The Watchful Eye Newsletter

Mid-February, 2011
Mary Bailey, Editor
the watchfuleye@rcn.com

Evidence Even a Skeptic Might Embrace

By Mary Bailey

Is there objective, scientific proof that being sexualized by the media harms the young? One side of the argument claims it seriously affects their development, while the other remains skeptical. On our part, we have reported studies “proving” harm which we believe to be reasonable and accurate; but we also realize those studies were conducted on a small scale and await replication. Other research has passed the test of time and merits wider recognition. Below are summaries of three such reports we’ve covered at greater length in earlier issues, one each from the social sciences, statistical analysis, and neuroscience:

Sexualized girls¹

The American Psychological Association’s 2007 report, “The Sexualization of Girls,” was the initial inspiration for our Sexualization of Youth Project. It summarized a large number (approximately 430) of “the best psychological theory, research, and clinical experiences” available on the cultural sexualization of girls. Sexualization, the APA said, involves valuing girls solely on appearance, equating their physical attractiveness with sexiness, making them into things for others’ sexual use, and inappropriately imposing sexuality upon them. And the engines of sexualization, it said, are the current culture, a girl’s family, teachers and peers, and even the girl herself in a process of identification called “self-sexualization.”

As a result, the APA found, sexualizing girls in their formative years limits their future options by sidetracking their interest in schoolwork and affects their health by discouraging involvement in sports. Most tragic of all, being sexualized interferes with a major task of adolescence – girls’ ability to develop their own identities.

Social scientists rely heavily on correlation, demographics, and case studies. But even when their findings are as compelling as are those of the APA, skeptics may dismiss such research under the rubric “correlation is not causation” and consider case studies anecdotal and “soft.” What these skeptics demand is absolute proof that our culture seriously sexualizes young people and affects their behavior. But absolute proof is a standard difficult to reach when addressing a problem as complex as cultural sexualization, as scientists warning of climate change or depleting natural resources know full well.

Desensitized soldiers²

Skeptics may more readily accept statistical evidence that cultural pressure can dramatically change behavior, especially if compiled by such a non-soft institution as the U.S. Army. When the military finds that programs of desensitization can undermine a person’s sense of right and wrong, that’s worth paying attention to. In “How We Decide,” Jonah Lehrer describes a series of inquiries into young soldiers’ moral emotions under wartime conditions. Based on the research of Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall, Lehrer relates that during World War II less than 20 percent of the thousands of soldiers surveyed right after they’d been in combat had shot at the enemy. “At the most vital point of battle,” Marshall reported, “the soldier becomes a conscientious objector.”

In alarm, the Army began training its recruits in simulated killing, drilling them until they were desensitized to the act and able to shoot instantly and reflexively. So, by the time of the Korean War, 55 percent of combat soldiers were firing their weapons. Later still, in Vietnam, the figure of those who automatically fired at the enemy reached almost 90 percent. But what about today, I asked a man with a recent stint in the Army. Is this an accurate picture of military training? “That is quite fair,” he wrote back. “In fact, my memory is that the drill to kill is intense. So intense that perhaps the intensity, rather than the passage of time, is the issue. Trainees are taught they are ‘already dead,’ thus eliminating fear of death, so they could fire their weapon effectively.”

Considering that a few weeks of training can undermine a young soldier’s moral misgivings about killing others, think what our mainstream culture’s ceaseless drumming of sexualizing messages is doing to young people. As the APA outlined, girls are being acculturated to view themselves primarily as sexual objects. However, I suspect that what our current culture is doing to boys is equally ominous, for boys are getting their sexual education straight from the “Internet” (shorthand for video games, cable movies, pornography, sexting, etc.) with little in the way of gate-keeping.

