Toddlers & Tiaras: normalizing the sexualization of little girls (video clip of my TV appearance)

Posted on September 6, 2011 by elizabeth

I sincerely appreciated what Dr. Susan Linn said and especially how she insisted that dressing up our daughters in highly-sexualized outfits IS harmful to them. I had so much  more to say (surprise!), but at least I got to share my most important points. :) Your thoughts? If dressing up our daughters like hookers is OK, what ISN’T ok??

This entry was posted in TV appearances. Bookmark the permalink.
  • Tammy

    Yea, Im first!! I thought you did great…I only wish we could have heard more from you but you were gracious about it.

    Have you ever seen the “South Park” treatment of kiddie pageants? It was in the “Michael Jackson just died” episode and was pretty dang funny, but dont tell anyone I said that or I will be thrown out of the “conservative mom club”.

  • KatR

    That show is so disgusting. It’s not just the outfits, its the spray tans on a three year old and the fake teeth and the feeding kids Red Bull and candy to keep them awake when its naptime.

    I’ve seen the show a few times (it’s the ultimate car wreck tv, I’ll admit) and I always get the feeling that its the mothers trying to work out some warped need for approval or attention or SOMETHING through their daughters.

  • Jeanne

    Can we please boycott this program/network for the sake of children everywhere? It sickens me to think of who their number one viewing audience is. Remember, children never choose this–it’s always the parents (mostly the mothers) who seek this kind of thing. The way in which the girls are dressed and taught to act is disturbing enough. They use their children as a vehicle to gain admiration and prize money when in fact they are putting their daughters at risk. IT SHOULD BE TAKEN OFF THE AIR IMMEDIATELY.

  • http://mosaicsynapse.blogspot.com/ Pam

    Thank you for taking a hard stance on this. I’m against the whole little-girl-pageant phenomenon — let alone dressing them the way those poor girls were dressed. To me, this teaches little girls to get attention using their beauty and their sexuality — a message already drummed into their heads by advertising and pop culture. And you’re right — the mothers are falling down on the job pushing their daughters into those situations.

  • Handsfull

    Never seen the programme (doesn’t show out here in New Zealand) but the short clips I have seen are horrifying… the woman who started the shows is trying to start them out here as well, and there are a lot of outraged people hoping to stop her. I get the whole concept of little girls wearing pretty clothes with their hair done, parading in their finery, but imitation Dolly Partons??! At THREE?!?!?!?!!!!

  • http://www.adamshome.blogspot.com erin

    Horrifying. I am so sad & disgusted.

  • http://deodate.wordpress.com Andie

    Great job Elizabeth – wish you had more time! In my wildest imagination I cannot see how anyone could think that this is in any way healthy or good for these children. It scares me to think of what values they will grow up with. Shame on all those involved with this exploitation.

  • Tammy

    Sorry…realized I never referenced the actual topic at hand. One important factor is that I didnt have the maturity to really understand how visual males are until I was about 25 (and already married) up to that point, I must have thought it all some sort of attention-getting game. Once it was all clear to me it was as if the scales fell from my eyes. You cant force someone to have the maturity to see that issue clearly, but we grown up ladies should teach younger women to not just go around “shaking it” both for the sake of our own dignity and the (physical & emotional) chastity of the gentlemen in our midst.

    Thus, teaching little girls to “shake it” is the polar opposite of what we should model and encourage…especially since they are nowhere near having the emotional maturity to understand it all.

    wow, that makes me sound like the president of the “conservative moms club” as long as noone finds out I watch South Park

    • http://downtoearthwomen.blogspot.com Tracey

      This is not about young women shaking it. It’s about children, CHILDREN, being encouraged to act in a way that will attract a man who is already a criminal…a pedophile. It is absolutely NOT about compromising any sense of dignity of any “gentleman” you might be referring to. “GENTLEMEN” do not watch this, nor are they at risk for losing any dignity because they do not think that way to begin with. Nor are they suddenly “tempted” because a 3 year old has no idea what she is doing, whether she is dressed as Dolly Parton or dressed in normal clothes.

      • http://www.elizabethesther.com elizabeth

        Tracey: I edited your comment a bit because the tone was rather attack-ish and a wee bit unkind-ish toward Tammy. ((hugs)) I think you have a good point to make, let’s just try to remember that we’re all on the same side, here, and we are all upset about how this harms children. I don’t want this conversation to devolve into hurtful friendly fire, okie doke? Thanks for understanding and for reading. :)

  • http://www.heidijowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.com Heidi Jo

    oh elizabeth—where’s your sense of humor, it’s just a costume! halloween is coming up and i was planning on having the girls go as pam anderson, madonna (and not our Catholic version), and Lady Gaga. not good? :o ) hee hee~!

    one word: disturbing.

  • Renee

    My guess would be that these moms are trying to live vicariously through their little girls: trying to have their daughters achieve the popularity, beauty, desirability, etc. that they always wanted, but feel that they never got. How sad.

  • http://www.thecottagechild.blogspot.com the cottage child

    That is disturbing, to say the least. You did very well, though, and I’m glad they included a real mom in the discussion.

