This is Speaking of Teens. I’m Ann Coleman.

I watched the Brooke Shields documentary, Pretty Baby, on Hulu last week – and first of all it brought back all sorts of memories about my Calvin Klein jeans and Lionel Richie’s Endless Love…but it also brings up some very timely issues.

Brooke was in the movie, Pretty Baby, filmed in 1977 when she was 11 years old – if you don’t know the movie, she played a child prostitute, and there were a couple of flashes of nudity and she had to kiss the actor, Keith Carradine who was 27 at the time. It was very controversial. But then a few years later, her Calvin Klein jeans commercials “nothing gets between me and my Calvins” were also extremely sexualized and suggestive. Brooke talks about how she really didn’t even realize the acting she was doing in those commercials was sexual in any way – she just did what the director told her to do – said the lines in the way he said. She was put in movies by the men who made the decisions, solely because she was a stunningly beautiful girl who was the object of desire for many grown men – she was in movies like Blue Lagoon and Endless Love where her character  lost her virginity onscreen at the ages of 14 and 16.

And in the last few decades – although some things have changed a lot (I’m not sure any of those movies could be made today) - the sexualization of young girls and teenagers is just as rampant.

This week on Speaking of Teens, the sexualization of adolescent girls, how it happens, what it does to their mental health and what parents can do to change attitudes in both their girls and boys. So, don’t think for a minute because you’re a boy mom that you don’t need to listen to this. It’s the boys and men that drive this and it’s moms that are going to have to teach them.

Back in 77 when Brooke made Pretty Baby, the Women’s Liberation Movement was well under way but hadn’t settled in so well. At that time most Americans still felt it was better that men work, and women stayed home to care for the kids and the home. But by that sentiment has reversed. Now, most Americans say both men and women should work and care for the kids and the home.

Today’s girls are told they can be anything and do anything – much different from being told to “act like a lady”. But the be anything, do anything message may be getting watered down by another one – one that puts being sexy or hot above all else.

In February of this year, the CDC here in the US published a report which found that 57% of US high school girls reported experiencing “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year,” that’s up from 36% in 2011. Even more horrifying, 30% of the girls surveyed said that has seriously considered suicide and 13% attempted suicide one or more times in 2021.

The numbers were rising before the pandemic, and we know now that the pandemic exponentially increased mental health issues for young people.

It may not surprise you that girls’ mental health suffered much more during the lockdown. One survey showed that 70% of girls said they “very much” missed being around other people but only 28% of boys said the same thing.

But this huge spike in sadness and hopelessness has also, of course, been contributed to the increased use of social media – because teens were using it much more during the pandemic – girls were especially trying to meet that need of being with other people.

And if we continue following the bread crumbs and examine the reasons that additional use of social media harmed their mental health, we see that it’s because social media is a primary source (although certainly not the only source) of sexualization and objectification of women and girls.

So, what is sexualization and objectification?

The American Psychological Association formed a task force on the sexualization of girls back in 2007 and issued a report, which was expanded in 2011.

The APA says there are several components to sexualization that set it apart from healthy sexuality. Sexualization occurs when:

• a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of all other characteristics; or
• a person is held to a standard that equates a certain type of physical attractiveness with being sexy; or
• a person is sexually objectified—they’re only seen as an object for someone else’s sexual pleasure – not as a real person who can think for themselves; or
• when sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

This last one is most relevant when talking about kids – kids don’t generally have the capacity to choose to be sexualized – it’s someone else who’s attributing adult sexuality to that child in a non-age-appropriate way. Just like Brooke Shields and those Calvin Klein ads or the movies.

But many girls as they move further into adolescence – are so influenced by media and popular culture that many do begin seeing themselves only in a sexualized way – to the exclusion of everything else.

And not understanding how to interpret all of this sexualized information they receive about themselves and their bodies, and how to address it outwardly, this can easily become internalized, leading to mental health disorders. Most commonly it can lead to low self-esteem, low self-confidence, anxiety, eating disorders, depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.

The APA has found through their analysis of research studies that evidence for the sexualization of girls is of course found in all types of media from TV and movies to music videos and lyrics, sports media and clothing.

