Posts Tagged ‘media literacy’

Walk with me, now, and see the forest through the trees.

The JC Penney T-shirt Gate is actually not about a t-shirt. Kind of like the Holy Roman Empire being neither holy nor Roman. Confusing, I know.

This entire viral uproar is over parents and other concerned individuals being sick and tired of  the pervasive message marketed everywhere to our daughters that being pretty and obsessed with boys and shopping (maybe cupcakes and puppies as Anderson Cooper points out) is what being a girl is all about. It has come to define girlhood, and nearly every product made for them. Walk through any clothing department or toy aisle — what messages do you see for girls? What messages do you see for boys? It is gender apartheid, and our daugthers ended up with the short end of the stick.

I call bullshit. While JC Penney took one shirt down, as I said on Tuesday night, they’ve got another dozen that continue to sell girls short. A JC Penney juniors buyer purchased these shirts, in dozens of styles, from a manufacturer; another employee wrote the offensive and sexist online product descriptions. This doesn’t seem to be a one-time mistake. This seems to be a pattern of selling girls short. I don’t see the funny.

Pigtail Pals has been here since 2009 fighting to put better products and messages in the marketplace for girls. We’ve been blogging and directing an amazing Parent Community to fight for our kids. And we’re not about to change our message. 

We created a tee in direct response to the garbage at JC Penney. It is selling like wildfire. And it ought to, because pretty’s got nothing to do with it.

I’d like to see the media focus on THIS tee, instead of the one at JC Penney. We need to change the way we think about our girls.

Pigtail Pals new tee, available on eight colors 3T - Ladies.

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I also want to set the the record straight for clothing label Self Esteem, owned by All Access Apparel, who unfortunately was brought into this by media and bloggers who did not check their facts. The LA clothing company Self Esteem is NOT the manufacturer of the tees in question.

Unfortunately, no one at Self Esteem was ever contacted to confirm that they indeed were the manufacturer of the T-shirt. The company was associated with the shirt because they were grouped on the JCPenney website where the ‘Too Pretty’ shirt was displayed.

“This huge oversight on the part of the media and concerned mothers has caused our company’s name to be defamed not only with one of our largest customers, JCPenney, but with our entire customer base,” said President of Self Esteem Richard Clareman. “We have always and will continue to promote positive messages to young girls.”

Tomorrow I send my child to her first day of school. Her first day of kindergarten. Her first day of formal education in a public school with years and years and years of learning to follow.

So I’ll ask you kindly to get out of her way, JC Penney. You too, Orbeez and Skechers. Mattel and your Monster High, we’ve already had words.

My daughter will not be sent to school with the message from her parents that she is inadequate. She will not be taught that she is incapable of learning, and mastering, what is taught to her at school. She will not be treated as though she were delicate. Tea cups are delicate, girls are not. She will not be encouraged, at the tender age of five, to be “flirty” or “sugarlicious”. Over my dead body will I give her the message that her beauty is her worth, or that at the age of five, she should be sexually objectifying herself. I take great issue with that notion, and it burns me to the core.

So this crap? Will NOT be coming into my home. Will NOT be poisoning my daughter’s self-image. Will NOT be teaching my son to sell girls short.  Stop selling shitty messages to my kids.

Exhibit A: JC Penney ‘self-esteem’ tee Too Pretty to do Homework

JC Penny thinks girls are too pretty to do homework.

Despite the direct contradiction to their charity Pennies From Heaven, this shirt teaches girls to expect very little from themselves, that their looks supercede their intellect, and that ‘being pretty’ will get you by. Pretty’s got nothing to do with school. Oh, and that little notion that the academic work should be left to the boys. In 2011, we are teaching the grand daughters of the Women’s Lib movement to forsake their education and have their looks be their main focus.

You can petition JC Penney and their shitty shirt right HERE. Even if they pull this shirt, they’ve got another dozen just like it.

So don’t buy it, right? It is just one shirt. Right?

Wrong. WRONG.