  • Eugenia

    If indeed these mothers are trying to live vicariously through there daughters, I don’t even WANT to know what that particular mother is trying to live out by dressing her little girl up as a prostitute.

  • http://mamamiamcmasters.blogspot.com/ Linda

    I agree that this is wrong. I am not shocked or surprised. In a broken world, what are we expecting? I guess I am past being shocked at things because I do not expect people without Jesus to be acting like him. I am glad that people speak out, the best thing we can do (in my opinion) is raise our kids to love and have compassion on a broken world. We need to speak to them daily about these things and why we don’t live like the world, but why we love and have compassion on the world. I would much rather talk to “Dolly’s” mom about how amazing her child is and how she is much more than a cute face or a performer. I would love to talk to my kids about the things on the inside that make them lovely and that make their friends and schoolmates lovely.

    So I agree that we live in a broken and perverted world. I’m just not sure how far criticism is going to take us. Does that make sense?

    • ARM

      Hmm. . . no, that does not really make sense, to me at least. It seems to me what we see in this clip is not just a wrong but well-intentioned choice, such as one might approach positively as you describe, but something outright indecent in the old-fashioned sense. As in, no decent person would do such behavior, and that’s about all there is to say about it. Don’t you think that’s a valuable and even necessary moral category for a society to have? If we lived in a world where that mom couldn’t even fool herself for a minute into thinking she’s doing something acceptable, that would be a good thing. Sometimes outrage is simply the appropriate response. And if anything qualifies as indecent and outrageous, this kind of abuse of tiny children surely does!

    • http://www.elizabethesther.com elizabeth

      I hear you and I can appreciate your concern. I guess I think it’s important to do both; ie. we need to speak out AND we need to live differently/teach differently. Some of us are gifted with the ability for speaking out (raises hand!) and some of us are gifted with the ability for coming alongside and mending the brokenness. Both are needed and both are important. I’m thankful for those who speak out AND for those who live differently. I’m trying to do both but I think you know which one I do better! :) Much love, EE.

      • Maggie Dee

        Thank you for this comment. As an introvert trying to live in a world where only extrovertness is praised I really appreciate the acknowledgement that all gifts are necessary. I do speak out if I have to but it does not come naturally to me at all. I am much better with the live/teach differently and the the mending of the brokenness.

        This show absolutely disgusts me. I sometimes wonder if we’ll (the human race) will ever see even partial wholeness this side of heaven. It’s kind of like the whole, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”

        Thank you for using the gifts God gave you to bring this issue out in the open.

    • http://downtoearthwomen.blogspot.com Tracey

      Nope, sorry. I’m not one to sit down and tell the mom what is already amazing about her kid, because if she can’t already see it better than I can, then nothing I am going to say is going to get her to see it.

      The problem is that this woman loves attention, obviously. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be on this show. She can’t get it herself, so she uses her kid. And she’s non-apologetic.

      Pay no attention to the attention seeker, and soon they will quit demanding your attention.

  • http://www.indiatoappleton.blogspot.com Nancy

    Wonder what percentage of that show’s viewers are p*doph*les? Seems like it plays right into their self-justifications that children are actually s*xual beings who enjoy being abused. Sorry for being so harsh, but I’m just as concerned about the show feeding someone’s sick fantasies as I am with the harm it does to little girls.

    • http://www.elizabethesther.com elizabeth

      Good point! It makes me ill to think of pedophiles watching this show. :(

  • http://FinalTouchProofreadingAndEditing.com Heidi Mann

    I am the mom of two young *boys* — not girls. I will never have to decide how to allow a little girl, or a teenaged one, to dress. Like everyone here, I’m disgusted by the “Toddlers in Tiaras” show — and, truly, by any pageantry that focuses more on what’s on the outside than what’s on the inside. But I don’t have the most effective platform from which to speak out about it.

    What I feel *I* need to do in my mother-of-sons role is to do the best I can to teach my boys how to treat and view girls/women — how to look at the inside more than the outside, how to show them respect. I do so in concrete ways: For example, I have talked with my boys about what to say when they hear a girl saying she’s fat (our 6th-grade next-door neighbor who sometimes babysits our 6-yr-old has started doing this) — to say, as they feel comfortable, something like “You’re just fine” and/or “What I really care about is how friendly you are and the things we have in common.” (I don’t know that my boys will ever REALLY say these things, but my goal is that they at least learn to view the inside of a female as more important than the outside.)

    Another example is teaching boundaries: When my youngest wants to charge at someone and hug them, or crawl all over me or the same aforementioned babysitter, I remind him that he always needs to “ask if someone wants a hug” and “get permission before you touch any part of a girl’s body”!

    I hope I can raise boys who have enough respect for girls — and for themselves — to find such pageantry as disgusting as I do. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but, Tammy, this is what *I* heard you referring to when you spoke of the dignity and chastity of boys/young men — that they, too, need to learn from early on what is and what isn’t an appropriate way to treat and value our own and others’ bodies.)

    The pedophile issue is a HUGELY valid concern for the little girls on the show, I agree, and hopefully in the course of teaching our boys respect for ALL bodies, including their own, they will have enough foundation to counter BOTH any sort of suspicious behavior toward them AND society’s pressures to objectify girls/women.

    (Sorry for going on so long.)