But they also note that this isn’t just a popular media problem – it’s a cultural problem and occurs through interpersonal relationships including family members and peers and it’s not getting any better.

As far as media consumption goes, we know adolescents spend most of their time on some sort of media, which has been analyzed and shown to have a high level of sexual content as well as content that disproportionately depicts women as sexual objects – researchers call this sexualizing content.

The young adult women that show up in this media are, of course, unrealistically thin, big boobs, plumped lips, tiny waist, and showing way too much skin - and this shapes what our teen girls believe about sexuality and gender roles – because the majority of kids ages 14 to 16 get their sexual information from the media.

And we’ve touched on some of these topics in the past – the horrible messages in music lyrics that degrade women and girls. I don’t have to tell you this – you’ve no doubt heard it. Sadly, it’s so commonplace that it’s no longer even surprising.

But, you know, the media we’re talking about isn’t just male-focused or male produced Seventeen Magazine and Girl’s Life for tween girls, has included more and more sexualizing content over the years.

Then there’s the clothing, the push up bras and red satin underwear marketed to 10 and 12-year-olds. Back in 2011 a study showed almost 30% of clothes on websites for preteen girls had sexualizing characteristics – stuff that people would commonly associate with being “sexy”.

Even Halloween costumes and avatars in video games have become sexier and more scantily clad over the years.  And of course, there’s the porn that filters down to our kids at younger and younger ages every year.

But adolescent girls are probably most exposed to social media content – which is filled to the brim with adolescent girls, young adult girls and women who are essentially exploiting their own sexuality in the name of “influencer stardom”. And the message they send is confusing to girls because many claim to empowered by their self-objectification.

Yes, they have all the freedom in the world to make money off how they look, but in an age where so many kids aspire to be social media influencers, maybe we should somehow try to hold these people to a higher standard for our kids’ sake. Because it’s their mental health that’s being so severely affected.

Of course, it’s not only Instagram where girls see other females making bank off their good looks. There are the paid social media platforms like Only Fans. That’s where a lot of teen girls – as young as 13 - earn extra spending money by showing their booty to men (of course they’re not supposed to be able to, but it happens). And apparently there’s a saying among some high school girls, that “only ugly girls get diplomas” referring to the fact that you can just drop out of high school at 18, set up an only fans and start getting rich off your body.

Should this really be a surprise when kids can literally follow porn stars on social media who make it look glamorous, or when the queen of social media herself, Kim Kardashian, actually got her start in a sex tape? Many teens just don’t see the down side – they’ve grown up in a world of nude selfies and porn (and social media that’s often not far from it) so Only Fans is barely a leap.

Sexualization of our girls starts really early.

A study by Dr. Christia Spears Brown with the University of Kentucky found that school-age kids could take in almost 80,000 portrayals of “sexy girls” just watching kid-targeted TV.

Other researchers examined 10 of the most popular TV shows watched by White and Latina elementary school girls in the US, they found only 38% of the characters were girls, but those characters were portrayed in sexually objectifying ways, 75% of the time.

So, girls get the message that not only are they less important in what happens on screen but when they are on screen, they’re there for only one reason – to be sexy.

Dr. Brown also showed in a more recent study that music videos are especially harmful when it comes to sexualizing and gender stereotypes. They polled 7^th graders – both boys and girls to see if they agreed or disagreed with a list of several different statements like these:

“There is nothing wrong with boys being primarily interested in a girl’s body,”

“Pretty girls should expect to be flirted with and should learn how to handle it,”

“Using her body and looks is the best way for a girl to attract a boy.”

All of the students agreed with some of these statements.

But out of the 7^th graders who had never watched music videos, only 17% agreed with more than half of the statements

Of the kids who watched between 4 to 6 hours a week of music videos, a third of them agreed with more than half the statements, and

Of the kids who watched 7 to 9 hours of music videos per week, a full 50% agreed with more than half of the statements.

That’s telling, huh? It’s pretty easy to see the correlation between watching music videos where the majority sexualize women and the sexualized attitudes of our kids towards girls.

A couple of other studies have looked at pre-teen girls and their choice of dolls to determine if they’ve internalized media’s sexualized messages. In one study girls were shown 2 different paper dolls, one dressed in a lo-cut, midriff revealing shirt and short shorts and the other in cargo pants and a sweater.

