Yesterday we raised the issue of girls' hypersexualization in advertising and toys or television, something that ends up influencing all areas of their lives. Considering this topic very important, we wanted to deepen the topic of girls' hypersexualization and in Babies and more we will offer the opinions of four prestigious psychologists specializing in childhood, to whom we will interview in depth to reflect on the causes and consequences of this worrying phenomenon and help parents to take action to act.
We share with you first the interview we have done to Mónica Serrano Muñoz, child psychologist and expert in Maternity and Parenting with Attachment, whom we can read in her blog Psychology and Parenting.
Is there really a pattern of hypersexualization in girls in advertising?
There is currently a clear pattern of hypersexualization in girls that is received from advertising in the media.
The offer that is given in the publicity of articles focused on a female child audience is very focused on a woman's scheme which is valued for her physical appearance. A canon of feminine beauty is transmitted based on the sexual desire that the woman awakens, with very marked guidelines of what are the characteristics that make the woman sexually desirable. Thus, thinness or a certain way of dressing become goals that all women have to achieve if they want to be socially valued
This opens a wide range of consumer items to women (and girls), from cosmetic and fashion products to beauty treatments and weight loss. In this way, women of any age become large consumers of a great diversity of objects and services associated with their body image, according to the consumer society in which they live. In this way, through advertising, a whole series of needs is created for women who force them to consume this type of articles in a continuous way. In addition, the phenomenon of hypersexualization in girls is not only found in advertising, but also in the world of cinema and entertainment and toys. This increases girls' desire to respond to these types of social requirements.
What reasons are there for it?
The pattern of hypersexualization of girls in advertising, the media and toys plays a role as a socializing agent for women.
This pattern, transmitted from early childhood, tells girls what society expects of them. This, in turn, directly influences the process of developing the personal identity of each girl. In this way, a direct social influence is being exerted in the construction of the feminine identity of the entire social group. With the departure of women to the labor market, the traditional model of a housewife woman, economically dependent on men, breaks down. The woman acquires a certain economic independence, with which the man loses part of the control he exerted over her. In this way, the hypersexualization of girls and women in general can be understood as a reaction of patriarchal society, which tries to return women to the traditional model of dependence on men through the message: women only have value if it is sexually desirable, if not, it disappears. In this case, the dependence is more emotional, emotional. It depends on male approval and assessment based on parameters that are not consistent with female nature.
Why are girls dragged to follow him?
The pattern of female hypersexualization does not focus at all solely on children. It is a pattern that affects all age groups of women (except for old age). This pattern reduces all women to follow a similar beauty canon that corresponds to the same age range. Thus, women between 5 and 60 years try to reach a canon of hypersexual beauty, more typical of women aged 17 to 25 years (which is the age of greatest sexual fullness). In this way, we are faced with a very large age group following the same pattern. This leads to the reference cultural models of girls respond at all times to the same canon. Therefore, the family feminine referents of the girls (their mothers, older sisters or other women in their environment), who are their role models, also meet this pattern of hypersexualization. Thus, both the family and social referents of girls point to the same stereotype. This largely limits the alternatives of girls, who only receive one type of model, the one associated with hypersexualization. This lack of alternatives condemns girls to follow the established pattern.
What effects can this have on your psychosexual development?
If this message is transmitted from girls, women build their personal identity based on body image. But this body image is an exclusionary image, difficult to reach for most women. Girls who have received this hypersexualization message will build their self-esteem based on the hypersexualized body image. They will learn to value themselves based on their physical attractiveness and sexual desire that they wake up in the opposite sex. In this way, the girl (later adolescent and, later, woman) develops her personal identity and self-esteem on superficial values, difficult to reach and perishable, since the passage of time causes the woman to lose the characteristics of this canon of beauty (if at any time he managed to reach them).
Thus, fragile, extremely vulnerable women develop, immersed in a constant battle with themselves, from which it is impossible for them to emerge victorious.
The consequences of all this in the woman's psyche are very negative, as they condemn her to a constant frustration for not being able to achieve the goals that society imposes on her. This can negatively affect your mood and your self-esteem. Indirectly, this pattern of hypersexualization in girls could be related to the appearance of eating disorders during adolescence. The model of extreme thinness that is imposed as a goal encourages adolescents to try to achieve it by putting their health at risk. On the other hand, this hypersexualization causes the rest of the areas that make up the feminine identity to be undervalued socially and personally, which leads to women investing less energy in the development of other facets of their being in order to devote all their effort to cultivate your body image In this way, other important capacities of women are diminished or underdeveloped, more related to the mental and spiritual than to the physical.
What can parents do to avoid or moderate this influence?
The role of parents is to inform them to reduce the impact that the pattern of hypersexualization has on the personal development of girls.
In the first place, it is essential that parents become aware of the existence of such a pattern, that they learn to identify it and analyze how it may be affecting themselves. It is very important that mothers are aware that they are the main female model of their daughters and that if they free themselves from the pattern of hypersexualization, they will also be releasing their daughters. Similarly, the role of parents, as a male reference figure, is also essential. The way of valuation of the father to the women is captured by the girls as a model of valuation of the opposite sex in general.
Parents, therefore, are fundamental in the prevention and development of a model of relations between the sexes, right? In addition to the behaviors and attitudes of fathers and mothers as a role model, it is important that they offer alternatives to their daughters. Parents should provide their daughters with alternative patterns to the hypersexualized in terms of toys, clothes, public figures ... It is also very important that parents provide their daughters with relationships with other girls whose parents are committed to preventing the pattern of hypersexualization. In this way, they will be enabling their daughters to identify with a group of equals that enhances the development of other non-hypersexualized aptitudes, tastes and abilities. In this way, it is not about denying or invisible feminine reality or masculinizing girls. It is about allowing girls to develop their gender identity on a solid and deep basis that makes them complete and balanced women. We must offer female alternatives to hypersexualization.
Yes. The forms of relationship established between the couple act as a model of relationship between people of different gender. Thus, the way in which the father and the mother relate to each other as a couple also influences the construction of the girl's gender identity and how she will relate to people of the opposite sex later.
At what age should we start sex education?
Sex education should not be understood as a separate area of children's global education. It does not reduce to the explanation of what the sexual act consists of or how to prevent unwanted pregnancies or transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. Sexuality is an inherent aspect of human nature that influences all spheres of your being, from the construction of gender identity to reproductive processes or the development of social skills. That is why it should not be treated as an isolated entity of the person's development, but as an ever-changing evolutionary process.
Are there different ways of approaching sex education depending on age?
The sexual education of children must begin in early childhood. Before the age of three, the sexual education of children focuses on maternal and paternal models, which children will observe and imitate. At this stage, children capture patterns of behavior and their parents' relationship according to gender. After three years, when children have already begun to build their gender identity, sex education is based on the elaboration of this identity (male or female) according to the child's age. Parents are the main transmitters of values associated with the gender of children throughout early childhood. As children grow older, the influence of social models is growing. Parents must adapt to the needs of each stage to reduce or redirect the social impact on their children's sexual education. The sexual education of children should be conceived as a continuous process that begins in early childhood and ends when the person reaches a degree of sexual and emotional maturity enough not to need parental guidance in this area. The stage of maximum agitation in terms of the need for sexual education in children occurs in preadolescence and adolescence. However, the basis of this education has to be built throughout childhood so that, when adolescence arrives, the child can build their learning on a previous basis.
We greatly appreciate the psychologist Monica Serrano your collaboration in this interview given to Babies and more and that I think has left us many keys to understand the phenomenon of girls hypersexualization in today's society. Tomorrow we will continue talking about this topic with another specialist in child psychology.
