Indulge me for a bit, as I am about to go on a rant.  Cdub and I went to see Sin City this weekend.  (Weird, violent movie.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.)  Afterwards, we went over to Jack Astor's for dinner.  (Fish and chips, yay!)  As we were walking in, I was nearly run down by two girls.  The younger of the two was ten if she was a day.  And wearing more makeup then I wear in a week.  Actually, if, for example, Kimmy came in to work wearing makeup like that, I would ask her, "Is it whore day again?"

Now, these girls were apparently there for some celebratory cheerleading dinner.   I have no issues with cheerleading- it's gotten to be quite a tough sport.  However, I do have issues with making 10-year-olds look like streetwalkers.  In this instance it was the makeup, but I spend enough time in Target to see the clothing that they are selling to this age group.  It all seems to come from the Britney Spears' line.  Now, I have been told if you aren't willing to buy clothes like that for your daughter, you wouldn't find anything to clothe her in.  I daresay that if no one bought such clothing, it wouldn't be sold.

It sends a message to the girls, that message being that their worth is tied to their attractiveness to the opposite sex.   Not their minds or their ideas , but their bodies.  I am a woman who works in a male-dominated field; I am able to do so because countless women struggled to break down gender barriers.  ( Most of my colleagues are gender neutral; the fact that I am female means no more to them than the fact that I have ears.  However, it is not that uncommon for me to be treated as the cute little blonde girl.)   Yet, the women of my generation, for whom the gender gap is the narrowest it has ever been, are raising girls that are sexualized from a very young age. 

The most interesting part of this, to me anyway, is how society will react when these girls are older.  Society still expects girls to be chaste and pure, an expectation that is not placed on boys (who are supposed to get in on with whom if not the chaste and pure girls?).  For example, it is common knowledge that Bud spends weekends at his girlfriend's, or she with him (they live 4 hours apart).  My father knows this, and it causes him no distress.  I mentioned to him (after napping while with the family in VA) that I'm not used to napping by myself, and he put his hands over his ears and said, "LA LA LA LA."  (BTW, if you think I didn't get some pleasure out of explaining to him that usually when I nap the boys join me, and that nothing remotely sexual was intended by my comment, you don't know me at all.)   This is a not uncommon double standard.  (Note:  I am not judging Bud.  He is an adult.)  We are raising girls to focus on their sexuality, and will label them sluts when they do so. 

Today's children grow up a lot faster than we did; we can at least benefit them by instilling them with a sense of self-worth not tied to their looks. 

[\End Rant]