It is the culture of consumer beauty and self-objectified sex surrounding our girls that drips right off a script page from a Kardashian-esque reality tv show. The message that beauty and sexiness measure a woman’s worth, and that one can never be too young to focus on these things.

Exhibit B: Orbeez Soothing Spa with magic rainbow de-stressing beads, for that stressed-out 11yo in your life. Because, OMG, school is just like soooooo freaking hard! You can watch the commercial HERE.

Orbeez wants you to know that school is hard!

Orbeez wants you to know that foot spas help your hurting brain from all that learning!

Who needs hard things, like learning, when you can relax at the spa and work on your pretty. How I went through my entire girlhood in the absense of spa products and services usually reserved for adult women of a certain income and lifestyle, I’ll never know.

Learning hurts! Pretty is fun!

Exhibit C: Mattel Monster High Monster Mash backpack …because prostitute-chic NEVER goes out of style for the under-10 set, and when sending our daughters to school, who doesn’t want them to aim to be a Hollywood Boulevard hooker?

Now your favorite friendly prostitutes can go with you to school! Whee!

I like the sparkle. Don't like sexual innuendo on my little daughter's feet.

Pre-schoolers and Gradschoolers do NOT need to be 'flirty'.

Anyhoo….let’s change the way we think about our girls. Let’s do better. They deserve it.

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Update: Make sure to check out our NEW TEE created in response to the JC Penney tee. It is selling like wildfire! Let’s all build girls up, not sell them short.

Pigtail Pals created a new tee, availabe in eight colors sizes 3T - Ladies.

The child may be beautiful. The photographs are certainly done with a keen eye for art and fashion.

She is so young, so baby faced and clearly pre-pubescent, that it feels awkward to consider the idea that these photos carry a sexual innuendo because we know we are looking at a very young girl.                                                  

Yet they do. Implied nudityand fetishized props and sultry, “Come hither” stares, arched backs, slightly parted lips or fingers playfully, suggestively around the mouth…..

We’re talking about a 10 year old girl. A child, ten years of age. Not old enough to babysit, but apparently old enough to be posed in photos so ripe with sexual innuedo it drips off of the page with a stank.

Sexual innuendo has no place near a 10 year girl, regardless of if she is wearing high fashion or the photographer is famous or that she is French and was posing for a French fashion magazine.  I’m not sure this can be considered “art”, as I think art loses it’s integrity at the expense of an exploited child.

None of this would come naturally to the little girl, she is being coached by the photographer to pose this way. She is being taught how to project adult sexuality. She is being coached to become an object of sexual fantasy. She is being sexualized. She has been shot this way many times, which tells me neither her parents nor her agent have an issue with the photographs they are signing off on.

She is losing her childhood, and the cultural acceptance of this actually consumes so many little girls and parts of their girlhood it has become a national health crisis. The issue isn’t just about Thylane, the girl you see above, or even her mother who was only upset over the expense of a necklace the child wore and begrudgingly shut down the child’s facebook and tumblr pages. The issue here is ALL girls. There seems to be a rush for our daughters to grow up, to become little women. Sexy little women. Their natural born right to be a child is being interrupted by apathetic adults.

There seems to be something about certain parents, who live vicariously through the youth and vibrant beauty of these little, amazing girl creatures. They find it acceptable to sexualize their little girls, make dozens of excuses for it, but then lash out at the criticism by those who know how very dangerous this is.  Dangerous both for the child’s self-worth directly receiving these age-inappropriate messages, and to girls everywhere who have had one more peg of taboo slide out; a taboo meant to protect them from what should be a universal truth that little girls are not sex objects nor sex partners.

We are losing our girls to sexualization as parents permit toys that look like hookers, magazines that eat up starving young models, celebrities to act as role models, and corporations and media who profit off of the whole mess by making it extremely difficult for parents to afford or find better choices. And those are just the girls lucky enough to be born in America. In other parts of the world they are turned into brides and prostitutes as young as the age of five.

