Over the past several years I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend in young girls across America. They strive to imitate celebrities that they see in the media, going as far as even dressing like them. It isn’t uncommon anymore to see girls as young as ten years old in short, short skirts or revealing shirts and even high heel shoes. The media and advertising has been promoting these clothes to younger and younger girls consistently and making the girls think that they should look provocative and sexy even if they are much too young.
Advertisers use the “Bandwagon” technique to sell these girls on the idea that everyone is dressing like this and they too should dress sexy to be cool and fit in. Walk into any mall across America and you can see this fashion phenomenon that has caught on with our tween and teen girls. The message that the media and advertisers are sending these girls way to early is the sexist view of the advertising world that women, and now girls, are just objects of men’s desires and that they are only important if they are pleasing to the male eye. This has to be starting a very destructive and degrading self image for these young girls.
They may also be pressured to start acting more sexual younger. Our teen pregnancy rate is one of the highest of industrialized countries. For the last three decades we’d managed to lower the teen pregnancy rate but now we are seeing girls as young as twelve and thirteen getting pregnant and getting STD’s.
Jean Kilbourne has even written a book about this scary new fashion trend. We need to fight back against the advertisers and media and teach our young girls that there is so much more to being a woman than looking sexy and that their self worth should not come from wearing inappropriate, provocative clothing.
Advertisers use the “Bandwagon” technique to sell these girls on the idea that everyone is dressing like this and they too should dress sexy to be cool and fit in. Walk into any mall across America and you can see this fashion phenomenon that has caught on with our tween and teen girls. The message that the media and advertisers are sending these girls way to early is the sexist view of the advertising world that women, and now girls, are just objects of men’s desires and that they are only important if they are pleasing to the male eye. This has to be starting a very destructive and degrading self image for these young girls.
They may also be pressured to start acting more sexual younger. Our teen pregnancy rate is one of the highest of industrialized countries. For the last three decades we’d managed to lower the teen pregnancy rate but now we are seeing girls as young as twelve and thirteen getting pregnant and getting STD’s.
Jean Kilbourne has even written a book about this scary new fashion trend. We need to fight back against the advertisers and media and teach our young girls that there is so much more to being a woman than looking sexy and that their self worth should not come from wearing inappropriate, provocative clothing.
The whole short shorts, short shirts, revealing shirts is all very uncalled for for young girls to be wearing these things. I constantly hear my sister talking about her principal making her change into something or someone she knows or etc. from what they are wearing. I understand some shorts are short because of your size because I had the same issue. I think parents need to make their children aware of statistics in the world and how there clothing relates to some of these things.
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