Media and Clothing Market Influence on Adolescent Girls: Warnings for Parents

In addition to redefining common lingo, the younger generation of girls is busy generating other new norms. Adorned in T-shirts that label themselves as "hotties" and "flirts," with their headphones firmly in their ears and eyes glued to the computer screen, today's preteens are absorbing their daily diets of mainstream schooling.

As young girls seek to assert their own identities, they are inclined to look to women they admire in pursuit of lifestyles to mimic. Confronted with ambiguous age boundaries and bombarded with popular cultural icons, a sexual pandemic is spreading as fashions trickle down into their closets and cultures.¹⁴ Fueled by influential media and an overly provocative clothing market, today's young females are rocketing into adult behaviors at young ages, and multiple risks are along for the ride.

Some parents raise voices of alarm at this cultural trend of young girls growing up too fast and may seek ideas for guiding their youth to embrace standards they both can agree on. In response to expressions of public concern, the American Psychological Association formed the Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls to research the issue. The task force defined sexualization as the occurrence of one or more of four circumstances: when a person's value comes solely from his or her sexual appeal or behavior; when a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (which is narrowly defined) with being sexy; when a person is sexually objectified; or when sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.¹

While some parents express concern over these issues, some are likely to wonder why it is even an issue in the first place. Isn't it OK for their girls to be sexy and hot? Isn't it good for their daughters to be popular and attract boys 'attention? What's the big deal? Truth be told, it is a big deal because of the consequences that almost always come hand-in-hand with trying to look sexy and hot at a young age. When a girl focuses too much on her physical appearance, she places her self-esteem, emotional and physical health, academic achievement, and sexual safety on the chopping block. And one of the primary avenues she's taking to the guillotine is found in her everyday media choices.

Media

Most parents like to know who their children are hanging out with after school and on the weekends, but what company are they keeping in the privacy of their own homes? One study reported that, in a typical week, the average adolescent spends more than 40 hours with some form of mass media often more time than they spend with their parents. Additionally, many youth have access to the media within the walls of their own bedrooms. Are parents concerned with the dialogue and dirty jokes being told in locker rooms and on school buses? Well, the same study determined that through the media alone the typical American adolescent encounters between 10,000 and 15,000 sexual references, jokes, and innuendos per year.⁹

Yet another study revealed that children are spending more time with the media than with any other activity except school and sleeping.⁴¹ The APA task force considers this problematic because the media frequently portrays women as sexual objects whose physical qualities take front-seat priority. The task force's report pointed to several facets of the media that contribute to sexualization, including the Internet, movies/television, music/music videos, and literature/magazines.¹

Internet

Nearly 9 in 10 adolescents have access to the Internet, with about 75 percent of them having access at home. Most teens reported inadvertently stumbling across pornography online, often via unsolicited emails or misleading links.⁴⁷ One study reported that 12 percent of all Web sites are pornographic, 25 percent of all search engine requests are for porn, and 70 percent of adolescents have accidentally encountered pornography on the Internet. What's more, 23 percent of these youth said this happened "somewhat" or "very often".²³

Social networking sites such as Facebook encourage youth to "describe themselves" on the Internet, and some girls utilize the opportunity to pose in provocative clothing and post notices of their "sexual availability".²⁶ Chat rooms and message boards provide a medium through which youth can communicate anonymously and candidly, something that author Carol Liebau deems problematic:

Even a cursory review of teen sex message boards confirms that they aren't being used primarily for the health information that can be obtained more reliably from other sources or even provided at school, but rather for the kind of intimate advice that in an earlier day might have been solicited only in the darkest hallways of the roughest schools, if there.³¹

The privacy in which many young users are surfing through cyber world presents a dilemma because of the "unprecedented access to much more explicit sexual content" provided by mainstream media.⁸

Movies and Television

Liebau states it simply: "American young people are hearing (and seeing) a lot of sex, everyday, when they turn on the TV." And, the sexual content they are exposed to often portrays a "one-sided image of female sexuality." When and if a virgin makes an appearance on popular teen shows, abstinence is treated as the character's defining trait, impressing upon viewers that the decision is "noteworthy and unusual," while sexual activity is the "norm." One's sexual status is everybody's business, and virginity before marriage is low on the priority list.³¹ While low sexual inhibitions are portrayed as "carefree and glamorous," there is a blatant lack of depictions of risks or negative outcomes associated with such behavior.²⁷

