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Topic: pre-feminism?
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Debra
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 117
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posted 27 February 2002 08:54 AM
Yep I read that article too and wondered "What the hell are these parents thinking?".Perhaps the children do not know how this sexualises them but the parents do. Children don't necesssarily know that running across the road without looking can get you killed but parents don't sit back and say "Oh well they are only expressing themselves" I think it is disgusting the way Britnay Spears pimps herself her whole routine has more to do with stripping than with music. Right down to the pole she dances with. Why any parent would allow a young girl to carry on in the same way is beyond me. To me this also speaks to the larger issue of how younger and younger models are becoming the ideal so that now 12 and 13 year olds are the height of perfection, well isnt that lovely. Perhaps it is no wonder than when pedophiles go to court they are treated so lightly, young girls now being seen as sexual instead of as children and a court system that still believes females "ask for it". My daughter is 6 and a half when I buy music for her it is tapes of childrens songs she also enjoys listening to rock and roll. These kids aren't out there with a visa picking this stuff up for themselves and why and parent would want to supply it and the clothes and culture attendent with it is beyond me.
From: The only difference between graffiti & philosophy is the word fuck... | Registered: Apr 2001
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Trinitty
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 826
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posted 27 February 2002 11:54 AM
That's not surprizing M'boy, it's not much of a jump.I've noticed this trend myself, they are getting younger and younger. Spears is a disgusting marketing spike into our young female's lives. She is nothing like Madonna, she goes over that. I watched "Starlite" and "Like a Virgin" on MTV when I was little, -to my mother's dismay- but that was Circle-Square compared to what this little leech is doing. I saw her on Oprah the other day (yes, I admit it I stopped and stared), and she had her lowwwww slung pants on and a top that made her look, well, topless. Flesh coloured and tight with half poundnof makeup on. That's fine, but, the camera panned over and there were these LITTLE girls singing right along, dressed in non-little girl clothes. We are sexualizing our children Earthmom. And it's not just in the media, it's in practise and it's legal. 14 yearolds can do what they want with a person of any age. It keeps getting more and more strange.
From: Europa | Registered: Jun 2001
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Timebandit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1448
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posted 27 February 2002 12:00 PM
quote: Non-sequiter: I read somewhere that the majority of strippers in the US are former beauty pageant winners.
Yup, yup, doesn't take brains to do either... Disturbing article.... Raising girls in this culture is such a minefield. My oldest daughter is 4, and already we're battling the Barbie thing. Spice Girls/Brittany Spears are just a later extension -- the living Barbie dolls... Not that we don't occasionally put on glitter nail polish. There's nothing wrong with exploring one's feminine side, to some degree. Our strategy is to teach the girls media literacy. Fortunately, with Ms B, it doesn't look like she's got much "follower" in her personality. We also try to get some more positive, less sexualized female characters into the mix. Movies like Mulan (not the Disney version, the other one), Chicken Run... Balance. The thing is, while they pay lip service to empowerment of girls, these Barbie dolls are using images of the only power women have ever had -- sexual power. Same old, same old. What we need to teach girls is to take hold of other kinds of power.
From: Urban prairie. | Registered: Sep 2001
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Trisha
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 387
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posted 28 February 2002 04:27 AM
I get quite concerned when seeing little girls dressed like MTV sexpots because I have seen the way that some men look at them. Some of the afternoon talk TV shows have had 11-13 year-old mothers on them, kids totally out of control from age 7 upward who are having sex, drinking, abusing their parents and siblings, etc. I don't call that female power, I call that young criminals learning to be bad. The attitude that being able to dress slutty and call the shots at such a young age is not giving these children anything good to become adults with. In order to make the right decisions, a person has to have some reasoning power, respect for themselves and the world around them and knowledge of how to look at the long term and prepare for the future. Too much freedom too soon doesn't give them that. These kids are just acting out what they're seeing on TV and where does that information come from? They see rock stars, soap operas, movies about teen rebellion, idealized or very exciting lives, and don't have a clue that they're too young to understand what is and isn't real. They believe the hype and that is very dangerous.