Then the girls were asked which doll they would most like to look like – 70% chose the sexualized doll. Likewise, they chose the sexualized doll when they were asked which one would be more popular.

But these researchers also studied the mothers of these girls and what they determined was that it wasn’t the amount of media the girls were consuming that was the risk factor for these sexualized self-views.

They found that it’s the combination of media exposure along with mothers who view themselves in a more sexualized manner. And we’re not talking about moms who just think they look good or walk around all dolled up all the time. No – they simply asked questions like how many times a day they worry about what their clothes look like on their body or worry about their appearance. They’re looking for moms who are hyper-concerned about what they look like.

So, they speculated that either the high media exposure was a risk factor that only materialized in sexualization for the girls if their mothers reinforced it with their own attitudes and behavior or, it was the mother’s attitudes and behaviors that predisposed them to the media influences. Either way, it was the combination that influenced the daughters.

The other side of this was that the mothers who said they watched TV and movies with their daughters and made sure to point out bad behaviors and unrealistic scenarios to them, were much less likely to have daughters that chose the sexualized doll.

And the mothers who had stronger religious beliefs had daughters (even though they still consumed a lot of media) who were less likely to choose the sexy doll – they speculated that perhaps the mothers modeled higher body-esteem.

But wait – this was interesting – the daughter of religious moms who did not allow the daughters to consume as much media, were much more likely to choose the sexy doll. The researchers assumed this is a classic case of “forbidden fruit” where overprotected kids are more likely to idealize these forbidden things.

But on the flip side, it could have been because the moms had seen their daughters self-sexualizing and then decided to restrict their media use. Either way, the authors of the study pointed out that simply restricting media consumption by our kids is not a silver bullet. It appears it’s more about teaching them to be healthy consumers of media.

One of the really interesting things about this study was that some of the girls were recruited from a local dance studio and those girls were more likely to choose the non-sexualized doll for all the questions. The researchers assumed it’s because of the higher body esteem - realizing their bodies could be used for things other than looking sexy. Something important for us to remember. And we’ll talk more about this shortly.

But going back to the TV watching with the daughters, this is something that Gigi Durham talks about in her book from 2008, The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and Five Keys to Fixing It”. Durham explains that because we can’t keep our kids in a bubble and away from all media influences, the best thing we can do is to teach them to have a critical perspective about media.

In her research with middle school girls, she found that the ones who were able to see themselves more multi-dimensionally were those with moms (or other important adults) who talked about media issues with them. She called this counter-discourse, other researchers call it co-viewing, and have found that it’s not just about the amount of media consumed by the kids that cause them to self-sexualize – it’s the ones who identify with the pop stars or characters in that media who are more at risk.

So, to counteract that, parents and other adults should view the media with their kids and critique what they see to help prevent the kid from identifying with the character or celebrity. It’s crucial for parents to point out the ways women are being used by industries that profit from this sexualization. And as I talk about all the time here, it’s your connection with your kid that will allow you that influence with them.

We’ll talk more about what we can do as parents in a minute.

Something that sort of blew me away as I was reading and researching this issue is how religious institutions, parents and schools have been called out for sexualizing girls by forcing modesty on them. I was dubious - but listen and see what you think.

The argument is that as parents, if we tell a young adolescent girl that they can’t wear something because it’s too revealing or too mature, that it’s us who is sexualizing them. We’re, in essence, telling them they’re responsible for keeping themselves under wraps because boys and men can’t be responsible for what they might do if they find a girl sexually desirable. So, the argument is that modesty is actually rooted in sexualization.

In other words, cover yourself up – you’re responsible for making men want to rape you if you don’t. You’re responsible for making sure no one around you is aroused by your body.

There are many people who say focusing so much on modesty actually makes it so we see women almost solely as sexual objects.

This of course seems paradoxical to the argument that overt sexualization seen in media is what causes objectification. But can both be true? It’s confusing but I think so.

It’s true that the concept of modesty is old as civilization itself. Women have always had to cover themselves lest they be attacked by some man or boy who cannot possibly be expected to control himself around the female form. Ancient texts are full of temptresses that men must have sex with or that lure them to their deaths.