In a study that analyzed 81 primetime television shows, 84 percent of the episodes contained at least one incident of sexual harassment, an average of 3.4 instances per program. Overall, 78 percent of the harassment focused on demeaning terms for women or on the sexualization of their bodies.²²

Yet another study determined that, in shows popular among adolescents, 20 percent contained implied or depicted intercourse and 80 percent contained talk about sex. "Sex talk" occurred in more than a quarter of all character interactions, which equates to 10-30 comments during a half-hour program.⁵⁰ The frequency with which such actions and comments occur within a 30-minute timespan is worrisome when, as mentioned previously, youth are exposing themselves to more than 40 hours of media per week.

Most acts of sexual intercourse on television and on television programming viewed by teens, result in no clear positive or negative consequences....Only about one fifth to one third of consequences mentioned on television refer to negative outcomes such as unintended pregnancy or HIV and STD contraction.⁵¹

Most of the sexual content on primetime occurs outside marital relationships, depictions of sexual consequences are rare, and gender emphasis lies on women's physical beauty and men's physical strength. In general, "typical depiction of sexual activity has been classified as recreational rather than relational".⁹ Additionally, sexual behavior among married couples is oft times presented as "boring and infrequent" in contrast with sex out of wedlock.

The Motion Picture Association of America reports that R-rated movies may contain "adult themes" and "sexually-oriented nudity," and parents are urged to "take this rating very seriously".³⁵ But according to a study of middle school students, 52 percent reported being allowed to see R-rated movies "most or all of the time".⁴² Adolescents constitute the largest demographic of moviegoers: In a typical day, 13 percent of children reported attending a movie theatre and 39 percent viewed a video or DVD (2005).⁴¹

Music and Music Videos

But even the frequency of sexual content found in shows and films takes runner-up to what's filtering in on the radio. As of a study done in 2005, sexual content appeared more frequently in adolescents' music selections than in their television or movie choices.³⁸

And accompanying these sexually explicit songs are their visually titillating cohorts on the television screen.

Eager to keep pace with an increasingly sexualized culture, young female pop stars have amped up their raciness with bare skin and bold moves in live performances that delight some and shock others.⁵²

After Britney Spears' debut album hit the pre-teen scene in the late 1990s, her debut music video was not far behind. Dancing in the hallways of a school and clad in a sexed-up and skimped-down version of the standard plaid-and-button-up ensemble, Spears paraded in her pigtails for her youthful audience's viewing pleasure. Other stars followed suit: Christina Aguilera gyrated her hips in next-to-nothing for her hit single, "Dirty,"; TLC told the world they didn't "want no scrubs" while donning red targets on specific areas of their leather-clad bodies; and Spears later hit the scene again in a sheer, diamond-encrusted body suit in "Toxic." An analysis of the last 20 years of music videos showed that the music industry frequently touts sexuality as a metamorphosis, teen artists exploit their sexuality to establish a more mature and edgier version of their former selves. The message, essentially, is that being a successful sexual object is the way to be perceived as mature and successful in the music industry.³

A few years before Spears' first video premiered, a study reported that as much as 81 percent of music videos contained sexual imagery. Women were frequently displayed in ways that emphasized their bodies, body parts, facial features, and sexual readiness. Most often, women's primary purpose in music videos is to "serve as decorative objects that dance and pose and do not play instruments".²¹

Literature and Magazines

Parents can install television filters and monitor their children's music purchases, but what about what's hitting them between the covers of their favorite books and magazines?

