We continue today talking about the topic of girls' hypersexualization and the way in which advertising and toys reinforce this pattern. Yesterday we were talking with the psychologist Mónica Serrano and today we are going to interview the therapist Elena Mayorga.
TO Elena Mayorga We can usually follow it in the magazine Mente Libre, of which she is co-editor, and in the blog of pregnancy losses Children of Water. Our expert is a Bachelor of Philosophy and Letters, writer and disseminator specialized in Women's Psychology (pregnancy, childbirth, puerperium), pre and perinatal psychology, and parenting issues. Therapist and author of children's literature.
Elena, I would like us to address the way in which advertising uses and influences our children. What is your opinion on this issue?
The other day watching a television ad in which you can see a very small baby, almost newborn, sucking and in the following scene, an older one, about six months, drinking formula milk, I asked myself the following question: To what extent is it ethical to use the image of babies and children in advertising? In addition to having to spend a few hours working and following the orders of adults who want to “exploit” their image, these children do not decide for themselves if they want their face, body, voice, in short, their outer self (which drags to your inner self) be exposed to the scrutiny of other people. On the other hand, the purpose of advertising is to manipulate us so that we buy the product that they are offering us, sell us and normalize a fictional reality in which, for example, in the announcement that I mentioned to you, the false message is transmitted that breast milk is good for a newborn baby, but that for an older baby, it is not the right food for your health. I ask myself again: To what extent is it ethical to use the image of a six-month-old baby to simulate and make people believe that it is best for him to feed on artificial milk? I am sure that if that six-month-old baby was given a choice between her mother's breast and a bottle, she would not hesitate for a second and choose the best for him, breast milk. Fighting against the power of the image, of the visual, is very complicated because its impact is much greater than that of the word, because of its speed, it comes to us instantly and because the emotions it causes us are immediate.
And focusing on the topic of girls' hypersexualization in advertising, do you think it's dangerous?
We live in a cruelly hedonistic and ultracompetitive society in which body worship and the search for success, through eternal youth, have been installed in the popular imagination as the cornerstone of our lives.
The ads, the series, the movies, the internet show us artificial and artificial bodies sculpted with surgery and photoshop. A few years ago he was praising the beauties twenty years, the actresses and models of that age triumphed and the elite athletes reached the height of their career after twenty. But, when the nineties arrived, we saw how quasi-androgynous models began to rise to fame, showing a paradigm of feminine beauty even more childish, fragile, vulnerable and unreal. Two decades have passed and we have reached the point that today, boys and, above all, girls are being used and “sexualized” as a means to sell to adults and themselves, all kinds of products, from soups and cars, even dolls, video games, clothes, jewelry and houses. In order to achieve these sales, the public and media draws have been lost and we have reached the height of seeing how a French magazine used an eight-year-old girl as an advertising ruse simulating, in a terrible outbreak, being an adult woman sexually exciting The girl appeared in the photographs makeup, hairstyle, with a bag, heels, jewelry and provocative gestures, far removed from the child's sexual reality of her age. An eight-year-old girl, innocent and oblivious to the adult sexual reactions that her image triggered, had been manipulated and used to sell products intended for adult women and to sell her image as a sexual paradigm. This, as a professional and as a mother, raises enormous concerns.
A girl as a sexual object in advertising is aberrant, but what effect does that have on boys?
In the first place, our sons and daughters are being exposed as “sexual merchandise” and that in a world where child abuse is still a common currency in many places, is an extremely serious and dangerous fact.
Secondly, because the series, advertising, internet, television show little girls acting as mini-adults, with concerns of older people and clothes more typical of their mothers than of them. Unfortunately we are seeing how childhood lasts less and less and this, for the emotional and psychological development of people, is devastating.
Children must be children before they are adults, right?
To start a new stage of our lives, we must first have fully developed and assimilated the previous one. If we do not, we will see how these girls and boys will be widely manipulated and vulnerable, immature, will suffer low self-esteem and even depression when they do not reach the desired physique, or the money-laden success shown on TV.
