‘But it does bring hope to those who believe individuals have the right to speak out and bring big business to account for their actions.’ – This is absolutely the crux of the entire Target issue.
This article cuts through all the other hype and pins down the issue. Thank you MTR.
It’s more than just sexualizing girls too early. It’s misrepresenting female sexuality as something that’s “hot” and “porny” to turn men on, with little to nothing to do with female pleasure. In fact it’s distinctly unpleasurable for females, which turns males on. That kind of “sexuality” is unnatural for females of any age methinks. Because it’s unnatural for females it makes sense in a horrifying way that a society bent on turning women into nothing but f*cktoys for men would start training of its girls very early. Anyway, good for the backlash against against this sexploitation, may it grow, prosper and prevail. And may comfortable clothes for girls to grow, play and just be kids in be manufactured. In the meantime, I see nothing wrong with buying clothes for girls from the boys’ dept.
I am in my thirties and just start being conscious about all those things and connecting the dots between society’s sexploitation of girls/pornification of women’s sexuality and the self-esteem issues and relationship difficulties I’ve struggled with in my life. I have a little girl and hope that we women speak about those issues and say out loud that this is not the kind of society we want as women and for our girls.
It’s interesting – I work in the advertising industry and read comments about this social media campaign from industry folk – who have an completely different view. It’s all about choice, and ‘what people want’. I just can’t understand how their view even computes when we’re talking about the innocence of little kids.
Sure, people have a choice on how to live their life, dress their kids, and do what they do. And of course sex sells, and selling is what retail is all about. But making a noise about the inappropriateness of this, I think, is important. And then encouraging others to make a noise with their wallets.
I will buy more clothes from Target for my daughter if they weren’t trying to make her look like a sexy pre-teen. They would sell more. Their shareholders would be happier, and I think there are a lot of people like me.
I hope that the results in the tills speak loud and clear – as I reckon there are many people who feel the same way.
I find it interesting that many reactions to “Target-gate” have been that it’s all about choice. Well I would really like some choices too – and as a parent of an 11 year old girl I feel that MY choices in terms of what I can dress her in are incredibly limited. For some inexplicable reason the tween section is about a quarter the size of the baby, toddler and little girl ranges to begin with. Once I have excluded the things too short, too overtly sexy, too tight or items endorsing various singers or cartoon characters there is NOTHING left.
As published in the Sunday Herald Sun Aug 19 2012
5 Responses
‘But it does bring hope to those who believe individuals have the right to speak out and bring big business to account for their actions.’ – This is absolutely the crux of the entire Target issue.
This article cuts through all the other hype and pins down the issue. Thank you MTR.
It’s more than just sexualizing girls too early. It’s misrepresenting female sexuality as something that’s “hot” and “porny” to turn men on, with little to nothing to do with female pleasure. In fact it’s distinctly unpleasurable for females, which turns males on. That kind of “sexuality” is unnatural for females of any age methinks. Because it’s unnatural for females it makes sense in a horrifying way that a society bent on turning women into nothing but f*cktoys for men would start training of its girls very early. Anyway, good for the backlash against against this sexploitation, may it grow, prosper and prevail. And may comfortable clothes for girls to grow, play and just be kids in be manufactured. In the meantime, I see nothing wrong with buying clothes for girls from the boys’ dept.
Completely agree with what Barbara said!
I am in my thirties and just start being conscious about all those things and connecting the dots between society’s sexploitation of girls/pornification of women’s sexuality and the self-esteem issues and relationship difficulties I’ve struggled with in my life. I have a little girl and hope that we women speak about those issues and say out loud that this is not the kind of society we want as women and for our girls.
Continue the good work, the good fight!!!
It’s interesting – I work in the advertising industry and read comments about this social media campaign from industry folk – who have an completely different view. It’s all about choice, and ‘what people want’. I just can’t understand how their view even computes when we’re talking about the innocence of little kids.
Sure, people have a choice on how to live their life, dress their kids, and do what they do. And of course sex sells, and selling is what retail is all about. But making a noise about the inappropriateness of this, I think, is important. And then encouraging others to make a noise with their wallets.
I will buy more clothes from Target for my daughter if they weren’t trying to make her look like a sexy pre-teen. They would sell more. Their shareholders would be happier, and I think there are a lot of people like me.
I hope that the results in the tills speak loud and clear – as I reckon there are many people who feel the same way.
Vote with your wallets 🙂
And keep making a noise.
I find it interesting that many reactions to “Target-gate” have been that it’s all about choice. Well I would really like some choices too – and as a parent of an 11 year old girl I feel that MY choices in terms of what I can dress her in are incredibly limited. For some inexplicable reason the tween section is about a quarter the size of the baby, toddler and little girl ranges to begin with. Once I have excluded the things too short, too overtly sexy, too tight or items endorsing various singers or cartoon characters there is NOTHING left.