Magazines 'preoccupation with sex of all kinds, their question-and-answer columns referencing sexual activity at all ages, and their blasé acceptance of teen sexuality should concern parents and schools alike.³¹

A 2007 study found that adolescents ranked magazines as a more important source of information than their parents, peers, or schools. A primary allure of seeking information through literary subscriptions is the lack of embarrassment youth can avoid revealing their ignorance about sexual matters to their peers or romantic partners.⁴⁷ Many magazines contain instructions for pre-adolescent girls on how to "look sexy and get a boyfriend by losing 10 pounds and straightening their hair".¹

The primary point of many articles, text, cover lines, ads, and photographs is to attract boys' attention by looking "hot and sexy." Even articles focusing on exercise did not emphasize health or well-being; rather, the goal was to increase sexual desirability. The world of magazines is "a place where sexuality is both a means and an objective, where the pursuit of males is almost the sole focus of life. In fact, the objective of attracting males is the only objective presented it is unquestioned 'good'".¹⁷

Adolescents get plenty of information about sex in magazines targeted at their own age range, but they are often reading the magazines aimed at their mothers as well. It's disturbing, then, that these magazines (e.g. Cosmopolitan, Glamour, etc.) so freely discuss adult issues: specific sexual techniques, cheating and monogamy, and enhancing sexual appeal. Sexual information in such magazines is abundant half of all articles focus on sexual topics, but topics such as pregnancy, STDs, abortion, and childbirth are rarely mentioned. Rather, the prevalent focus of such articles is on virginity, sexual attraction, and sexual techniques.⁴⁷ Even among sports magazines, only 34 percent of the photographs of women pictured them actively engaged in a sport, versus 66 percent of photographs featuring men.¹⁸ Overall, women's magazines habitually encourage readers to attract men primarily via increasing their sexual desirability.⁹

Nearly everything girls and women are encouraged to do in the line of self-improvement is geared toward gaining the attention of men.¹

Advertisements

If you think these celebrities are your style icons, then the way they dress...is going to resonate with you as well. If a celebrity has everything in the world to choose from and they choose item A, then item A must be pretty cool.⁷

They run between the scenes of television shows and crowd the pages amid the magazine articles, so what are advertisements presenting as they so frequently permeate children's lives? In a longitudinal study that analyzed advertisements in popular women's magazines between 1955 and 2002, 40 percent of the ads featured women as decorative objects.³² Women are three times more likely than men to be dressed in a sexually provocative manner in ads.⁴⁰

Abercrombie and Fitch, a clothing store for pre-teens and teens, riles concerned parents with advertisements featuring models wearing little more than their birthday suits. One ad depicted a naked young woman in the arms of a naked young man, and another showed a young man wearing low-rise jeans positioned so far down that there was little left to the imagination. With so much focus falling on bare skin, it begs the question, where are the clothes these models are selling?¹

The message from advertisers and the mass media to girls (as eventual women) is that they should always be sexually available, always have sex on their minds, be willing to be dominated and even sexually aggressed against, and they will be gazed on as sexual objects.³⁴

Buying into Sexy

Twenty-year-old Maggie wants guys to notice what's inside, without having to reveal too much of what's outside...But is that possible?⁴⁴

According to an article that ran in Seventeen magazine in June 2004, Maggie's "unique" style consisted of wearing "Gap skirts or vintage dresses" and choosing tankinis over "skimpy bikinis." While it is commendable that Maggie's story was printed in the magazine, the article did not exactly cast her style choices in a positive light. In the words of one author, Maggie's decision was "treated as noteworthy at best and maybe even freakish".³¹

While Maggie hangs out on the "freakish" end of the spectrum," Abercrombie and Fitch is busy marketing thong underwear for 10-to-16-year-olds with slogans such as "Eye Candy," "Kiss Me," and "Wink Wink." A spokesman for the company shrugged them off as "cute and sweet".¹⁴ Both A&F and Limited Too, a pre-teen clothing chain, sell tube tops for 7-to-14-year-olds. T-shirts on the racks at Hollister, a spin-off brand of A&F, bore slogans such as "Laying Out Makes Me Hot" and "Save a Wave, Ride a Surfer".³¹ Limited Too also markets lingerie such as lacy panties and camisoles to its 7-to-14-year-old consumers.²⁸

Halloween costumes for young girls emphasize physical attractiveness (e.g. beauty queens), with any villain costumes emphasizing sexual eroticism (e.g. "Sexy Devil). And some Halloween costume producers go so far as to sell child-sized "pimp and ho" costumes.¹⁴

Skimpy outfits aren't the only products enticing teenaged consumers to crack open their piggy banks. Many perfume companies produce fragrance lines specifically aimed at young girls. As the APA task force points out, there is nothing inherently wrong with girls wanting to smell nice, but the message behind the practice does present a problem:

Advertisements for adult women's perfume overwhelmingly advertise seduction and sex appeal through the use of scent. Cosmetics and perfume are often associated specifically with the desire to be sexually attractive, a desire that seems misplaced in pre-pubescent girls.¹

Even the toy shelves are replete with opportunities to buy into sexy trends. Bratz dolls are marketed in bikinis, sitting in hot tubs, mixing drinks and standing around observing the "Boyz".²⁸ Bling Bling Barbie comes dolled up in a micro-miniskirt and plunging, navel-baring silver tank top. FAO Schwarz sells dolls clad in high heels, fishnets, garter belts, and bustier. Dolls modeled after The Pussycats, a burlesque singing group known for their revealing and highly sexualized lyrics, were marketed to 4-to-8-year-olds before protestors convinced producers to pull the line.³¹

Behavioral Risks

So what's the harm in all this? The truth is, young people have a tendency to model the characters they observe; In fact, teens who watch the most sex on television were found to be twice as likely to begin have sexual intercourse at younger ages than those who saw the least.¹³ What's more, one study found that adolescents who preferred music television had increased amounts of sexual experience during their mid-teen years.⁴⁶ A study of adolescents' four primary sources of media (television, movies, music, and magazines) found that great exposure to the four areas predicted earlier initiation of sexual intercourse.⁸

Cognitive social learning theory suggests that young people will imitate the kind of sexual behavior they see in the media, especially if the characters are seen as similar to them and as attractive and if they do not suffer negative consequences.⁹

The APA task force reported that when girls are exposed to sexual content and female objectification it can hinder their ability to form healthy sexual relationships with their marriage partners later in life:

A woman who has learned to fear negative evaluations of her body may be more focused on her partner's judgments of her than on her own desires, safety, and pleasure.¹

Healthy Sexual Attitudes

Girls need not be sheltered from the reality of their sexuality; the APA task force wrote that healthy sexuality is related to greater intimacy in marriage, higher self-esteem, low levels of stress, personal happiness, and other positive benefits.¹ Forming a sense of oneself as a sexual being is indeed a normal and healthy part of human maturation, but danger occurs when this happens too soon and is fueled by the wrong influences.⁴

When a girl moves straight from girl to woman, she's playing a role rather than gradually learning to live her own life. These girls may seem whole, but they aren't. There is often a lost girl inside.¹⁵

It is indeed appropriate for young girls to hold on to their youthful innocence, it can wear down on their "healthy and correct hesitancy" if society frequently informs them that promiscuity comes without heavy risks. And society does, indeed, frequently inform them of this. Teenagers are sent the message that it is expected and desirable for them to present themselves as sexual beings, even before they are mature enough to understand the consequences they are facing " (Liebau, 2007, p. 9). And according to socio-cultural theories, when people are exposed to media content they gradually come to cultivate or adopt beliefs about the world that coincide with the images they have been viewing or messages they have been hearing.²⁰

Teen girls are encouraged to look sexy, but they know little about what it means to be sexy.⁴⁸

Among older adolescents and young adults, satisfaction with virginity decreased as they increased their identification with sexually active characters in the media. The more they viewed these societal icons, the more they believed that the media accurately portrayed the reality of sexual behavior.⁵ And for these young women's younger sisters, the consequences may be even more drastic. The tween years area time of crucial identity formation and development of healthy sexual perceptions, but are these girls too young to distinguish reality from fiction as they feed on their media diets?

Just as the music video industry displays sexuality as the preferred avenue to maturity and success, girls now equate popularity with sexiness and view behaving in sexual ways with boys as a pathway to power.³⁹ While yesterday's culture equated domestic qualities with attractiveness, today's society equates sexiness with physical attractiveness.⁵³ In one study, are searcher examined the diaries of adolescent girls in the US over the last 100 years to discover how they discussed self-improvement. The results showed that while girls in earlier eras focused on improving their studies and polishing their manners, girls in the last 20 years almost exclusively wrote about changing their bodies and enhancing their physical appearance.¹⁰

One danger of viewing an excessive amount of sex-saturated media is a syndrome known as self objectification. Self objectification occurs when girls learn to think and treat their own bodies as objects of others' desires. When a girl becomes self-objectified, she adopts a mental "third-person perspective" of her physical self and constantly assesses her body in an effort to conform to the perceived ideal. The trap is that the near-constant monitoring of one's appearance almost always increases feelings of shame about one's body. When a self-objectified girl stands alone in a dressing room and views her own body, she imagines an audience and feels repulsion at what she sees.¹⁹ Besides lower self-esteem, another troubling effect of self objectification is the adoption of negative attitudes toward the functional aspects of the body, e.g. breastfeeding, menstruation, sweating, etc.⁴⁹

What Else is at Stake?