Young Thylane and her mother are just a symptom of the problem. The problem, you see, is that there continues to be a market for sexualized little girls.

I fear there always will be. Until parents start to do better, and demand better for our daughters, our little girls will continue to get lost. I just wonder, can we get them back?

Amelia says Good Morning.

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Update: As I type this, on Sept 15, this post has 412,00 views. I hope that means 412,000 people choosing to live their awesome.

With all the fanfare, since Pigtail Pals is a tshirt company for kids…..we made up some tshirts full of awesome. I hope you like them.

You can buy them HERE. 3 designs, 10 colors, sizes infant – adult.

If you are a parent who shops at any big box store, you know that most children’s items are gendered, right down to building blocks, baby rattles, sippy cups, diapers, and toothpaste. And hangers! Don’t forget your pink or blue hangers. Why can’t we have rainbow hangers?

Sure you could pick the Spiderman toothpaste for your daughter, or pink hangers for your son, but that is not how they are marketed to our families. Kids take in thousands of advertisements every year. Even if your family does not watch tv commercials, kids receive these messages through color coding of packages and social interactions. Has your daughter ever been handed the Batman sticker at the doctor’s office? Has your son ever been called Prince right after your daughter was greeted with a ”Hi Princess!”? Has your daughter ever been greeted with “Hey All Star!”? Do they ever have robot underwear for girls, or butterflies for boys? Our children are growing up in a highly gendered marketplace.

If you have a preschooler, then you’ve surely heard your kiddo come hopping home from school saying “Such-and-such is for boys” or “Pink is for girls”. As gender permanence happens at this age, those are normal statements for your small person to make. They are trying to figure out what it means to be a boy or girl, and the parameters that define such. The problem is, if we let those statements go unchallenged, if we let them get these ideas from marketers, they’ll be forming very limited and stereotyped versions of boyhood and girlhood. I do not believe in limiting our children. And who doesn’t love a lively debate with a three year old?

Let’s take a look….. 

Clearly, items are marketed as being for boys or girls.

Despite the fact that a lunch bag or ride-on car would be used the exact same way by a boy or a girl, our choices are very clearly gender coded.

Start to notice that girls are rarely depicted *doing* anything. In fact, many times we won’t even see an actual girl on an item, instead she has been turned into hearts, rainbows, flowers, tiaras, and ballet slippers. Here we have a princess frog on the girls’ lunch bag. On the boys’ bag is a dirt bike riding dare devil. Girls are delicate and sit still on lily pads, Boys are FULL OF ADVENTURE!

Girls are delicate, Boys are FULL OF ADVENTURE!

If you read the captions for these toy catalog photos, the most adventurous thing a girl is doing is watering flowers (“Let me help you garden, Dad!”), but only as an assistant to her watchful father. I think the playhouse is good, and I love me a good tutu, but couldn’t there be a girl knight? Couldn’t two boys be gardening and a girl be the fire fighter? A tutu-wearing female knight?

Of course the answer to all of these questions is yes, but we very rarely see children’s items marketed this way. Marketers help shape our ideas about products, what we think about people who use those products, and how we think people would use them. And all of these messages are limiting our children.

Remember when childhood was just childhood, it is didn’t seem to matter so much if you were a boy or a girl? We got away from that once companies figured out how much money could be made selling families two different versions of childhood. Pink and blue. A family like mine, raising a boy and girl, would be encouraged to buy twice as many things…from baby gear and clothing, to toys and by goodness, the very mattress they lay their sweet little head on at night (photo below).

Take a look at the backpacks and the back-to-school clothes pictures below. What messages are girls getting? What messages are boys getting? What messages are they getting about each other?

Don’t underestimate how powerful those messages can be, even as subtle as they may seem. I don’t think a Tinker Bell lunch bag is going to undo civilization. But what if it is a Tink bag, and a Princess backpack, and a less active/more delicate childhood, and clothing that delivers a message a girl’s chief concern in life is to be sweet and pretty…….it becomes a definition of girlhood, the only version available. Some parents search for alternatives likePigtail Pals, but for others it is a matter of seeing the forest through the trees and realizing we’ve got some problems when it comes to how our culture is defining girlhood.