You can read stories in all religious texts – the Bible has plenty of these stories. King David, too tempted by Bathsheba, Deliliah and Samson – lots of wayward women who were just too much for men to resist – they couldn’t help it.

It really does start to make sense when you look at the fact that it’s men who wrote the stories, men who made the rules for the various religious practices, including modesty.

So, it does seem that in trying to make the female form not solely about sexuality, we’ve actually made it all about sexuality.

If we don’t cover it up, some male might be so distracted he can’t think straight or too enticed that he can’t control himself. Is promoting modesty not just another way of saying that girls should be expected to be harassed, assaulted, or raped if they don’t hide under something?

Is modesty not teaching girls that they’re responsible for how males behave around them. If not, what is it saying?

I mean, where does the male responsibility for keeping himself in check come into this. And I’m not saying anyone should do this, but girls should be able to walk down the street half naked if they want to without fear that a guy will hurt her. After all, guys can walk down the street naked and no female is going to hurt him, right? I mean don’t we want the same freedom from harassment and harm for our girls as our boys are granted by birth right?

So, let me throw something else at you - where do school dress codes play into this? Well, let me tell ya’.

Apparently, dress codes have been around since the 50s and in the beginning were mainly used as a way to curb gangs wearing their colors at school – to prevent violence – and also to cut back on promiscuous behavior by students.

But it was President Clinton’s 1996 Presidential state of the union address where he said, “I challenge all our schools to teach character education, to teach good values and good citizenship. And if it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms.” Boom – school dress codes just got more intense. The Department of Justice actually issued guidelines for schools.

I looked at a study from 2021 about this very issue – whether dress codes have contributed to the sexualization of girls and how it differs between the genders and whether it influences girls’ self-concept.

The study found out of 50 schools in one district that all but one geared their dress codes towards controlling the behavior and clothing of the girls. The study also noted the language used in the dress codes – words like scanty, sexually suggestive and the mention of body parts like buttocks, upper thigh, cleavage.

And as the author of the study put it, these words paint a picture that “schools are trying to control the image of the female body under the belief that the female body is a distracting sexual object.” She also points out that you can see the mindset behind the school’s dress codes because 72% of them stated that it was to “eliminate and minimize distractions.” She concluded that these policies enforce implicit biases that the female body is a distracting sexual object that hinders the learning experience of students.

The 1996 Manual on School Uniforms issued by the US Department of Education after Clinton’s speech has 8 simple guidelines including getting parents involved, protecting student’s right of expression, treating school uniforms as an overall safety program – It actually stated they were trying to decrease violence among gang members and decrease theft of clothing, help identify intruders (again, they were really talking about uniforms, not just dress codes).

So, these dress codes that talk about minimizing distractions have nothing to do with the originally intended purpose of school uniforms.

And the law of course figures into this – federal law dictates that public school dress codes can’t be explicitly discriminatory. This means they can say what types of clothing are acceptable, but that can’t differ based on student’s gender, race, religion, or other protected characteristics. They can’t make girls wear only skirts or only allow girls to wear skirts or require boys but not girls to have short hair. And they can’t mandate what can be worn by whom to prom, graduation, or in yearbook photos (although they’ve done it all).

These issues are covered under Title IX, Title VI, and the US Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. And cases have been brought against school districts to enforce the law because schools sort of ignore them until they can’t any longer.

It has been shown that up to 90% of dress code violations fall on girls – and black girls are even more likely to be targeted.

And who’s looking at our young girls and judging whether or not they might distract a boy? Adults, sometime male adults? And then these girls are sent home? Is that not tantamount to slut shaming? Let’s see - let’s take an insecure 8^th grade girl, pull her out of class, send her to the office to be ridiculed and sent home, lose class time, and feel like an outcast. What adult really thinks this is a good idea?

Aren’t schools that preach social and emotional learning contradicting itself when they turn around - and as some put it “demoralize and objectify young girls by telling them their bodies must be concealed, contained and controlled.”