Multiple other risks come as tag-alongs with the behavioral risks and impeded development of a healthy sexual attitude. For example, the media teaches girls that all they have to offer is their face and body, and thus they should expend all their efforts on their appearance.¹ But chronic attention to physical appearance leaves less cognitive resources for other mental and physical activities. One study points to over-sexualization as a contributing factor to why girls drop out of higher level math classes in high school.¹⁹ The APA task force discussed evidence that sexualization contributes to impaired mental performance in college-aged women.¹ And in one particularly chilling study, researchers found that after young women were exposed to TV commercials that emphasized females' sexual attractiveness and physical beauty, they expressed less interest in career options that emphasize quantitative reasoning (e.g. math, science). The researchers concluded that sexualization "primes" lower achievement orientation among young women.¹⁶

And if sexual content in media does indeed increase sexual activity at younger ages, the physical and emotional consequences of such a trend are nothing to be ignored. The younger a female is, the more likely she is to contract an STD, twice as much at 13 years old versus 21 years old. The fact is, younger women are more biologically susceptible to certain kinds of STDs because they lack important antibodies and have immature cervical cells.¹¹ More than one million teens get pregnant every year.²⁵ Teenagers who are sexually active have more difficulty sleeping and are 6.3 times more likely to attempt suicide than their virginal peers.³⁷ Another study found an important link between body dissatisfaction and the onset of cigarette smoking among adolescent girls.⁴⁵ And the list goes on from there.

Among girls aged 11 through 17, the number one wish is to lose weight.³³ In a study of adolescent girls in Western Fiji prior to the introduction of television in the country, attractiveness was associated with a robust body shape. Identity was based not on the body but on family, community, and relationships. But three years after the introduction of televisions into Fijian homes, the girls' eating behaviors and attitudes about their bodies had shifted, and rates of eating disorders had increased.⁶

Viewing material that is sexually objectifying not only contributes to body dissatisfaction and eating disorders, but it is also a cause of lowered self-esteem and increased levels of depression.¹ When girls focus solely on their appearance they have less time to focus on other things. So without developing other talents and attributes, they lack other resources on which to center their self-esteem. A danger of lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression is that some girls seek to "self-medicate" their emptiness via sexual activity.²⁴ The emotional consequences of early sexual activity are nothing to be ignored, early sexual activity can lead to regret, apathy, shame, guilt, lack of trust, worry, and heartache.

This relative silence about the emotional side of sex is ironic, because the emotional dimension of sex is what makes it distinctively human.³⁰

Ideas for Parents

What can parents do to help their teens steer clear of these influences? Here are some suggestions:

Watch what you say
First and foremost, to alleviate this epidemic, parents and role models need to send a strong message to adolescent girls about the falsehoods portrayed in the media. Parents, through their words or actions or lack thereof, can implicitly teach girls that they agree with media's depiction of the female ideal. Either overtly or subtly, parents can express their support for movies, television shows, and advertisements that present harmful ideals to their children.

Avoid self-criticism
Remember that your children hear what you say about yourself. One study showed that girls whose mothers use "fat talk" about their own bodies were at a greater risk to develop eating disorders.³⁶ In less subtle ways, parents can cultivate within their children an unhealthy preoccupation with physical appearance in varying levels: mild (encouraged to dress up more), moderate (signing up for beauty pageants), or extreme (paying for plastic surgery).¹