Pink isn’t the problem. Tutus aren’t the problem. Tiaras aren’t the problem. Limitation – both in action and in thought, is the problem. A big one.

Let’s change the way we thing about our girls.

School supplies and clothes: Pick boy or girl

Because gender coding is important while you sleep.

The most fun I’ve ever had grocery shopping was when my daughter was just over two years old, my son three months old, and my daughter shimmied out of her sundress and I had to chase her little diapered, sprinting bottom down the cracker aisle and around the corner into the cereal aisle, all the while holding my breasts so they wouldn’t leak as my newborn shrieked two aisles over. Good times.

You know what is also fun? Trying to make it through the aisles in the grocery store without one of those precious “teachable moments” parents get thrown in their laps every five minutes because of our marketing-saturated culture. My family needs bananas. Thus, we buy bananas. In fact, on many a grocery run it looks as though I might be raising chimps by the number of bananas I purchase. But this spring, when the bananas were sporting stickers for the new “Rio” movie (that we loved) I got a little annoyed. I miss the days when a banana was just a banana. For the record, I also miss the days when ballparks had real names and weren’t carrying the titles of banks or telecom giants.

Back to the bananas. My kids spent a good five minutes searching through all the fruit, picking out only the ones with stickers of the “Rio” characters.

“Guys, we need to buy bananas by the bunch. We can’t pull them apart and pick and choose ones with stickers.” -Me

“But Mom! I want the one with Rio and Benny wants the one with Jewel and we both want the dog.” – Amelia (5yo)

“Amelia, we buy bananas because they are healthy food to eat, not because they have stickers. Please choose two bunches, and let’s finish our list.” -Me

Things are usually pretty smooth at the grocery store, until Aisle 7. The freaking fruit chews are in Aisle 7, across from the craptastic sugar-loaded cereals we never buy. Fruit chews are my nemesis. We very rarely buy them, but there are boxes that sport the kids’ favorite characters: Penguins of Madagascar and Spiderman.

“MOM! Mom. Mom? Can we det the Fiderman frwuit zoos?” -Benny (3yo)

“Buddy! Look! You found Spiderman at the store. But you know, fruit chews aren’t good for our teeth.” -Me

“But but but I want dem.” -Benny

“I can tell that you want them. But we are working so hard for no cavities, and fruit chews give us cavities by leaving junk in our teeth.” -Me

“But I want dem.” – Benny

“How ’bout we finish up here, and when we get home we’ll color our Spiderman book?” -Me

“Otay.” -Benny

That round played out neatly. Sometimes it can get pretty hairy, and I use distractions like racing to the pickles or throwing something shiny on the floor.

And then there is Amelia, lobbying for her box…

“Mom, we can get these because it says Vitamin C on the box.” -Amelia

“Do you want the fruit chews because they taste good, or because of the cartoon you see on the box?” -Me

“Welllll……” -Amelia

“I know they look fun because of the Penguins on the box and we love that show, but these are not healthy for us, and we can get Vitamin C from other foods that are more healthy.” -Me

So what’s the best way to survive a trip to the store, with movie and cartoon characters jumping out at your kids, usually found on “food” that really isn’t food, luring those little kiddies into the purchase? Why you grab up that media literacy “teachable moment” and have them question why they want it. Question everything.

Depending on the age of your child, you can ask questions related to health or marketing and see if they understand why the cartoons are on the food.

~”Is that a food we normally buy? Do you think that is a healthy choice for our family?”

~”Why do you think the people who make that cereal want to get kids to buy it?”

~”Do you think Spiderman eats these fruit chews, or do they just use his picture on the box?”

~”You’re right, those are Disney Princesses on the grapes. Do princesses eat grapes? We eat grapes because they are a healthy fruit for us.”