In addition, girls, and also many boys, care more and more young people about the cult of the body, so there are cases of eating disorders in girls and boys under ten years.
We see how fashion and aesthetics has become a new slavery.
We are surprised and shocked when we see images of ancient Chinese in which the girls' feet were stunted, suffering huge pains, to turn them into a sexual object of male worship, and we believe that we are very far from that patriarchal reality. However, the woman is still sexually repressed and much did you know Mireia that the latest aesthetic fashion is to amputate the pinky to wear high heels?
No, I am horrified just to think about it. A woman can decide whether or not to wear high heels, but mutilating the body to wear certain footwear is crazy. In the image world, especially on television, it seems to me that in many occasions women and now also, very young girls and even girls, seem worth their sexual attractiveness.
Yes. I am also concerned that the publicity, the series, the movies, continue to perpetuate a phallocentric sexuality in which there is only enjoyment and joy through intercourse, which hides and denies the sexual reality of women, much broader and more diverse. I would not like to mention here that the feminine and maternal body is denied (large hips, wide bodies, full breasts) and, nevertheless, great milestones of motherhood such as pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding are extraordinary experiences of the adult female sexuality.
And that will influence girls?
Sure. Derived from this coitocentrism that I mentioned, we see how in all these media it is still denigrated, stereotyped and subjecting the image of women to the sexual desires of men. Music videos, television series, movies and language degrade women.
And in the children's series?
Also in the sitcom for the little ones, we see how girls and adolescents are stereotyped and sexualized as adults. Usually the studious and intelligent are taken and dressed as rare, even bizarre, while the "successful" girls are those who have a boyfriend and are also the most beautiful and popular in their school or institute. And if by any chance some girl wears clothes according to her age, the reaction between the other girls is to denigrate her and mock her. This unfortunately, Mireia, is something that is already happening in our schools and parks. It is not uncommon to hear conversations of girls, simulating that of these series or gossip programs, in which some girl or boy (as they are also being dragged into this competitive struggle) of their age is mocked for not dressing the fashion or prefer to play, instead of spending time talking about boys or girls (which is fine for teenagers with a few years older than them).
Completely true, I see it in the friends of my 12 year old son. Jokes of explicit sexual content, obsession with physical beauty and above all, contempt for those who have intellectual concerns or are more childish.
Of course, when these girls and teenagers grow a little more, they offer the image of young women with large and stiff breasts (operated), extreme thinness, thick, fleshy lips, provocative clothing, heels of vertigo and eternal youth.
A woman subjected to a certain pattern of impossible beauty stands out as the goal reaches girls as a bombardment. And they, the girls, think they should do it.
This false image of reality (very few women are naturally like that), fostered even by many girls' dolls, shows our daughters that they must submit to these misogynistic canons to become, when they grow up, successful women, workers and perfect mothers. , envied and desired by everyone. So, in addition to transmitting a reductionist image of reality, it makes the idea that women exist and is someone because they like others and, above all, because men like it (in those series always, since very little ones, girls are worried about liking boys of the other sex and it's making this the center of their lives).
In addition, all these means foster the idea that aging and maturing is bad. So we have that our children leave childhood early, but they childish their adult life with immature and unreal behaviors where they deny old age.
Does this relate to serious problems in girls and adolescents?
Much. According to a survey, 69% of girls and adolescents between 10 and 16 years old change the perception of their ideal body figure by the magazines they read.
How can we help our daughters to have high self-esteem and develop a healthy and full sex life?
