexuality imposed inappropriately on very young girls.
We see this in the availability of sexy clothing in child and teen sizes, in televised beauty pageants for fiveyearolds, and in teen magazines that emphasize physical fitness as a means of enhancing sexual desirability rather than health.
Conversely, the lingerie store image of an adult woman provocatively posed in “little girl” clothing blurs the lines between childhood and adulthood and normalizes the idea that it’s acceptable to use children for sex.
Exposure to narrow ideals of female sexual attractiveness can make it difficult for some men to find an “acceptable” partner or to fully enjoy intimacy that is based in mutual respect and equality.
Surely the emergence of practices like “sexting” and the increasing numbers of young boys who are regular consumers of hard- core Internet porn are precursors.
The idea that girls are socialized to find their primary value in their beauty and sexual attractiveness is not new.
What is new is the unprecedented volume of such messages in media, advertising and video gaming and the power of social media to normalize porn culture.
Today, on International Women’s Day, it is fitting that we commit to reversing this trend and equipping young people with the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate the blurring of porn culture and pop culture.
The YWCA is committed to bringing profile to this issue through our mainstream and social media activities as well as our youth education and parent engagement programs. You can help us by exploring these issues with your families and friends, by thinking critically about the images and messages we all consume, and by speaking up and speaking out when you encounter examples that are questionable or disturbing.
We encourage you to view two excellent new films that explore this topic from a variety of perspectives:
• Sext up Kids by highly respected filmmaker Maureen Palmer highlights the powder keg of porn culture that has exploded in the lives of North American children.
• Miss Representation is an awardwining documentary that explores the under- representation of women in media and the emphasis on youth and sexuality as the measure of girls’ and women’s value.
Sexuality is healthy — but sexualization is not. Let’s work together to help Canadian children understand the difference.