Even Candy Land Isn't Safe From Sexy

[redqueen]

New examples of the sexualization of girlhood crop up all the time. Of course there are the dolls that look like Sesame Streetwalkers—Monster High, Winx Club, Bratz; the makeup lines for third-graders; the padded bikini tops for seven-year-olds. But a Facebook reader recently pointed out evidence of this phenomenon in the last place I'd expect: Candy Land.

...

Toymakers say they are reflecting the changing taste of their demographic. Maybe, but then it's the change that's so disturbing. Consider a recent study on body image among elementary school-aged girls. Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 60 girls ages six to nine recruited largely from public schools. The girls were shown two dolls: One was dressed in tight, revealing "sexy" clothes and the other in a trendy but covered-up loose outfit. Both dolls, as you can see, were skinny and would be considered "pretty" by little girls.

Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, was the girl she wanted to play with. In every category, the girls most often chose the "sexy" doll.

In another study, researchers engaged three-to-five-year-old girls in games of, yes, Candy Land as well as Chutes & Ladders, asking them to choose among three game pieces—a thin one, an average-sized one and a fat one—to represent themselves. While in the past children that age showed little ability to distinguish between average and thin weights, today's wee ones grabbed thin pieces at higher rates not only than fat ones but than those of "normal" weight. When asked by researchers to swap a thin figure for a fat one, the girls not only recoiled but some refused to even touch the chubbier game piece making comments such as, "I hate her, she has a fat stomach," or "She is fat. I don't want to be that one."

There's ample evidence that the ever-narrowing standard of beauty creates vulnerability in our girls to low self-esteem, negative body image, eating disorders, poor sexual choices. Not to mention the negative impact fat-shaming has on overweight kids. I think a lot about something that Gary Cross, a historian of childhood, once told me: that toys traditionally have communicated to children our expectations of their adult roles. What are we telling girls we expect of them with this?

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/even-candy-land-isnt-safe-from-sexy/275283/

[seabeyond]

1. we have this one.

i made it by a decade with my boys.

[mercuryblues]

2. the Princess edition

http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_US/shop/details.cfm?R=6D2DCD96-5056-900B-107A-9FBB1E61F49E:en_US

Be the 1st one to dance at the ball. Who thinks this shit up? What was wrong with the original version, you know where the value was placed on learning colors.

[seabeyond]

3. ha ha. boys and i never knew that. ah well. really... i hear ya. nt

[ismnotwasm]

4. "The View" was on

I don't watch it, my husband does once in a while the topic was, apparently, the sexualization of little girls and bathing suits. I head 'if someone thinks a little girl in a two piece is sexual, THEY'RE the weird ones' and someone trying to explain was implying breasts where there are none was the point. Anyway, I didn't hear it all.

What bothered me, and what I picked up from a distance by the stories and the laughter, was the trivialization of the topic, by a group of women who should know better.

[redqueen]

5. It is understandable... how can they know better when any feminism beyond abortion and equal pay

is considered fringe, out-there, being oversensitive, making a big deal out of nothing, etc.

We see that shit on DU. So of course its worse in mainstream places. The only respite, the only places you can count on people getting it, is in dedicated feminist spaces.

Sad, huh?

[ismnotwasm]

6. Yeah

That's it exactly.

[seabeyond]

10. whoopi was the one to say a 13 yr old... was not "rape, rape".

ya. they miss on a lot of these issues.

[nomorenomore08]

7. Y'know, I've read all the arguments about "sexualization" et. al. and I still don't understand

this shit about making little kids "sexy." I mean, I'm a heterosexual man, I'm attracted to women, not little girls. All this is pretty bewildering, not to mention disgusting, to me.

[redqueen]

8. It's socializing kids to see females (girls and women) as sex objects.

It's encouraging girls to see themselves as sex objects (e.g. the studies where six year olds seem to already understand how important it is for them to be sexy), and encouraging boys to see girls as sex objects.

The fact that this also encourages pedophiles (and ephebophiles -- gotta be specific, lest those who constantly yammer about how they believe 13 year old girls should be fair game feel left out) is another serious issue.

[nomorenomore08]

9. I figure, at the very least, we should let kids reach adolescence before sexual attraction/

attractiveness is even an issue. The fact that that particular issue is blown far out of proportion, and seriously distorted, in our culture is an obvious problem in itself.

[seabeyond]

11. from the time they are babies, people say to the girl. ah, she is beautiful. look at those

eyelashes.

the baby boy, wow he is active, look at those legs move, he is going to be a little runner.

[redqueen]

12. You reminded me of the Sexy Lie video ...

The sexes are conditioned in general to think of their bodies in very different ways.

[nomorenomore08]

13. Yeah, it's all a bit much, I agree. Focusing on one aspect of a person to the exclusion of others.

nt

[gollygee]

14. I got a "retro version" from Barnes and Noble

Yeah, the Bratz doll fairy was more than I was going for. And I grew up playing a really old one with my grandma. I wanted the same one.