Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General The Political Gender Gap:

I am just saying that in this society, mostly we are not subject to someone else's power. And to the extent that we are... that reality is mostly independent of the beauty industry and it's impact on people. Mostly you will not get a better job because you wear $500 shoes... or have plastic surgery. These are choices that people make on their own, not decisions foisted upon people by some irresistible external power.

Unfortunately, though, kids today are exposed to increasingly sexualized content at increasingly young ages. Teen idols are marketed not just to teens but to tweens and even younger children. And these idols are often valued not for their minds, ambition or character, but for their clothing, popularity and social machinations.
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Studies show that the oversexualization of girls correlates with depression and eating disorders. Some girls are consumed with jockeying for social position, altering their looks and winning popularity contests. It consumes their emotional energy and makes them feel really bad about themselves.

As parents, you are often told that it’s your job to “just say no” to all of the inappropriate content out there, and that this will solve the problem. But just saying no won’t solve the problem, and anyway, you can’t say no to everything! Instead, we simply have to deal with the popular culture in our children’s lives, often at the most unexpected times, in unforeseen ways, and whether we want to or not.
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Jennifer reported that one evening not long ago, her seven-year-old daughter Hannah began crying in the bathtub. Alarmed, Jennifer asked what was wrong. Hannah responded, “I’m fat! I’m fat! I want to be pretty like Isabelle — sexy like her! Then Judd would like me too!” Jennifer knew Isabelle, a very thin, very popular girl in Hannah’s class who wore “stylish” clothes that Jennifer thought were inappropriate for a seven-year-old.

Indeed, I worry that there has been a generational slip - that a generation of teenage girls has missed out on feminist ideas and is having to deal with an increasingly exploitative culture without the tools to look beyond the surface glitter. Few of them realise, when they jokingly call themselves “sluts” and “whores”, that they are using male words that have always reflected contempt for women. It may be cool to talk about “hos” and “bitches”, using a vocabulary lifted from rap music, but I'm not surprised to discover from Dr Ringrose's research that teenage girls still fret about being seen as “slutty” if they go “too far” sexually.
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Women's studies has gone out of fashion as a subject at universities, so let's start dealing with these questions in schools, as Dr Ringrose suggests. Young women need to know that there's nothing wrong with liking clothes, shoes and boys (or other girls), but they're also in urgent need of a language and ethics that allow them to be themselves. That's what feminism did for me, and I long to see the next generation of young women freed from incessant demands to turn themselves into the self-hating Barbie Dolls of the commercial sex industry.