Emma Rush, who co-wrote the Australia Institute reports Corporate Paedophilia: The sexualisation of children in Australia and Letting Children be Children: Stopping the sexualisation of children in Australia and who I’ve published here before, wrote a response to a piece by Emma Tom in The Australian last weekend. It didn’t get published there, but it will get published here.
It is a matter of grave concern that children continue to suffer sexual abuse, and in large numbers. And it is understandable that survivors such as Emma Tom (The Australian, March 20) have strong opinions about what does and does not cause child sexual abuse. But her suggestion that the sexualisation of children has no impact on the prevalence of child sexual abuse is at odds with the views of Australian leaders in child health, welfare and development.
Late in 2006, when the debate around the sexualisation of children was running hot, an open letter was published in this newspaper, signed by representatives of twelve child advocacy organisations including the Australian Centre for Child Protection, Childwise Australia, and the Australian Childhood Foundation.
Their views about commercial practices that prematurely sexualise children were unequivocally expressed – these practices ‘set young children up for inappropriate and dangerous roles and behaviours, and make them more vulnerable by far, to sexual danger and harm.’
With respect to the impacts of child sexualisation on adults, the American Psychological Association Taskforce on the Sexualisation of Girls reported in 2007: ‘When girls are dressed to resemble adult women … adults may project adult motives as well as an adult level of responsibility and agency on girls. Images of precocious sexuality in girls may serve to normalize abusive practices such as child abuse, child prostitution, and the sexual trafficking of children… the sexualisation of girls may also contribute to a market for sex with children through the cultivation of new desires and experiences.’ (p. 35)
No-one who speaks out against the premature sexualisation of children claims it is the sole cause of child sexual abuse. Such a claim would be as ridiculous as Tom’s suggestion that the premature sexualisation of children plays no role: the causes of child sexual abuse are acknowledged by experts to be complex.
Dr Emma Rush
Lecturer in Ethics and Philosophy
Charles Sturt University
5 Responses
Thanks for making this articulate piece available to read Melinda.
My experience of teenage girl victims of sexual assault is that they have felt a significant degree of self blame. They have told me it was their fault because of their dress or behaviour.
My fear is that this mistaken self blame mentality will spread to tweens and children as adult-like, sexualised behaviour is normalised for them too.
I dunno, I think victim blaming (self or otherwise) has been a problem for a lot longer than child sexualisation. When you have religious leaders calling women pieces of meat and casting men as dogs who can’t help themselves, this is clearly a problem. Just the idea that a women or girl was ‘asking for it’ should be abhorrent. Putting aside lewdness and other legal issues, I think the true sign of a civilised society is when women (or men) could go around naked without fear of rape or assault.
Emma Rush is correct the deliberate sexualisation and dehumanisation of girl children is not the sole cause for widespread male sexual violence against women and girls.
However, popular culture, mainstream media and not forgetting corporate advertising which consistently promotes the notion girl children are not human but males’ sexual service stations, reinforces and naturalises misogyny and belief only males are human. Females however have yet to achieve recognition they too are human and therefore entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.
Male sexual violence against women and male contempt for women and girls has existed for centuries but the deliberate sexualisation of adult women and now even female babies does have immense implications with regards as to how our society views women and girls.
Who benefits from the deliberate dehumanisation of women and girls? Certainly not women and girls because I’ve yet to see or read men and boys being targetted by our capitalist/patriarchal society. Certainly if men and boys were routinely reduced to dehumanised sexualised commodities this alone would create a huge outcry of ‘man-hating and contempt for males’ but because it is women and girls who are the ones being dehumanised, then the issue becomes supposedly a non-issue.
What the sexualisation and dehumanisation of women and girls does is to reinforce widespread views that males are entitled if they so wish, to commit sexual violence against women and girls because females are not human. Dehumanising a group is the first step towards legitimating, excusing and justifying violence against that group.
Mainstream media and popular culture plays a very powerful role in perpetuating and ‘normalising’ misogyny. Change the images to ones depicting males of colour being dehumanised and sexualised and I’ve no doubt there would rightly be demands such images/depictions be removed because they promote racist hatred.
It is misleading to state children are being ‘sexualised’ because consistently it is always girls who are the ones portrayed as adult women and adult women continue to be portrayed as ‘childlike adult women.’ These issues are not separate but reinforce each other – namely women and girls are not human but just males’ sexual service stations.
Males who commit intrafamilial sexual violence against female family members do not suddenly decide one day to commit such crimes. However their excuses and justifications are reinforced by our women-hating media, which consistently portrays women and girls as ‘wanting/needing and liking male sexual violence inflicted on them.’ These are the real issues – the right for all women and girls of whatever colour, race and ethnicity to be seen and treated as human beings not reduced to white men’s fantasies and racist contempt for non-white women and girls.
Great article.
The sexualisation of children and youth does seem to normalise (to a certain agree and for certain people) inappropriate sexual thoughts, fantasies and actions. Some looks, clothes or styles do have quite specific connotations or implications.
This came up the other day at work with a colleague who bought eyeliner (amongst other make-up pieces) for his 6 year old to play with. Whilst I have no problem with little girls playing with make-up, I did think that eyeliner was a set into the “adult world”, and that the way eyeliner is used by women CAN be to send sexual messages. Whilst the little girl might not have been “trying” to look adult, who knows what someone seeing her might think?