This is what one mom in Georgia says, whose daughter tries on different outfits the night before school to try and make sure she’s not going to be “coded” as they call it: “She was walking into school and a male administrator commented she was ‘growing and her shorts would not be legal to wear for much longer.’ How do you think it made my adolescent daughter feel that morning to walk into school and have a male adult comment on her legs and growth pattern? It’s truly sexual harassment and discrimination that’s happening in our public schools.”

Again, I’d be one of those moms pounding on the door of the school superintendent.

It’s crucial at a point when our kids are individuating, figuring out who they are, becoming their own unique person, that they be allowed to express themselves the way they see fit – as long as it stays within the bounds of public decency – and I don’t know anyone who would say spaghetti straps or a pair of shorts that fall above the tips of the fingers are indecent.

I found an Instagram post from a teenage girl using the hashtag “I am not a distraction” when it was floating around.

The pictures in her post are of herself are in jeans and a long sleeved cropped hooded sweater where the sweater came just to her waist - but with her arms down showed no belly and the other she’s in a tasteful jumpsuit that was sleeveless with straps wider than a spaghetti strap and was a good 3 inches above the top of her bra – no cleavage.

Her post reads, “Our reality. *Vulnerable post*. As a girl growing up in today’s world you would think that these outfits would be the least of our worries. Wrong. The reality is we are thrown into situations where we are told “never wear that again” “go change” “I can see your bra strap” and so forth. Above are just two out of many of the outfits we’ve been told to “throw a jacket over” or “wear a shirt under”. Not only is this the definition of double standards and body shaming but it’s also totally sexualizing us and is demoralizing. Since grade six I have been told to cover up my shoulders, bra straps, stomach, etc. (I was nine!!). It’s hard enough being a young girl going through puberty Never mind adding the fact that we’re practically being told that we should be ashamed of it?! I’ve heard all the arguments, - from teachers “you’re distracting the boys” – from boys - “you’re looking for attention” – from girls “why would you even bother wearing that, you’ll have to put on a jacket”. Same old same old. We’re told enough to be confident and to love our bodies but then we are told to hide it. We shouldn’t have to worry about if we’re going to get dress coded or if we should bring an extra pair of clothes today. Believe me, I’ve looked low and high for the policies and rules. Nowhere to be found. All we are told is to dress “school appropriate”. And that looks completely different on everyone. Yes, there are limits. Some body parts are considered sexual. But not my shoulders, stomach, legs, back or my bra. How is this okay and how is no one saying anything?

In October of 2022 the Government Accountability Office issued a report to congress and made recommendations to the Department of Education on school dress codes and it found that although schools cite safety as a reason for the dress codes, they make it less equitable and less safe for students – especially girls. The report estimated that at least 60% of dress codes require measuring students’ bodies and clothing which may involve adults touching students, which impacts girls disproportionately. It stated that these dress codes more frequently impacted clothes worn by girls and that rules about hair, hair styles and head coverings more disproportionately impact black students and those of certain religions and cultures.

Earlier this year the Office of Civil Rights said they were evaluating whether to further broach the subject with school district leaders, but I haven’t seen where that’s happened yet. So, some schools may be talking about making a change but I’m not sure anything will change without widespread protest.

So, besides protesting discriminatory dress codes, what else can parents do to help girls (and teach boys) how to deal with sexualization?

• What do we say about their clothes? Where does this leave us there? The American Psychological Association says if your daughter is wearing something that you think may be inappropriate, rather than telling her you think it’s too revealing or too sexy, ask her what she likes about the outfit and if there’s anything she doesn’t like and point out that clothes that require a lot of checking and adjusting might keep her from focusing on other things.

I don’t know – I think this is a hard one. Obviously, we want to protect our girls and at the same time, we don’t want to shame them and their choice of what to wear. Of course, in most cases the school’s just going to do that for us. But I do think we should be careful not to make them feel like they need to hide themselves. It’s obviously a fine line and one that should be openly discussed with your daughter. Let her know the predicament and how much you empathize with it – that you’ve been there.