Image from blogs.longwood.edu/brittanyclaud

So after fifteen aisles of shopping fun, more enjoyment awaits at the checkout lane. If you have a kid that can read, headlines like “Too FAT for her lover” and “25 Sex Tips That Will Blow His Mind” await you. With girls entering puberty earlier than their generation of mothers did, and our pornified culture, we need to start talking about body image and sex much earlier than we might remember learning. This is best done with a bunch of little talks, not one big “birds and bees talk” that looms over our heads sometime around puberty. Same goes for body image – it is hundreds of little conversations or statements made over the course of childhood, laying a foundation for how your children will think and react to information that comes later. And you know? You just can’t hide from it.

In fact, when our kids ask us questions about sex,  they give us a really awesome opportunity to give them accurate, safe information about something that will be a part of their lives forever. I’d rather my kids learn from me than another child whose information and family values might be far different from mine. Amelia knows that babies grow inside of moms, and the two ways babies come out. She has watched nature videos where animals give birth. She always wanted to know how they came out, but not until last week did she ask how they got in.

My sister-in-law and best friend just announced they are expecting early next year. Hooray for babies! But wait! The 5yo wants to know how the babies got in there. Well, I started off with, “Uncle Eric and Auntie Lisa waited until it was the right time and made sure Auntie Lisa’s body was ready and healthy to be a mama again, and then she got pregnant with a tiny tiny baby that will grow in her belly into a big baby and then it will be born and we will go visit to give him or her lots and lots of kisses!”

As she asks more questions, I will give her more information in short, factual statements. At 5yo, she just needs to know the mechanics of sex as she asks for that information.  The penis goes into the vagina. The next time she asks, she’ll get more information. We’ll get into our family values and morals around sex as she is older and ready to handle that information.

What’s the best way to handle the tabloids at the market? You could have your child stand close the checker, holding your coupons or bank card. Your child could help bag the groceries. I know a couple of parents who whip out their smart phone and let the kid play a game while they wait. You can discretely have them face the other direction and play I Spy.  You could not pick up the magazines yourself, teaching your child they really are just garbage wallpaper to begin with. And you can answer their questions honestly. If they ask what a headline means, or why there is so much cleavage and talk about sex, give them the info they need to know. Better they ask and learn at the age of 12 the definition of a blow job from you, than at a co-ed birthday party because they are being given in the bathroom by one of the guests.

Sometimes stores will have Family Friendly checkouts, with no candy or magazines. If your store doesn’t, ask the manager to consider it. It might be something they have never thought of before.

For more help on how to have those conversations about sex with older kids, I recommend Dr. Logan Levkoff’s book “Third Base Ain’t What it Used To Be”.

For more help with the little guys (but kids of all ages, too!) I highly recommend the work of Amy Lang, Birds + Beeds + Kids. You can find her book here.

Image from The Illusionists blog.

We live in a world where we take in an average of 4,000 advertisements per day, where the vast majority of those advertisements have been digitally retouched to inhuman ‘perfection’, where media has become the wallpaper of our life.

 I wonder if some people actually know anymore what a real human body is supposed to look like.

What are we learning? What are our children learning?

Children as young as 3 years old are reported to be aware of and unhappy with their weight.

By 7 years old, 70% of girls report wanting to be thinner.

From ages 11-17 years old, girls say “looking good” is their number 1 wish in life.

Half of women would rather be hit by a bus then get fat.

My friend Elena Rossini, the film maker and media literacy expert behind The Illusionists, knows it is time we get honest about how corporations are using the media to shift our perceptions about our bodies and bank on our learned insecurities. Our bodies have become the ‘finest consumer object’.

The preoccupation with physical beauty is as old as time; what is different today is the central role that the pursuit of the perfect body has taken. It has become our new religion. Everyone is affected: boys, girls, women and men from Los Angeles to Tokyo, passing via Mumbai. 