Be involved in everyday life
A group of researchers concluded that young women who watch television for companionship, rather than entertainment, were more likely to accept the sex-related messages they viewed. When girls are lonely, they run the risk of treating media as a "surrogate friend." With few other sources to refer to for "sexual norms," girls can begin to adopt TV standards as their own.⁴⁹ In fact, students in one study ranked the media before their parents as a source of information about sexual topics. While these students also reported turning to their peers for advice, aren't their peers watching the same television shows they are?² The answer for parents looking to avoid this trend is simple: Be there. Children and adolescents actively select and interpret television content and assess its reality by referring to their own experiences and knowledge of the world. If they are taught to view the content as unrealistic, then the media's influence will be limited.¹²

Media effects do not occur in a vacuum, and audiences come to the media with other information and norms that influence how they interpret and apply what they find in the media.⁹

Media co-viewing
One effective technique for diffusing the messages from the television is implementing a practice known as media co-viewing. According to the APA task force, when parents actively comment on and discuss the content in shows their children are viewing, it can alter the messages their children receive.

Keep a watchful eye
While it is virtually impossible for parents to co-view and intervene with any and every form of media their daughters encounter, there are other methods of defense. Technology allows parents to block particular programs of their choice. Also, when daughters perceive that their parents have an interest in what they do, where they go, and who they're with, behavioral risks associated with media can be avoided.

Too many of us have forgotten that traditions now scorned as hopelessly retrograde, like requiring boys to come to their dates' house and meet their parents before their first date, existed for a reason.³¹

Communicate
When parents encounter a behavioral choice or sexual attitude they are opposed to, they need to actively and effectively communicate to their daughters that such actions are not acceptable. Many parents are too reluctant to criticize sexual trends or attitudes because they fear being accused of being judgmental.³¹ But active and open communication can prevent children from turning to the television or the Internet as their primary source of sexual information and body satisfaction.

A national survey found that most youth do indeed desire more information about sexual health: symptoms, testing, and treatment of STDs; birth control; how sex, personal empowerment, and happiness fit together; and how to communicate with relationship partners about sexual opinions. If teens are seeking this information in a sex-saturated world, they are going to find it, but parents can largely influence and filter what information they receive and how they receive it.⁴⁷

Online resources
Media literacy training programs such as the Girls, Women + Media Project teach girls to view media critically and aim to create "active interpreters of messages rather than passive consumers." This particular group's suggestions to girls and their parents include starting a media literacy reading and action group, trying a media diet or fast, taking control over individual and family media environment, and giving active feedback to media production companies (Girls, Women + Media Project).

A campaign launched by Dove in recent years turns a critical eye on popular media and instead emphasizes "real beauty." Their website provides multiple resources and videos to aid in promoting healthy self-esteem among young women. One video urges parents to talk to their daughters "before the beauty industry does."

Extracurricular activities
Participation in athletic activities can provide a buffer against media's narrow portrayal of female identity by focusing on physical competence over appearance. According to the task force, being a part of an athletic team not only provides a sense of identity and worth, but it also provides girls with a chance to "develop a self-concept founded on what they can do rather than on how they look".¹ One study found that sports participation was inversely related to engaging in risky sexual behavior as an adolescent.²⁹ Other extracurricular activities can also shield against risky behaviors by encouraging development of a talent and sense of self-worth unrelated to physical appearance.⁴³

Remember religion
Recognizing that religion and ethical instruction often begin within the family, the APA task force points out that parents can offer their children values alternative to those conveyed by popular culture. Not only does increased spirituality increase mental, emotional, and physical well being, it also provides an important source of identity and purpose outside of what the media says. Additionally, the sense of community provided by a religious congregation helps girls avoid loneliness if their parents are not always available, thus keeping them from turning to media for companionship.¹

Conclusion

Presented by the media with a society bent on a narrow focus of female identity, one consisting of hyper-sexual attitudes, little clothing and widespread promiscuity, young girls are taught to emulate adult behaviors sooner than their natural pace tells them to do so. Via the Internet, movies/television, music/music videos, literature/magazines, and advertisements, girls are taught to sex up their looks and tone down their inhibitions. A trip to any shopping mall reveals that such teachings are not hard to abide by clothing stores provide an array of sultry apparel in tween sizes that mimics attire worn by celebrities and adult women.