• And earlier, we said that making sure to watch as much of the media you can with your kids or at least talk to them about what they’re watching and make sure they’re being smart consumers of that media. Ask questions that make your kids think about what they see, hear, and read about girls. Ask questions about the qualities they admire in people and if they think it’s fair that girls are under so much pressure to look a certain way.
• If you hear your son say something about a girl’s body, ask him about it out of curiosity for where that comment came from. Talk to him openly about girls who are friends of his and what qualities it is that he likes about them. Help him see girls are to be valued for more than their looks. Talk to him about Only Fans and porn and real relationships.
• Teach your daughters that they’re to be valued for more than their beauty or shape of their body or sexual appeal. Emphasize their attributes that have nothing to do with those things. Make sure they know their body can do amazing things – get them involved in track, dance, soccer – anything that requires a strong body.
• Make sure to talk about strong, intelligent, entrepreneurial, academic, and accomplished women with your kids. If you have a daughter, maybe you know someone who would be a great mentor or maybe you just saw someone in the news you could tell them about. Just make sure she knows her future is not defined by her looks and make sure he knows never to underestimate a girl.
• If you don’t want your kid to listen to certain music, watch a certain video, buy certain clothes, be sure and explain why. If you feel it’s sexualizes girls, explain it. And in some cases, if it’s media it may be better to just watch it with them so you can explain why it should be scrutinized and why your values don’t align with it. Talking about values is so important and making things forbidden, often, as we saw in the experiment we talked about earlier, can have the opposite effect.
• Find out what your school’s teaching about in sex education and make sure you’re supplementing if they’re not talking about cultural influences on sexual behaviors and decisions and what makes a healthy relationship. It’s uncomfortable but so important to our kids. I’ve recommended the book Sex, Teens and Everything in Between before but I’ll mention it here again.
• Help your kids learn not to judge anyone by their outward appearance. Be a good role model here – don’t talk about how people look – period. Show them how that doesn’t matter. And if you hear them make a remark, ask them about it. If one of your kids mentions that someone’s ugly or fat or even pretty, let that spark a conversation about other attributes they may have that no one sees. Ask them if they want the world only judging them by their outward appearance rather than what’s in their heart. Some of the best opportunities like this happen when you have a car full of kids.
• And speaking of being a role model, watch what media you consume, who you follow, what you buy, who you admire.
• Watch what you say about and how you treat your own body. Constantly putting yourself down, restricting your diet, being overly concerned about a few gray hairs or wrinkles…I’m not saying that’s wrong, but we have to watch how we talk about these things in front of our daughters especially.
• Another thing is not letting anyone else talk about your daughter’s weight or body or looks. Let family members know it’s not okay. And of course, you shouldn’t do it either. My mother used to tell me (when I probably weighed all of 100 pounds, that my pants would look nicer if I wore a panty girdle – I mean, do you even know what that is? Yeah, I didn’t either, but good God did I feel self-conscious. Not to dog my mom but she also constantly told me to apply lipstick because I looked washed out. So, please watch what you say and make sure grandma watches what she says about your daughter needing a better bra or bigger pants. Let them know in advance because by the time it comes out of their mouth it’s too late.
• Lastly, understand the difference between healthy sexual expression and forced sexualization. It’s okay if someone wants to dress to appeal to someone else as long as they don’t feel that’s what they should do. They should understand they don’t have to look or act “sexy” according to what the media dictates. Sexual expression should be age-appropriate and mutually consensual. In other words it's okay to express themselves sexually in a healthy way. Again, I recommend Sex, Teens and Everything in Between.

Let me wrap it up by saying, that you have so much more power than the media in shaping your teens’ perception of themselves. Through your emotional connection with them, you have the ability to be their biggest influence, their role model and to help them navigate the media they consume with a critical eye, to value their bodies and other people’s bodies for what’s in their heart and what they’re able to do rather than what they look like, and to make healthy choices about how they express their sexuality.

You’ve got this! If you need to see the list of how you can help, go to neurogility.com/47 and click on the transcript link and just print it out.

I hope you enjoyed the episode and will share it with a friend or leave a review on Spotify or Apple. As always, feel free to email me at acoleman@neurogility.com.

If you want to be reminded about the discipline and consequences boot camp coming out May 1^st, just download any of the free resources in the app where you’re listening, and you’ll be added to the email list. Or go to neurogility.com/waitlist.

I’ll be back here next Tuesday with more – see you then!