SEXUALISATION OF CHILDREN

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:37): For some time now there has been a rising tide of community concern regarding the early sexualisation of children in Australia. From bug-eyed Bratz dolls to 'fun' pole dancing kits, and baby high heels or padded training bras, we know that Australian girls are being targeted by a corporate monopoly that trades on marketing's oldest weapon—sex sells.

According to the Mission Australia 2010 survey of 50,000 plus young people, body image is cited as the number one concern for Australian young people between the ages of 11 and 24. Research indicates girls who diet are more likely to engage in substance abuse as adults, and there is a correlation between women in universities who diet excessively and also binge drink. Disordered eating for women is less a rarity than it is an everyday occurrence.

We are all bombarded by unrealistic ideals of perfection—a perfection that has been arbitrarily decided by people whose sole aim is to make money—and we are buckling under the strain of trying to live up to it. The end result is that we find ourselves living in a society where girls who are yet to even enter puberty are putting themselves on diets because they have internalised the message that a woman's value is tied up in her dress size and her sexual allure. The most baffling part of this is not that this situation exists but that we are surprised by it.

This week America's Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant comes to Melbourne. Due to overwhelming public opposition, the event has been shrouded in secrecy. Australians are justifiably aghast at the idea that babies as young as one month old can be entered into a competition that will pit children against each other, undermining their body confidence from an early age and teaching them that the most important thing they can do is to be beautiful. Most of us agree that children should be left alone to be children and shielded from the anxiety of a sexualised adulthood.

But implicit in this is the idea that at some point they will certainly have to deal with it. For girls there is a time when society fights to protect them from sexualisation and then there is a seemingly magical transition that occurs somewhere in adolescence where they are then expected to tolerate it and perhaps even welcome it.

Recently, General Pants came under fire for running a campaign called 'I Love Sex' in its clothing stores. In addition to featuring giant store posters of a half-naked woman with gaffer tape on her breasts while a man removed her jeans, staff, which included primarily teenage girls and young women, were to wear badges proclaiming their love for sex. Some workers expressed humiliation at having to wear these badges as part of their uniform, and it can be reasonably assumed that a not insignificant number of teenagers employed by General Pants have probably never had sex.

Yet, when Melinda Tankard Reist criticised the General Pants campaign on The Drum, she was bombarded with irate comments about her hatred of sex, her prudishness and her alleged inability to lighten up and take a joke. She was asked: didn't she know that sex sells and why did she hate men? A conclusion was drawn that not only does the notorious anti-fun campaigner hate sex and men, and happiness in general, but that she was probably jealous, clearly because no-one was going out of their way to objectify her.

Herein lies the real fly in the ointment when it comes to solving the complex problem of how we go back to a society that allows children to be children. Until we make significant efforts to stop excusing the sexual objectification of women, we will never prevent the early sexualisation of children. Children observe society around them and they imitate it. What are we teaching them when we present to them a world that perpetuates not just the sexualisation of women but the false economy of so-called empowerment that goes along with that?

When we teach women that attraction and sexual availability adds value to their existence, we are also normalising this for the children absorbing those social codes. In our society, we are taught to perform sexuality, rather than experience it, and it is a system that contributes to the oppression of both women and men.

We cannot hope to protect girls from sexualisation when it is obvious to them that these things will not just be expected of them in the future but will increase their social currency. We want to protect little girls from objectification but, when those little girls turn into women and insist that they still deserve that protection, we laugh at them and belittle them and, in the case of Melinda Tankard Reist, vilify them. I ask today: what message are we sending our girls?