The relationship with our body changes over the years and, with it, our sexuality is transformed, that is, the hedonistic pursuit of bodily and emotional pleasure. Of course, child sexuality is very different from adult and its implications, searches and motivations are very different. For adults to enjoy a healthy and full sensual and reproductive sexuality, we need, from our conception, to form a respectful, positive and loving image of our body. A satisfactory uterine life, a pleasant birth, a few months and years of life in which we are sheltered and accompanied in a respectful way in our self-regulation. Hugs, pampering, tickling, massage, not letting us cry, holding us in arms, sleeping without impositions, controlling sphincters at the moment when our body is prepared, eating without pressure, self-exploring without constraints, without being mocked, errands or denigrated, etc. . They will encourage the baby and the child to feel love for themselves, respect for their ideas and for their body.
But, all parents want their children to be happy, what can they do?
Encouraging high self-esteem in our children, love and respect for themselves, is a great help to prevent their future being subjected to the arbitrary fashion and advertising. It is also essential not to let children watch improper programs or content of their age. A three-year-old girl cannot assimilate the same as a fourteen-year-old girl. I do not say that you do not watch TV, but parents have to be with our children while watching it and explain that some content is not suitable for their age.
Parents have to act as a barrier to the advertising bombing, implicit and explicit physical and sexual violence shown by the media, and we must be there to explain to our children that the reality shown by videos, advertisements and series is false.
And what girls dress provocatively?
It is also important that we buy appropriate clothing for their age (there are thongs for girls !!), video games that are not loaded with sexual symbols and violence, that we make them see how valuable they are for themselves, and not for what others say about them.
Can hypersexualization relate, in my opinion, to being less clear that they cannot be touched without their consent and make them more vulnerable to sexual abuse?
Another issue that seems vital to me is to warn our children, with each age we will adapt the explanations, that their body is theirs and that nobody, neither from the family nor from outside it, nobody, has the right to force them or force them to leave touch or touch another person. Whether we like it or not, Mireia, there are many sexual predators and we must teach our children to protect themselves from them.
We use the computer a lot and my son is very responsible. Anyway, I am always with him when he connects, because sometimes very undesirable things appear. What can parents do to avoid the dangerous use of the internet and social networks?
If they are old enough to use the internet, a good idea is either to be with them the time they use the computer, or to use firewalls. Social networks also entail their danger, not only for adults who want to abuse children and seek their victims, but because it has become a means in which adolescents exchange intimate photos (simulating what they see in series or in celebrities) and many end up being prey to mockery and public derision because their body moves away from the strict canons marked by fashion. Last year we were able to read in the media several cases of children who have committed suicide for this reason.
Nothing I think is more important than the role of parents and their educational and preventive work, right?
If our children have high self-esteem and self-confidence, they can face, if necessary, situations of this type with many more emotional tools. We have to understand and make our children understand, from childhood, that each person is unique and should not be framed within a stereotype. We each have our intelligence, our body and our expectations and all are equally valid. In addition, it is also important that parents assimilate the idea that gender violence is fought from childhood. We must accompany our children in a respectful way, without blackmail, without coercion, without forcing them to follow our dreams or our ideals of beauty, and without rewards or punishments because all this makes our children vulnerable to manipulation and submission.
The problem of girls' hypersexuality reveals very deep problems in our society, Elena, and only parents can protect the emotional health of our children.
Yes, Mireia, we live in a hypersexualized, hypercompetitive and violent society, violence permeates everything, even the drawings followed by the little ones. As parents, we must realize how pernicious it is for our children to be continually subjected to this bombardment of violence and submission. Let's be less competitive, let us accompany our children in their growth in a respectful way, that they develop according to their needs and without pressure, at their own pace.
Let the girls and boys enjoy their childhood without imposing adult concerns. Let them enjoy their child and adolescent sexuality, without imposing adult sexuality on them before they are prepared for it.
As we have seen, girls' hypersexualization it is a real problem, with many implications that can cause them harm, more serious than wearing or not wearing heels with five years; It is something that goes to the bottom of its construction as people, as women.
We thank Elena Mayorga the time she has dedicated to this interview with Babies and more and we promise you more thoughts on this serious matter of girls' hypersexualization and teenagers.