Mapped brains³

There will be skeptics who demand absolute certainty beyond even such outstanding numerical proof as General Marshall provides. They want hard, physical evidence that a steady diet of “Internet” sex meaningfully alters behavior. They want to know exactly how sexual saturation by the media or one’s peers can biologically shape a youth’s attitude and behavior. Brain-scanning offers the kind of evidence that skeptics have long demanded. In the past 15 or 20 years, neuroscientists have been busy mapping the parts of the brain and tracing their functions and development. In the process they have come upon two totally unexpected findings:

One, the human brain doesn’t stop growing in childhood as believed, but continues to develop until age 25 or so when the newest part of the brain – the prefrontal cortex, the center of judgment and self-regulation – finishes maturing. This means that girls and boys are being steeped in sexual imagery long before they reach the stage where they can handle it. For girls, the encounter is largely through advertising, entertainment, and fashion magazines, where women and girls are presented as glamorous sex objects. Such blandishments are hard to resist, especially for those under 30 who have never known anything else.

And two, the brain is “plastic,” meaning it continues to rewire itself based on what a person thinks and does. Take, for example, the boy who practices pitching a baseball, giving it his repeated and focused attention so that all other distractions disappear. The areas of his brain that control ball-throwing will enlarge and his pitching will become more proficient. Even if the boy only imagines pitching the ball, but does it often and seriously enough, his brain will be affected as though he were actually executing a pitch. Now, shifting gears, consider the situation of the adolescent boy who is giving his focused and repeated attention to the female-objectifying and frequently demeaning sex found on the “Internet.” Eventually such a practice will crowd out other, more romantic approaches to sex as his brain builds a sexual repertoire that may last a lifetime.

Not just a warning

So when we see teen and even younger girls wearing sexy clothes, hear of boys asking girls to behave like porn stars or hosting parties modeled on online porn games, and read that boys as young as eleven are getting their sexual education from the Internet, it’s time to realize that the above research may not be just a warning for the future but a description of what is already taking place. The disturbing truth is that our culture is close to accepting the modeling of objectified girls and predatory boys without fully considering the result. Let us not let our skeptical selves decide that nothing is going on here that’s worthy of our attention. As with climate change and diminishing resources, if we wait until the very last bit of evidence is confirmed, we may find that it comes too late.

¹For the full 65-page APA report, go to www.apa.org. 7-page summary

²“Numbed to the Pain of Others”

³“This is Our Brain in Adolescence”

On Ridicule

By Jill Niebrugge-Brantley

In January 2011, The Washington Post ran several articles on a new MTV series called Skins, adapted from British television and purporting to show how teenagers really live. The series was universally panned, including by the Post critic. But despite this unanimity of critical opinion, Post television columnist Lisa de Moraes poked fun at the efforts of the Los Angeles-based Parents Television Council to bring a lawsuit against MTV for producing child porn: “Before the show even debuted,” wrote Moraes, “PTC had already crowned Skins the ‘most dangerous program that has ever been foisted on your children,’ which has to have boosted the teen ratings for the premiere by at least 5 percent” (Moraes, January 20, 2011). What one saw in the Moraes coverage of Skins was that ridiculing the show was all right; but attempting legal action against the show was in the literal meaning of the word “ridiculous.”

This episode may be taken as illustrative of a problem facing people concerned about the sexual objectification of girls and its effect on boys: Even when their target is almost universally deplored, they still find themselves ridiculed. And ridicule is not to be taken lightly. Community activist and strategist Saul Alinsky gives as his fifth rule of effective protest: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

Evaluating the worth of this advice, one has to consider briefly the gender bias. Is ridicule an equally effective weapon for men and women? Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood has asked men why they feel threatened by women and women why they feel threatened by men. Men answered, “We are afraid women will laugh at us”; women answered, “We are afraid of being killed.” Women and men may relate to ridicule differently and it may be more effective as a man’s weapon.

Nevertheless, it is possible that ridicule is a way for people who oppose the sexual objectification of girls to “fight fire with fire.” Perhaps we need to deplore less and laugh more. Can we think about how to make our opponents ridiculous?

Ms. tried it in the early days with its “No Comment” last page; perhaps we need something like that but instead of no comment, a comment that packs a punch.