- Elena Rossini, The Illusionists

The Illusionsts intend to create a feature-length documentary to examine and discuss how this marketing is affecting all of us, all over the globe. As the mainstream media occasionally talks about the issues, but we need revealing and solution-based media with some teeth. And we need the creation of this media to be free of censorship and interference from media companies, which is why independent funding is crucial.

I asked Elena to tell me why this film would be important for families, especially parents:

Since the mid-2000s, I have noticed the emergence of some worrying trends. A vertiginous rise in media consumption by children (as much as 7.5 hours a day). The proliferation of TV shows, magazines, websites, and advertisements for products that sexualize and objectify girls. And reports about an epidemic of body dissatisfaction and self-objectification by girls as young as 6. I think the three phenomena are deeply interconnected. Teaching parents and children to analyze and interpret mass media and advertising messages is absolutely critical. I’m making this documentary because I would like to talk about what lies underneath the tip of the iceberg: an economic system based on creating “cradle to grave” consumers who are insecure about their appearance and that value their attractiveness above everything else. 

-Elena Rossini

My family and my business will be contributing to The Illusionists Kickstarter campaign to help fund this desperately needed film. I hope you will join me. Give what you can give, as several hundred of us giving even $20 or $50 will make a difference. We will BE the difference the media needs.

***Learn more here and watch a preview, PLEASE CLICK HERE.***

Grab your magic markers! It is time for a Pop Quiz!

I was told my Deborah Soriano of Submarine Kids yesterday that she did not have the time to respond to our concerns. She also said I would be hearing from her attorney. I have yet to hear from her attorney, so to pass the time….

One of these these really truly SHOULD NOT be like the other ones, but it really truly is. It isn’t the suit, it is the sultry facial expressions and pose, the “Come hither” body language that has no business on an eight year old. This particular suit itself is age appropriate. Very unfortunately, the model is being sexualized in order to sell it.

Please circle the model you think is marketing Submarine Kids swimwear. There is only one correct answer.

Okay, I know it is tricky, so I’ll give you a hint: The images are from Victoria Secrets, Playboy, Submarine Kids, and Maxim.

If there is a contest this summer for out-of-touch advertisements trying to capture the buying power of moms by wrapping a product in cheap Dollar Store wrapping paper, I would nominate this from Skirt Sports. (Thanks Lauren K and Kim S for the heads up.)

I have to seriously question the idea of using really tired and lazy stereotypes to sell athletic apparel to women, and I have big questions about why a company would position a child’s garment as having the selling point of attracting members of the opposite sex. And why the video of the little girl shaking her bottom? I thought these skirts were for running and playing? Because that’s what the ad says, but talks about pretty colors, looking pretty, feeling like a Princess, and attracting boys. Huh?

I think this is one skirt and one company my family can do without. Because when I’m running, I hate to be underestimated, and so does my little daughter who doesn’t give a damn about looking pretty or Princesses or attracting boys.

Skirt Sports is in need of a quick chat about gender stereotypes.

2011 NBA Washigton Wizard Girls

Over the weekend I received an email from a member of our Parent Community, telling me about a questionable group of visitors to her first grade son’s after school program. The special guests? Scantily clad, bralette wearing Wizard Girls for the NBA’s Washingon Wizards. I’m told several of the dads took the opportunity to oggle during pickup. I wonder how that made the little girls at the program feel? Within the context of an elementary school program, held at the school, it all seems a tish inappropriate. And sexualizing. And incredibly non-educational.

The parents of the children in the afterschool program were not given advance notice of the Wizard Girls visit and dance performance, nor has it been determined why they were there and handing out marketing materials for the Washington Wizards….or why they were autographing posters to the young students of themselves in revealing clothing, posed suggestively.

The son of the Pigtail Pals Parent Community member brought the poster and other materials home, and told his parents he was confused and uncomfortable because the women (called girls on their website) were ‘naked’ and ‘in their underwear’. I can understand his confusion. When you are at the beach, you expect to see people’s bodies in swim suits. When you are at an NBA game, you can expect there will be a dance squad to take the court during timeouts and halftime. But at school, well…..

