I’m not going to talk about the video. We’ve all seen it. Out of respect for the little girls and their right to childhood and privacy, I’m not even going to link it. I’m not going to discuss the ignorance one of the girls’ parents displayed on national tv. I think they made a bad choice, an uninformed choice, but I do not think they are bad people. Most of us have already spoken out about how we feel about girls in elementary school donning sexy costumes to perform provocative dance moves to a questionable song choice.

I’m going to talk about the concept of a child young enough to be visited by the tooth fairy is absolutely too young to be wearing fishnets and lace bra tops performing a highly sexually suggestive dance routine to a cheering and screaming audience.

I’m going to talk about that video making me have such a visceral reaction that I made a beeline for Capitol Hill two days later. Yeah, the one in Washington DC. Parents were angry. People who aren’t parents were angry. I was angry. So I channeled that into activism and took my passion for ending the sexualization of little girls and Friday morning I sat myself down in the office of my Congresswoman. Our lawmakers need to hear our voices.

I get bile in my throat when I see little girls in a manner of dress similar to sex workers. I get tears in my eyes when I see little girls move or use their bodies in sexual ways that they shouldn’t even know about yet. They are, after all, little girls. Little. Girls. Their right to a childhood should be fiercely protected. The viewing or thinking of children in a sexual way SHOULD BE TABOO. And the worse part of it all, is that many times these very children don’t understand what they are doing — that is the beast of sexualization.

Friday morning I scheduled a meeting with Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-WI) office in Washington DC to discuss a bill she co-sponsored and had just introduced in March – HR 4925 Healthy Media for Youth Act. The hope for the bill is to create a competitive grant program for media literacy and youth empowerment programs, facilitate research on how media affects youth, and to establish a National Task Force on Women and Girls in the Media.

“Children are consuming more media than ever, but unfortunately, the images they see often reinforce gender stereotypes, emphasize unrealistic body images or show women in passive roles. The need for more positive images of girls in the media is clear,” said Congresswoman Baldwin. “I’m proud to sponsor legislation that will help girls and young women see themselves in a new and stronger light,” said Baldwin, who co-chairs, with Congresswoman Capito, the Congressional Women’s Caucus Task Force on Young Women.

Encourage the House of Representatives to pass HR 4925

Though I fully support the efforts of this bill, if we have learned anything this past week after the firestorm after the dance video, it is that our very youngest girls are being sexualized and becoming victims of the media and sexualized consumer culture. It doesn’t start as tweens, it starts as toddlers. My purpose during my meeting with Rep. Baldwin was to bring attention to the harm that is coming to preschool aged girls, those too young for most of the programming this bill aims to support. I need the help for my four year old girl. Most programs don’t start until kindergarten or elementary school, and for the girls they serve those programs are wonderful. Wonderful. For the girls who are too young, I am concerned their parents don’t receive the outreach or media literacy training they need.

Girl empowerment cannot be delayed until school age or the tween years. The festering of sexualization, low self-esteem and poor body image starts during the toddler and preschool years when he sexualized toys, apparel, and media enter little girls’ lives. If you wait until our daughters are eight or ten or fourteen to teach them these lessons, then the festering has sat for the most formative years of their life. This is why we teach our children to wash their hands when they potty train – they don’t do it correctly yet, but you don’t wait until they are older and can do it right. You lay the groundwork for a time when they can. Girl empowerment has to be the same.

My suggestions to Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s office were:

• Media Literacy efforts and girl empowerment initiatives need to begin for parents and girls at a preschool level.

• Media Literacy efforts and girl empowerment initiatives should be made available to girls who are preliterate and therefore most vulnerable to sexualized imagery. Images and pictures are a child’s first language.

• Young children’s toys and media characters need to fit within guidelines that limit the violence and sexual stereotypes and sexual content conveyed to the young consumers who use them.

• Groups that serve girls before they reach the ages of school and extracurricular programs need to be funded and supported in order to empower our youngest of girls so that these are messages the girls are raised with, as opposed to introduced to sometime during their elementary years.

My dialog with Rep. Baldwin’s office will continue and I will keep you appraised when updates occur. What you can do until that time is contact your state’s Representatives and encourage them to endorse the bill. A phone call, a letter, an email – heartfelt and concise, asking for protection for our daughters of ALL ages. Turn that disgust and upset and disapproval and concern and anger that you felt into action. Make a change for our girls.

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