Sightings

Let's hope she's right. " 'I am about to embark on a great adventure,' says the hero, tucking a Colt revolver into a flour sack, donning a wide-brimmed Stetson and riding out into the wilderness on the trail of a killer. Smart, stoic and purposeful, this avenger is a stock western movie protagonist in every way but one – Mattie Ross, the central character in the new film 'True Grit,' is a 14-year-old girl." In reviewing the film for the Los Angeles Times, Rebecca Keegan contrasts it with Hollywood's usual descriptions of teen girls as "vapid ('Mean Girls'), angst-ridden ('Twilight'), pregnant ('Juno') or merely decorative ('Spider-Man')." Along with "Winter's Bones," Keegan sees "True Grit" as the start of a trend in which teen girls and young women infiltrate male-only film preserves. "The culture is moving," she says, "from a sexed-up, dumbed-down model of female adolescence to one marked by smarts, strength and scrap." (LA Times, 1-09-11)
Because he could. In the 1930s, Gen. Douglas MacArthur installed a 16-year-old girl in a DC hotel on Sixteenth Street, according to historian Geoffrey Perret. When a journalist started asking questions, MacArthur ordered his aide, Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower, to get her out of town. (Wash Post, 1-09-11)
Will this work? "A recent study shows the film industry is still stuck on portraying females as eye candy," reports the (NJ) Star-Ledger. The Annenberg School study of 122 films specifically aimed at kids (rated G, PG, and PG-13) over the past 20 years found, among other effects, that 24 percent of females were depicted in sexualized attire versus 4 percent of males, with no progress noted during that span of time. Yet, said co-author Stacy Smith, "what children see affects their attitudes toward male and female roles in society. And, as they watch the same shows and movies repeatedly, negative stereotypes are imprinted over and over again." The study was commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media (Davis is an Academy Award-winning actress and star of "Thelma and Louise" and "Commander-in-Chief.") According to the institute's executive director Madeline Di Nonno, the report does not provide the titles of the erring films or criticize their content. Instead, the institute plans to use its statistics to increase Hollywood's awareness of gender stereotypes and ask it to "keep this information Sightingsin mind when writing a script, and if there's an opportunity to add more female characters or do something of interest other than being on the side, please do so." (Star-Ledger, 1-18-11)
Super Bowl 2011. It's an annual event – not the game, but the trafficking of children as young as 11 for often-inebriated, game-going men who pay for sex with them. These children have a life expectancy of just seven years from the first time they're trafficked, estimates the Texas Attorney General. Anti-trafficking groups have repeatedly offered to educate the public about the dangers of child trafficking. This year, Traffick911 developed a "I'm Not Buying It" campaign with free public service announcements, posters, banners, and informational cards alerting the public that children are being abused and raped. But the Super Bowl Host Committee refused to display them at the February 6 game. (Change.org, 1-17-11) One PSA featured Dallas Cowboy nose tackle Jay Ratliff, saying, "As a man, and as the father of two beautiful girls, I'm not buying it – and neither should you. If you're one of these men buying these young girls, I'm telling you real men don't buy children. They don't buy sex." (NBC Local Media, 1-31-11)
Selling anti-aging to tweens. If a girl is between 8 and 12 years old, it's time to start using anti-aging cosmetics, says Wal-Mart. Under the brand name "Geo-Girl," Wal-Mart's new line provides 69 cosmetic products, from exfoliators to mascara. And it uses texting lingo, with names such as "GR8" (great, get it?) for lipshine, to appeal to the technically knowledgeable young. On the contrary, Dr. Logan Levkoff told ABC's "Good Morning America," it's more likely to appeal to a girl's concern with her outward appearance, "We are raising another generation of girls who kind of measure their self-worth based on what's on the outside," she said. Wal-Mart argues it's not the first to sell makeup for tween-aged girls but, ABC News notes, it's "the first geared towards stopping aging." Geo-Girl will hit the Wal-Mart shelves February 21, with prices ranging from $3.99 to $5.99. (abcactionnews.com, 1-28-11) To deflect attention from the fact that it's selling youth to the young and also to gain our approval, Wal-Mart emphasizes that its products are made from natural ingredients like willow bark and come in recyclable packaging.

This newsletter does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Organization for Women

The Watchful Eye thanks Richard McMurry for his original drawings for our newsletter. In addition to computer graphics, Richard does landscape paintings in oil and acrylic. Also of note to Montgomery County NOW members, Richard is chapter member Fran Porter's son.