I only glanced at it for a few minutes, but I agree that it seems like a valuable resource that focuses on actually helping parents promote a healthy self image.

For me, this was the part that really separated it from the anti-sex crap:

"Parents can teach girls to value themselves for who they are, rather than how they look. Parents can teach boys to value girls as friends, sisters, and girlfriends, rather than as sexual objects."

Wow, teaching boys to value as something other than someone else's daugther or future wife - what a radical concept.

What about the sexualization and objectification of girls and young women in the media being mentally damaging to young boys? I can't believe that the gender stereotypes presented by the media are totally uneffective to the other side of the gender duality.

Yeah, it seems like this is a bad situation for everyone - directly by hurting the lives of girls and young women directly (and whatever effects are carried on later into life), but men, whether they realize it or not, should not want to live with this either.

Not to be a pain in the ass, because I thought the report was really interesting and useful, but this one part of the definition of "sexualization" confused me:

"a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy;"

Removing this from the context of girls and young women and so forth, it seems hard to imagine a standard that doesn't have some correlation between "physical attractiveness" and "being sexy". Maybe it's the parenthetical "narrowly defined" that makes it work, but that begs some abstract philosophical debate of attractiveness like the one that was brought up the other day. The bullet point just doesn't seem very clear to me.

I'm glad this is out, maybe it'll help change some people's perspectives, especially with how they talk to their boys. Kate's right, as much as we need to contextualize this kind of thing for girls, we need to do it for boys too.

jeff, I do see there being a difference between being considered attractive and sexy. I think being attractive is how you look whereas sexy is the way you carry yourself, your confidence, etc. regardless of what you look like. Unfortunately, for girls in the age groups we're talking about, it just means wearing as little clothing but as much make-up as possible so they look "grown up" and "sexy". It's a hard distinction to make, but I think the report is trying to make the difference between focusing on attractiveness overall with solely focusing on being sexually attractive and only feeling attractive when one receives sexual attention. It is a little unclear though.

Thanks for the clarification, although I see a difference too - not the same but related. I can see how this is relevant to the age group at hand. If I'm having trouble sorting it out, I imagine it's a bit confusing for 11-year-old girls.

Someone who wants to look "attractive" just wants to look, well, attractive to others. Someone who wants to look "sexy" wants to look attractive, but specifically sexually attractive, and often also to communicate that they are desirious of sex and/or want those looking at them to desire sex with them. They're definitely not the same thing.
I think what the study is getting at is that for young girls, "attractive" has come to be seen as EQUIVALENT to "sexy" -- that is, only when girls present themselves as "sexy" (sexually available or desirious of sex) will they be considered "attractive" (generically good-looking to everyone over all).
The message they're getting is: Not sexy = Not attractive.
So in order to feel they look good, or even to feel they look acceptable, they have to look "sexy"--at all times and places, in all contexts, to all people. Which is definitely NOT good. Especially when it's being pushed on girls as young as 6 years old. Ick.

As a parent of two daughters, and sister to 3 young women in high school and college, and 3 young men in high school, college, and the Marines, this subject makes me feel really queasy.

As a parent, I like that there is a little handout on what parents can individually do at home with their kids-but it is a social problem, not just a personal problem. I would appreciate a larger scope of action items, rather than trying to make sure the young women (and men) I care about are taught not to sexualize themselves or others.

Your local Matriarchy Fantasy Overlord submits the following rubuttal:

"Parents can teach boys to value themselves for how they look, rather than who they are. Parents can teach girls to value boys as sexual objects, rather than friends, brothers, and boyfriends."

Whoops, my bad. at the end of the study they did give some social options for schools and girls empowerment groups, activism, girlcotting, etc.

I'm glad to see that the negative media influence is actually being acknowledged at last, but I wonder if this report will really change anything. It seems like the suggestions are mostly about teaching kids and teens to ignore all these negative messages, or teaching parents how to lessen the impact of them on their children. All that's well and good, but maybe we could also try pressuring the media to please stop inundating us with these (now proven harmful) messages?

Ah, I can already hear the inevitable screams of "censorship!"

Let me say up front, I'm not advocating censoring anything. I just think seeing a little less of the same exact thing, repeated ad nauseam would be kinda nice. Why not have models in magazines of all different sizes, shapes and colors?. Or have some characters (male and female) in movies and TV shows that aren't formulaic stereotypes? Or give some media attention to talented musicians who sing and play well even if they don't have porntastic bodies or do stripper-pole dance routines? How about acknowledging that just because "sex sells" doesn't mean you have to use it to sell everything?

I think we'd all vastly benefit from a little more variety.

