Gail Dines comments on “10-year-old Girl Poses Seductively For French Vogue“…
“French Vogue’s images of 10 year old Thylane Lena-Rose Loubry-Blondeau smiling seductively at the camera has kicked off a media storm because they so blatantly sexualize children. But the sexualization of children is now fast becoming part of the cultural landscape with such fashion trends as padded bras and thongs for pre-teens, Bratz dolls that look like prostitutes, and makeup parties for kids. These trends have a profound impact on how girls see themselves as sexual beings since we all develop our ideas about how to think and act from the culture that surrounds us. Rather than being allowed to develop an authentic sexuality that is based on their own experiences, wants, desires and needs, girls are being force fed a diet of hypersexualized images that are plasticized, formulaic and generic. French Vogue should indeed be criticized but the problem is much larger than one magazine and our job as educators, activists and citizens is to resist a commercial culture that denies girls ownership of their own authentic sexuality.”
Dr. Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, an internationally acclaimed speaker and author, and a feminist activist. Her writing and lectures focus on the hypersexualization of the culture and the ways that porn images filter down into mainstream pop culture.
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