Such trends are not without numerous consequences: Multiple studies have shown that behavioral risks (e.g. early sexual activity) and impaired development of healthy sexual perceptions are common among young women exposed to over-sexualized media. Early sexual activity brings with it a basketful of complications that impact physical, emotional, and mental health. Damaged self-esteem caused by unrealistic media portrayals often results in body dissatisfaction which may lead to eating disorders, and puts girls at risk for self objectification, a condition in which they think of their bodies as objects as others' desires. Each of these consequences put girls at risk for more problems down the road, including difficulties forming healthy intimacy in marriage, reluctance to get married, and inability to cope with functional body aspects such as menstruation and breastfeeding.

There are several ways in which parents can intervene and combat the media's sexualized grip on their daughters. Among them are avoiding self-depreciating comments in front of children, being involved and physically present in children's daily lives, co-viewing media, maintaining open communication and dialogue, providing healthy sexual information, and participating in media literacy programs. Parents can also encourage participation in athletic and extracurricular activities, and provide an opportunity for girls to develop religiously and spiritually. The over-sexualized society has its talons in the shopping malls and oozes its influence through every facet of the media, but parents can and should take an active role in its influence within their home and in the lives of their daughters, because the laundry list of risks is certainly worth avoiding.

Written by Katie Hawkes, Research Assistant, and edited by Sarah Coyne and Stephen F. Duncan, professors in the School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.

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27. Kunkel, D., Cope, K., Farinola, W., Biely, E., Rollin, E., & Donnerstein, E. (2000). Sexual messages on entertainment TV in the USA. Children in the New Media Landscape, 155-158.
28. Lamb, S., & Brown, L. M. (2006). Packaging girlhood: Rescuing our daughters from marketers' schemes. New York: St. Martin's Press.
29. Lehman, S. J., & Koerner, S. S. (2004). Adolescent women's sports involvement and sexual behavior/health: A process-level investigation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 33, 443-455.
30. Lickona, T. (1994). The neglected heart. American Educator, 34-39.
31. Liebau, C. P. (2007). Prude: How the sex-obsessed culture damages girls. New York: Hachette Book Group USA.
32. Lindner, K. (2004). Images of women in general interest and fashion advertisements from 1955 to 2002. Sex Roles, 51, 409-421.
33. Maine, M. (2000). Body wars: Making peace with women's bodies. Carlsbad, CA: Gurze Books.
34. Merskin, D. (2004). Reviving Lolita? A media literacy examination of sexual portrayals of girls in fashion advertising. American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 119-129.
35. Motion Picture Association of America (2009). What do the ratings mean? Retrieved April 28, 2009.
36. Nichter, M. (2000). Fat talk: What girls and their parents say about dieting. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press.
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39. Pollett, A., & Hurwitz, P. (2004). Strip til you drop. The Nation, 20-25.
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In a world where superstars and clothing stores encourage young women to show more skin and increase their sex appeal, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands firmly on the other side of the line. As President Gordon B. Hinckley expressed, a woman who truly emanates beauty is a woman who cultivates virtue and honors the sacred nature of her body, not one who exploits it as an avenue to attention and fame.⁵

Tuning out the Media

The message from the television, magazines, the Internet, and advertisements is that "looks are everything," and being physically appealing will lead to happiness and glamorous popularity. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland points out, this constant avalanche of deception puts "immense pressure" on young women and causes them to become self-critical of their physical appearance. "In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard".⁶

Elder Robert D. Hales also believes the current trend is problematic for multiple reasons; for example, dressing and behaving in a sexually provocative manner causes young women to forfeit the companionship of the Holy Ghost. "When we dress for attention, we are not inviting the Spirit to be with us. We act differently when we are dressed for the world's attention".⁴

RememberDivine Identity

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the identity of each child of God is clearly outlined:

All human beings - male and female - are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.²

Elder Hales also points out that an unhealthy preoccupation with physical appearance shifts the attention away from the true identity of each daughter of God.