Wow:

While alone in a dressing room, college students were asked to try on and evaluate either a swimsuit or a sweater.While they waited for 10 minutes wearing the garment, they completed a math test. The results revealed that young women in swimsuits performed significantly worse on the math problems than did those wearing sweaters. No differences were found for young men. In other words, thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity.

(From the executive summary).

Um. Suck it, Larry Summers.

Thanks for the interesting link. I decided to reference the report in the Wikipedia article on “sexualization�—but then discovered there was no such article. So, I created one (cribbing a bit from the small “Sexualization of children� section in the “Child sexuality� article).

I’d appreciate it if some feministas would give the new article on sexualization a look over and make whatever changes you might care to.

Thanks.

BTW, as to censoring the media: The media accepted censorship of reporting on suicides when it was proven that such reporting led to more suicides. Why shouldn't we ask for the same ‘harm reduction’ approach to the rampant sexualization that permeates the media now?

I'd be cautious about citing this article. It seems rather biased to me. Take the Fredrickson et al. passage:

"The results revealed that young women in swimsuits performed significantly worse on the math problems than did those wearing sweaters. No differences were found for young men. In other words, thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity."

However, the research done by other sources listed raises some interesting points. Take Gapinski, Brownwell, & LaFrance(2003):

"The 'fat talk' prime had mixed effects...Exposure to fat talk was associated with an increase in negative emotion for women in sweaters, but a decrease in negative emotion for women in swimsuits. Fat talk was also associated with improved motivation and cognitive functioning for women low in trait self-objectification but diminished motivation and performance for women high in trait self-objectification."
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/l5r3728158802735/)

Why the disparity between the two groups? Admittedly, I can only hypothesize. Were the girls in high trait self-objectificatioin group exposed to more sexualizing images than their counter parts? Do they have significantly different peer groups? It should also be noted that this study only had a sample size of 80. Despite this important distinction between the two groups of women, the author of this sexualization report chose to focus on Fredrickson's study; probably because it had the most dramatic example.

As far as physical and mental health is concerned, I've just finished a search of three of the studies cited. All found slight decreases in body evaluation and self-esteem when adolescent girls were shown images of thin models compared to baseline. However, all of these studies consitently found that certain girls within the samples (i.e., those who already possessed a tendency towards such expectations) showed the greatest decreases. What is the mysterious confounding variable that is affecting young girls? Also, these girls were tested weeks after baseline, leaving time for confounding to take place. Could exposure to these images in a clinical setting have led some girls to focus more on images/ideas of thinness in those intervening weeks? Furthermore, all these adverse effects were short lived. Clearly, more research needs to be done and this research does not support the ambitions of some posters. I'm talking to you, Grant Neufeld.

One thing I did love about this report was the suggestion section. Not the call for more "self-esteem camps" for girls, but the suggestions for parents. Parents and peers are the greatest models for our children about behavior; and this includes how we react to ultra-thin images of women.

I'd be cautious about citing this article. It seems rather biased to me. Take the Fredrickson et al. passage:

"The results revealed that young women in swimsuits performed significantly worse on the math problems than did those wearing sweaters. No differences were found for young men. In other words, thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity."

However, the research done by other sources listed raises some interesting points. Take Gapinski, Brownwell, & LaFrance(2003):

"The 'fat talk' prime had mixed effects...Exposure to fat talk was associated with an increase in negative emotion for women in sweaters, but a decrease in negative emotion for women in swimsuits. Fat talk was also associated with improved motivation and cognitive functioning for women low in trait self-objectification but diminished motivation and performance for women high in trait self-objectification."
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/l5r3728158802735/)

Why the disparity between the two groups? Admittedly, I can only hypothesize. Were the girls in high trait self-objectificatioin group exposed to more sexualizing images than their counter parts? Do they have significantly different peer groups? It should also be noted that this study only had a sample size of 80. Despite this important distinction between the two groups of women, the author of this sexualization report chose to focus on Fredrickson's study; probably because it had the most dramatic example.

As far as physical and mental health is concerned, I've just finished a search of three of the studies cited. All found slight decreases in body evaluation and self-esteem when adolescent girls were shown images of thin models compared to baseline. However, all of these studies consitently found that certain girls within the samples (i.e., those who already possessed a tendency towards such expectations) showed the greatest decreases. What is the mysterious confounding variable that is affecting young girls? Also, these girls were tested weeks after baseline, leaving time for confounding to take place. Could exposure to these images in a clinical setting have led some girls to focus more on images/ideas of thinness in those intervening weeks? Furthermore, all these adverse effects were short lived. Clearly, more research needs to be done and this research does not support the ambitions of some posters. I'm talking to you, Grant Neufeld.

One thing I did love about this report was the suggestion section. Not the call for more "self-esteem camps" for girls, but the suggestions for parents. Parents and peers are the greatest models for our children about behavior; and this includes how we react to ultra-thin images of women.