A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Issues like the sexualisation and abuse of children aren't humorous. They are serious. The Cotton On store declared in August that it would remove inappropriate slogan t-shirts after public pressure from around Australia and New Zealand - including comments from child development professionals, calling for the removal of the slogan t-shirts. Today in The Herald [...]
Prominent Australian author and speaker Melinda Tankard Reist recently published a collection of essays on the topics of the sexualisation of girls in Australia. This important book features articles from author Steve Biddulph, Playschool presenter Noni Hazlehurst and Generation Next speaker Julie Gale. We strongly recommend this book and invite you to leave your comments [...]
45 leading academics, doctors and psychologists from around the world have signed a research paper detailing how pictures of airbrushed (digitally enhanced) models in advertisements can cause serious harm to viewers. The report titled "The Impact of Media Images on Body Image and Behaviours: A Summary of the Scientific Evidence" summarises the research of the [...]
Helga Dittmar (2007) In this study, 87 girls aged 16-19 were asked to either watch music videos or listen to music for 10 minutes. The group who watched the music videos exhibited a significant increase in body dissatisfaction. A key piece of advice parents should take from this study is to minimise your child's exposure [...]
I often get asked questions like ‘what can I do?’ about the sexualisation of children. I think the key to change is collective grass-roots action so here are just a few ideas that may help you start your own local campaign: Ask your local video store manager to move the ‘adult only' section away from [...]
A Melbourne business marketing 'make-up parties' to girls as young as four has been slammed for sexualising children. The business offers to 'makeover' children with blush, eye liner, eye shadow and nail-paint. Kids Free 2B Kids founder and Generation Next speaker Julie Gale described the business as harming to children. "Parents need to wake up. [...]
Sexualisation is not a problem about sex and sexuality, it is about turning people into objects - which does real harm to girls in obvious ways. Self-objectification is a key process of sexualisation whereby girls learn to think of and treat their own bodies as objects of others’ desires. In self-objectification, girls internalise an observer’s [...]
New trends for girls as young as seven to make themselves fashionable and attract the attention of young boys is causing an unprecedented rise in childhood depression and anxiety levels, psychologists have warned. Dr Joe Tucci of the Australian Childhood Foundation says the exposure of children to adult concepts is damaging the children. "Kids as [...]
Psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg has blamed sexualisation for the 'sexual assault' of two six-year-old girls by their classmates. In one case in the Queensland school, a group of first-grade students reportedly removed a girl's underwear in the school toilets. The girls involved have since been removed from the school. Dr Carr-Gregg, child psychologist and Generation [...]
The Australian government has ignored a senate proposal for stricter advertising and classification laws for sexualised music videos and ads aimed at children. The proposal came from a senate committee investigating the sexualisation of children in the media, who concluded that "the inappropriate sexualisation of children in Australia is of increasing concern." On Friday the [...]