"Are we determined to be Saints in the kingdom of God, or are we more comfortable in the ways of the world? Ultimately, how we dress will greatly influence our obedience to commandments and devotion to covenants...In time our dress may even determine who our friends and associates may be, thus influencing whether we live worthy of enjoying the blessings of happiness in this world and for eternity".⁴

In the 115th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord counsels His people to "arise and shine forth" so that their light can be a "standard for the nations" (Doctrine & Covenants 115:5). Young women will be incapable of heeding this call to be an example if they are too busy trying to blend in with the rest of the world. As Sister Elaine S. Dalton taught, there is a powerful form of beauty found when a young woman recognizes her unique identity as a member of God's kingdom. "When we truly know that we are daughters of God and have an understanding of our divine nature, it will be reflected in our countenance, our appearance, and our actions".¹

Young women who have a firm grasp on their true identity will have no need to follow the fashions and whims of a decaying world, because they have a source of self-esteem and a sense of purpose separate and above what's on the television screen. There is truth found in the counsel given from Elder Hales to Sister Dalton: "When you were baptized, you stepped out of the world and into the kingdom".¹

Dressing for Success

As members of God's kingdom, young women have an obligation to heed the Lord's call and lead people to Christ. Sister Dalton stated it plainly: "We cannot lead if we are like the world." Rather than investing energy and money into physical appearance, she encouraged young women to set themselves apart from the worldby dressing in a modest fashion. As she pointed out, modesty is "an outward manifestation of an inward knowledge and commitment." The way a young woman dresses reflects her testimony and the condition of her heart.¹

The Lord's standards for modest dress are outlined clearly and simply in For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. For example, young women are told to avoid clothing that is too tight, too short, or revealing in any manner, among other guidelines. Additionally, they are instructed not to lower these standards for any occasion, whether that is a date to the prom or an outing to the beach. The pamphlet points out that being selective about what occasions do or do not warrant modesty sends a message to others that a young woman is purposefully using her body to gain attention, and that she only considers the Lord's standards important when they are convenient.³

Some young women may feel backward or old-fashioned in following the Lord's counsel in regard to modest dress, but Elder Holland lays such thoughts to rest: "In the gospel of Jesus Christ, modesty in appearance is always in fashion. Our standards are not socially negotiable".

Adanger of dressing immodestly is that the way a young woman dresses has an influence on the way she acts and the choices she makes. "Modesty is at the center of being pure and chaste, both in thought and deed".⁴ The Family Proclamation warns that the "sacred powers of procreation" are to be employed only between a husband and a wife. When a young woman dresses immodestly, she increases her chances of engaging in immoral behavior; thus, immodest dress is simply the first brick on the path to serious sin and the forfeiting of eternal blessings.

What Can We Do?

The Family Proclamation declares that parents have a "sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness;" to provide for them and teach them to observe the commandments of God. If parents fail to heed this call to action, they will be held accountable before the Lord.² According to Sister Dalton, the responsibility of teaching young women to be modest in dress, attitude, speech, and conduct belongs to the parents. Parents need not fear the judgment of the world or be concerned about their daughters' popularity when it comes to standards of modesty.

"Modesty has moral implications... By encouraging our daughters to be cute and trendy, we may unknowingly be putting them at great risk".¹

Women need to exemplify to the young women in their lives that happiness and beauty can be found without distorting bodies to fit a "universal optimum size." These young women will take the lead of the women they look up to; if they hear their mother or Mia Maid leader expressing distaste for their physical appearance, it is likely they will follow suit. Rather, these role models need to exemplify the happiness found in caring for their bodies in a healthy and appropriate manner.⁶

If strength to resist immodest trends is to be found in recognizing and remembering divine identity, then parents need to teach their daughters these eternal truths. From an early age, young women need to be reminded from whence they come and to where they are going. By presenting Gospel truths and Temple covenants as the purposes behind modesty, young women will come to view these standards as pathways to blessings rather than mere rules holding them back.

Written by Katie Hawkes, Research Assistant, and edited by Stephen F. Duncan, Professor, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.

References

1. Dalton, E. S. (2004, April). Arise and shine forth. BYU Women's Conference.
2. The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (1995, November). The family: A proclamation to the world. Ensign, 102.
3. The First Presidency. (2001). For the strength of youth: Fulfilling our duty to God. Intellectual Reserve: United States.
4. Hales, R. D. (2008, August). Modesty. Ensign,18-23.
5. Hinckley, G. B. (1988, September). Our responsibility to our young women. Ensign, 8.
6. Holland, J. R. (2005, November). To young women. Ensign, 28.