There’s been a ton of media coverage on the adultification and sexualisation of children lately. This program aired on Channel 7’s Today Tonight Monday. Click picture below to view clip.
And just a clarification re the KMart campaign. It wasn’t actually me who was instrumental in getting KMart to pull certain items – that win was the result of grassroots protests by a number of individuals and it happened pretty quickly. However I was encouraged to receive a call from KMart CEO Guy Russo personally apologising and a short time after, with Julie Gale of Kids Free 2B Kids, to meet Guy and his staff at the company’s Melbourne headquarters. KMart was invited to sign Collective Shout’s Corporate Social Responsibility Pledge which asks corporates to sign a statement of intention not to objectify women and sexualise girls in products and services. We hope to make an announcement soon.
“There really is a global backlash” – MTR
Netmums website finds parents believe modern life steals kids’ childhood
PARENTS believe childhood ends at 12 and blame pressure from friends, celebrity culture and social media for rushing kids into adulthood.
Almost 90 per cent of parents think modern children grow up faster than previous generations, while one in two parents admit their daughters worry about their Facebook popularity, a survey by the Netmums website has found.
Modern tweens prefer to play alone on iPads, with 83 per cent of their parents saying their favourite activity was playing outdoors.
Boys are under pressure to be “macho” and “good at everything” while girls are under “immense strain to be thin” and sexy before being mature enough to cope.
Do you agree? Tell us below.
The British survey found 54 per cent of parents were angry with retailers, saying clothing for girls was too sexual, provocative and short.
The anger against retailers who foster the “pornification of culture” was growing, said Melinda Tankard Reist, co-founder of campaign group Collective Shout. “There really is a global backlash about forcing children to grow up too fast and telling little girls they have to be thin, hot and sexy to be acceptable,” she said. Read more here.
4 Responses
My 11 y/o daughter is outside, playing soccer in the street with the neighbourhood kids as I write….both my girls are growing up in their own time and I am happy to say that it isn’t as fast as some and thankfully, they are happy about that too. I’ve always told them that ‘you are old for a looooong time and you can’t go back so just be a kid for as long as you can!’
Whilst this is an interesting article and carries a lot of weight, the essence of this gets bandied about by various channels in various formats from time to time… I never cease to be amazed though at the shock and dismay expressed by hosts etc., but then they cut to an ad and their very own stations will undoubtedly be previewing content for programming totally unsuitable for young children….see a hypocritical irony here?? The stations themselves need to hold themselves to a higher account. I am disgusted as some of the ads and tv shows they allow to be shown during pre 8.30pm time slots.
However, parent’s have to take more accountability, if you allow your kids to watch TV shows, dress older than their years, watch M rated movies and let’s not even start on the video channels!!! etc., then they are going to ‘grow up’ faster than perhaps they should. Some things ARE within our control.
I think it’s great to mention “celebrity culture” as part of this problem. As a young girl, boys my own a age constantly talked about celebrity women with the attitude that these women were better looking and more valuable. I felt inadequate & suffered from low self-esteem. And most of the boys I knew never learned to have loving, fulfilling relationships with the real girls in their lives.
I especially dislike those ghastly beauty pageants for little girls from about 2 years of age and up, all dolled up with loads of make up, adult hairdos and sexy clothes to look like miniature “sex bombs”. It’s hard to imagine that parents can instill such warped values to their children. Arrrgh! Let children be allowed to live and play like children!
Note the Today Tonight TV segement host is quick to offer “whilst we can’t control these MEDIA images, parents are advised to have a good close relationship with their children to steer them away from harm.”
I would offer the general population’s disatisfaction with the entire Mainstream Media is intitated by their own lacking of self-control and restraint in the airing of such sexualised content. They are telling parents to do what we are unwilling to do themselves. Why? They may lose some adult raunch ratings and money – the bottom line. Two and 1/2 men and other adult content shows gets shown very early these days.
Media regulation is still widely supported by the public but hated by the media heads.
Everyone needs to keep their house in order. This includes slowing and stopping pollution in the media stream children could reasonbly be exposed to.