Poster brought home from school by 1st grade boy.

I’ll let guest blogger Penny Collins tell you more:

Today on Redefining Girly’s Facebook page, a ‘what would you do’ scenario was posted, sparking an 90+ comment throw-down. Needless to say, a nerve was hit. Melissa of Pigtail Pals – Redefine Girly asked: “What Would You Do?: Your 1st grade son comes home from school with marketing materials & poster for NBA cheerleaders. The women also performed for the children during an afterschool program. Your boy describes the women as being ‘naked’ and ‘in their underwear.’ Would you complain to the school?”

By the time I saw the post, the thread had hit 80 comments, and a fight was brewing. Is cheerleading a sport? Are we prudes for not wanting our children to see scantily clad adults at school? Are we setting different expectations for men and women? What defines a sport? What makes a uniform sexy or appropriate? Do volleyball players wear bum-flashing suits for the sport or for the cameras?

I didn’t weigh in at the time, because I was surreptitiously reading on my phone while riding in the car with my husband, and because the discussion had already gotten so far. My immediate thought was that professional cheerleading and competitive cheerleading are two different things. I have heard women define themselves as “dancers” for the NBA. That’s not an athletic cheerleader. High school and college competitive cheerleaders are serious, bad-ass athletes. And the ones I know would never take a job with the Lakers.

I found a website for a youth cheerleading competition in Troy, Ohio that appeals to participants in the most insulting way. They brag, “The Trojan Horse has been a successful Youth Football Tournament for three years now, but this year will be the first year we add something for the ladies of the sideline. So not only can you cheer your football team through the Tournament, but now you can compete for your own chance at the title!”

In one paragraph they take the athletics right out of it and put the girls in their place. Once the gals are done cheering on their men, they can have a little fun and go after a little trophy of their own! The site lists this reason for the competition: “because football season is never long enough.” For them, it’s really about the football. The ladies can just fill up the extra time when the real sport is over.

To me, it’s not about the cheerleading. It’s about athletics, and whether they are present or not. My child is too young for it now, but when she is older, I won’t be promoting professional cheerleading any more than I will be promoting the NBA itself. It’s commercialized, and it doesn’t feel like it’s about the sport. I’ll take my daughter to see high school and college athletics if I want to teach her about passion for a sport. I certainly won’t point out the Dallas cheerleaders on TV and suggest to her that they are role models.

Fit, talented young women in sneakers who are throwing their teammates to the sky in perfect lock step are athletes. Women who are wearing bedazzled push-up bras and fringed boots are not athletes. Don’t try and tell me that I’m being uptight, or ashamed of the human form, or discriminating against women. What I’m doing is raising the bar, and demanding more. I refuse to settle for the patronizing, sexualized options offered to my daughter.

All this aside, Redefining Girly is providing something that the media does not appreciate. And that’s a place to question, and debate, and think. Women are taught to be docile and agreeable. A man who argues or puts up a fight is a go-getter. A woman who does so is a bitch. I hope that the women who participated in yesterday’s debate realize that having the debate is most of the value. Without someone to spark the flame and wave a flag in our faces, many of us wouldn’t bother to examine the issue. It’s often easier to ignore these things, or blow them off, or be too tired to deal with it. When we come together and challenge each other, we are challenging ourselves to be better consumers, better parents, and better participants in our own world.

Penny Collins writes “It’s Not About the Baby” at http://notaboutbaby.blogspot.com

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So I ask, is it appropriate to have professional cheerleaders wearing sexualized dance costumes be guests at a school and hand out marketing materials to a for-profit sports teams? Does it matter that the children were a captive audience, and parents were not told ahead of time?

Can we use the argument that the professional cheerleaders are athletes? And that their uniform is part of their ‘sport’?

A high school squad of athletic cheerleaders displaying a great amount of skill.

A professional cheerleader displaying a great amount of something else.