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May 17, 2005
About what I think, too
Are you familiar with the Bratz series of dolls? If not, good for you.
Normally I don't write about this type of thing but yesterday I saw an article in my morning paper that struck me. It was originally in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and it's about the increasing sexualization of children
With their made-up eyes, pouty lips and short skirts, these girls look like real party dolls.
In fact, they are dolls. They're the Bratz, the 10-inch "girls with a passion for fashion" whose skyrocketing popularity among young girls has ignited a marketing war with Barbie, the long-reigning queen of the fashion doll world. Compared with the flirtatious-looking Bratz, Barbie looks like the scrub-cheeked -- albeit curvaceous -- girl-next-door.As thousands of girls dump Barbie for the Bratz, child development experts worry. They see the Bratz as the cutting edge of a worrisome trend: the increasing use of sexual imagery in products marketed to young children.
They call it the "sexualization of childhood" and point to other examples: thong underwear emblazoned with sexually suggestive phrases for 6-year-old girls; "pimp" Halloween costumes for little boys; the increasingly sexually explicit content of TV shows, movies, and music CDs.
About what I've been thinking, too. And it is most decidedly not a good thing.
Posted by Tom at May 17, 2005 8:02 AM
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