Why Our Daughters Are Becoming Sexy Too Soon
American girls are increasingly being fed a steady diet of products and images that pressure them to be sexy. From clothing to cartoons, choreography to commercials, the emphasis on sexuality undercuts parents’ efforts to instill purity in their daughters.
The American Psychological Association (APA) warns that this sexualization of girls is harmful to their self-image and healthy development. “[Girls are] experiencing teen pressures at younger and younger ages. However, they are not able to deal with these issues because their cognitive development is out of sync with their social, emotional and sexual development,” the APA reported.
The proliferation of sexual images also undermines a girl’s confidence in her own body. In fact, research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems diagnosed in girls and women – eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the cultural influences bombarding our daughters.
Suggestive fashion
Have you shopped for girls’ clothing lately? Toddlers to teens are inundated with adult fashions. Pop singer Beyonce now has her own clothing line that introduces the red-light district to the school lunchroom.
Popular clothing items among teens include thong underwear and shorts displaying suggestive words across the backside. The abundance of racy clothing emphasizes the message: Dress sexy.
Tarted-up toys
As young girls, most moms probably owned Barbie dolls and enjoyed collecting their clothing and accessories. Mattel today takes style to a new level with the introduction of Black Canary Barbie for adult collectors. Designed as a comic-book character, this doll is dressed in fishnet hose, a leather bikini bottom and a black leather jacket. She’s available in toy stores, right next to Ballerina Barbie. Explain that to your preschooler.
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Here’s the funny part, you say our daughter’s, i don’t see this in my daughter. She likes animal planet and chowder and she can read. I have directed my daughter towards these things. Only time your daughter will go “sexy” at those young ages is when an adult directs them. I walked into citi trends in a couple of cities and they have the cut off jeans and apple bottom pants for toddlers. The people that I see buy these are “chicken heads” who want to project themselves onto their children. I as a father, would be dead and gone before i let anyone dress my daughter in such a manner, so the chicken head probably isn’t with the little girl’s father. Or any positive male for that matter. I’m only speaking from my experiences and my opinions.
This didn’t just start people. It has been going on for a minute. Say like the 80’s? It has just gonna worst. Everyone is to blame, but I would say the infuluence of Videos/Music is the most powerful. If you are paying for the clothes then you should make a clear decision on what your child is wearing. SIMPLE. This crosses so many lines as we see a hugh amount of disrepect in our community from dress (sagging pants included), to children curing the elders, to even known molesters (R Kelly for example) being put on a pedestal. It’s so out of control! The clothes issue is just the tip of the ever melting iceberg.
I’ve seen several of young girls where House of Dereon and Baby Phat. I look at the as if they are wearing that outfit. I would not call it sexy, it would be adorable or cute. I have never heard anyone say sexy until now. They are just trying to make someone look bad. That’s what it seems like.
ONT KNOW MANY BLACK KIDS WEARING DEREON BUT MAYBE BABYPHAT ETC BUT YEA THERE DRESSING TO DAMN GROWN IN CALIFORNIA YES THEY ARE
What the hell?
It’s in our daughters faces everyday. TV shows, muisc videos, magazines, toys, schools……EVERYWHERE!!
Parents, yes we need to take responsibilty but you still cant blame us for certain things which are now normalised…like short skirts, tight tops etc.
Have to step back a minute to remind ourselves just how old our kids are and what is “age appropriate” Sometimes us as parents just have to go against what is considered the “norm.”
Yeah this has been a generational problem but I’m half expecting for kids to walk around pretty much in their underwear in the malls and this to be seen as okay….
*sigh*. Kids need to have the freedom to chose and be who they are. We as parents however need to make sure that we have some sort of infulence over their choices and its not ruled by people who make things like Black Canary Barbies!!
Um same people bashing the youngins in Der`eon and Baby Phat cloths were the same ones 12-17 back in the day sneaking to the mall with they friends to buy thongs, this is a repeated process passed on by older generations and unless you educate your child on the do’s and don’t then you will be forced to watch your child grow up faster then he or she suppose to. I was never a girly girl growing up so i didn’t get into the girly fashions but I watched these chicks grow up faster then they were suppose, not just because what they were wearing but because the attention drawn in through what they were wearing from older men. Nip it in the bun early ladies if you have little girls, and my sistas the way you act in front your friends or how you dance in the club should NOT!! be exposed to your little girls. Thank Goodness I have little boys.
Little girls should not be sexy; in regard to dress or anything else. These sexy messages imply that girls are validated primarily by their bodies, their sexuality and eventually, by men. So many young girls are sexually active and exposed to disease and pregnancy because they think their self worth is in the validation by men. We are sending the wrong messages to our girls by allowing them to dress in these clothes and as adults. Let children be children.
Blah blah Blah, what else is new?? LOL this has been going on since……uum forever?? LOL!!
You can thank the parents for that one LOL.
I don’t know when it happened, sometime in the 90’s it became very prevalent, this idea of being “friends” with your kids. People started doing this under the assumption that if they were more of their kids’ equal, that would somehow make the relationship between them and their kids better. Doesn’t look like it helped much, as we have more entitled and out of control kids than ever before. Parents need to be PARENTS to kids, not buddies, not friends, and not equals. Parents should provide stability, structure, and support to their children as well as be an example to them. If your kids don’t “come to you” when something’s wrong, it’s not because you were not their friend, something went haywire elsewhere. There’s a big difference between allowing a child to have their own identity, and allowing a child to do whatever they want.
Now we wonder why grown men looking at little girls and basically giving pedophile a field day. I do not find that cute at all. Frankly, it’s a damn shame because it’s mothers and grandmothers buying this crap.
hey dont put twilight in there…that was a good movie and they were in high school. the furthest they went were kissing. its the people on tv and kids parents because they buy the clothes. its not like kids have any say so of what they are putting on. its crazy.
its not just our community that has this problem, think about these child beauty pagents where these soccer moms are obsessed with their daughters looking like grown women…..its stuff like this that upsets me because it seems like these people are setting their children to think that their “Grown” way too early, once their mind is set then poor decisions are made growning up, dramatic things happen like rape and early pregnancy Why? because these babies are dressed to look an older age and in my opinion when they look older they “think” they have an older mentality….I can go on and on with my theory but I think you know what I mean
Yep i totally blame the parents because i have to time after time yell at my god daughters mom to stop trying to by her grown up clothes and she actually use the word sexy when she ask her daughter about clothes. If i’m there ill tell Aaliyah no thats for bad girls hehe.
Well it is not the our daughters (young girls) dressing like this, it is their parents dressing them to provocative/ “sexy”. If you stroll through the hood and look at the 2, 3, 4, 5 y/o kids with their parents. They look and dress like their parents. But it dont stop there, the Tat is the new phase now. I have seen a girl at least 14 or 15 have a Tat on her breast and another one on the leg.
This is why our community/ people is failing. Another reason why our community is becoming the neighborhoods.
I personally have no kids of my own, let alone any daughters. Based on my observations, and the demeanor of these young girls at the school I work at, I depict that they dress how they want, when they want when not in uniform during school hours. I try my best to enforce our uniform regulations and tell them why it’s in place not just that it is in place, to both the boys and girls and I hope that all that I tell them will carry over to their high school years and that they will dress more appropriately throughout their young adult years.
Yes I think that some of our precious lil girls are staring to dress to sexy but blame it on the moms. Lil girls can’t possibly dress theirselves nor can they buy their own clothes so the moms of these children are definitely at fault, and then they wonder why there’s predetors out there. We as parents need to keep our kids safe at all times, and while I want my daughter to dress more feminine (she has her own style)I don’t want her over doing it.