From: Thunder Bay, Ontario | Registered: Apr 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 28 February 2002 09:43 PM
I came to know of Britteny Spears through my daughters, who have a huge hate thing going on for her.I think there's a female reaction to "loose women" sometimes, in that they resent these women "watering down" what they consider their "sexual power" over men. ("If that slut's giv'n it away, how can I expect dinner and a movie now?") So, some of this Britteny hate can be chaulked up to this. But not all. This is wrong. Spear's was marketed at us as a sexual toy when she was still a child. I think it's disturbing a mother would allow that to happen. I don't dislike Britteny Spears. I do, however, feel nothing but contempt for Britteny Spears Inc. Besides dress up as very young girls, I've noticed that girls tend to start experimenting with make up around grade seven or so. That's ify, in my view, it all depends on circumstance. Sometimes you see girls about this age go nuts with make up, and sometimes it's just part of a learning thing, experimentation, and it passes as they learn. Sometimes with a few girls, it IS advertising. As a parent, you have to play it by ear as to how you handle that. I always went with my gut. If it looked wrong to me, it was. Fortunately, this kind of stuff has never come up much around here. And that whole pagent scene with the Ramsey child. My skin literally crawled when I saw video on the news of pagents she was in.
Alarum bells toll loudly in my head when I see stuff like that. I can't believe those pagents have nothing to do with pedophilia.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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Relyc
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1326
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posted 01 March 2002 02:58 AM
I think this is a really complicated, problematic topic. Since we're in the 'feminism' forum, don't you think we should be careful about throwing around words like "slut" and "slutty," with the blithe acceptence that 'slut' is a perfectly innocent word, and not loaded with a helluva lotta sexist baggage and assumptions? Before we complain about young girls dressing 'slutty,' shouldn't we first be asking ourselves 1) What we mean by that and 2) Why this is supposedly a bad thing for girls to be--or even a bad way for them to look.This is not to say I am not completely grossed out by the cynicism of the B. Spears phenomenon--it's the most exploitive thing to come along in quite a while, and the mixed messages it sends to girls is entirely unconscionable. But we have to really think about these message and what's at the root of them, don't you think? We have to accept how completely screwed up our society is about sexuality--women's sexuality in particular. We have to ask ourselves why we are simply horrified by an 8 year old girl behaving like Britney, but an 8 year old boy acting like. . .I dunno. . one of those cock-rockers out there (being old, I keep thinking of Axel Rose)would not be met with the same kind of horror--even though much of the bumping and grinding is still all about sex. We have to ask ourselves why women's sexuality is *so* commodified, *so* constructed and, ultimately *so* feared compared to men's--don'tcha think? What prompted this post is that the term "slut" reallllly pissed me off. I think it's a close second to the n-word when it comes to keeping people down. Could we watch that from here on in, or at least, you know, put quotes around it next time?
From: Vancouver, BC | Registered: Sep 2001
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Rebecca West
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1873
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posted 01 March 2002 11:11 AM
Relyc, you make a good point about what we mean when we use words like 'slut'. One of my favourite images is of Courtney Love attending some industry party dressed in a baby doll dress and mary jane's, with the words "bitch" and "slut" painted on her forearms. A more powerful feminist statement, I can't imagine. Words that insult women, with few exceptions, invariably involve their sexuality in some way. For example, how a wonderful bit of women's anatomy became such a vile thing that to call a woman a cunt is the ultimate gender-based expletive, is an interesting indication of exactly how we, as a society, view women and their sexuality. Clearly, there's something scary about the sexualized woman - 'vagina dentata' and all that I suppose. My teenaged daughter and I regularly deconstruct the most appalling of gender/sexuality based insults by parodying them and their excessive use as weapons. If I had a son, I would teach him that sex is fun, not dirty, age-appropriate, and ok to talk about above a whisper. I'd make sure he knew that girls make good friends. The Brittneys and Baby Spices are presented to a pre-existing market created by our own warped ideas about sex and women. Change the marketplace by educating our sons and daughters and you change the product being exploited.
From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001
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skadie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2072
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posted 03 March 2002 04:30 AM
quote: I think there's a female reaction to "loose women" sometimes, in that they resent these women "watering down" what they consider their "sexual power" over men. ("If that slut's giv'n it away, how can I expect dinner and a movie now?")
What a disgusting sentiment, TP!!!!! I pity "loose women" but I resent the men that take advantage of them. At what point do you figure a man should mature sexually and otherwise?
From: near the ocean | Registered: Jan 2002
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