Rebecca Grace
AFA Journal staff writer
May 2007 – “Made to tease. … A cheap thrill product.” These words are emblazoned on the front of a girl’s size seven tank top that author Vicki Courtney displays at her mother/daughter conferences. Courtney is the founder of Virtuous Reality Ministries. She’s attempting to illustrate society’s sexualization of girls – the topic of a recent study conducted by a task force of the American Psychological Association (APA).
According to the APA, the study reveals “that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls’ self-image and healthy development.”
Evidence from the study shows that the sexualization of girls negatively impacts them cognitively, emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually. Specifically, the study links such problems as eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression to this sexualization. Nearly every form of media, including television, music videos, music lyrics, magazines, movies, video games and the Internet, were examined as part of the study.
The task force defines sexualization as “occurring when a person’s value comes only from his/her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified, e.g., made into a thing for another’s sexual use.”
The catwalk of catastrophe
It’s hard to imagine that tween girls – ages 8 to 12 – would find their value in sex appeal, but when one looks at the world around her, there is no doubt about it. From pre-teen lingerie to sexy dolls to nearly naked pop stars, young girls are being bombarded with sex. Their role models are the pretty faces of naughty girls Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan – a.k.a. the “Brit Pack.”
MSNBC reports that a recent Newsweek poll “found that 77% of Americans believe that Britney, Paris and Lindsay have too much influence on young girls.”
The Telegraph, a British newspaper, claims that Britney has been sexualized since childhood, and as a result she is now a 25-year-old divorced mother who has apparently hit rock bottom.
“That is a tragedy,” said the Telegraph article, “but there is an even bigger one unfolding: the generation of girls prematurely sexualized by the cynical manipulation of Spears and performers like her.”
One L.A. mother believes this generation of girls is being raised as, what she calls, “prosti-tots.”
Instead of Hollie Hobbie or Strawberry Shortcake, young girls are now playing with Bratz – dolls with oversized facial features and who come dressed in mini skirts, fishnet stockings and feather boas.
Courtney wrote in a blog posting at www.vickicourtney.com that tweens spent $1.6 million on thong underwear in 2003. Also popular among the tween and teen crowds are Abercrombie and Fitch screen-print T-shirts that display phrases like, “Who needs brains when you have these?” “Anatomy Tutor” or “Available for Parties.” And don’t forget the sexually explicit lyrics found in songs such as “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas and “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent. These lyrics – although too graphic to print here – speak volumes about the state of society.
“One thing is not in doubt: a lot of parents are wondering about the effect our racy popular culture may have on their kids and the women they would like their girls to become,” reported MSNBC.
The APA suggests that “Parents can play a major role in contributing to the sexualization of their daughters or can play a protective and educative role.”
The runway of reason
Below, Courtney, author of Your Girl: Raising a Godly Daughter in an Ungodly World, helps mothers understand the protective and educative roles as well as the spiritual roles they are to play in the lives of their daughters. Cultivating a healthy relationship between mother and daughter helps counteract the influence of a sex-crazed society and presents mothers as models worth imitating.
AFA Journal: Why is it important for mothers to invest in their daughters and develop Godly relationships?
Vicki Courtney: If you can have an impact in your daughter’s life while she’s under your roof, there are still no guarantees. There are plenty of examples of parents, Christian parents, who do a bang-up job at discipling their kids and building a foundation in their home built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, who have kids that decide to take a different path. And it’s heartbreaking. But our kids stand a better chance if we’re involved in their lives and we’re doing what we can to build that relationship.
AFAJ: How can mothers do this?
VC: The organization I have, we do events for moms and daughters. I know how critically important it is to get mom to the event even if her daughter doesn’t sit next to her. Because that way, by the time they leave, they’ve heard all the same messages, and hopefully they’re on the same page. If you can leave with tangible truth that you can apply to your everyday life, and mom and daughter both know what those are, then that’s going to be more life changing. And so I’d encourage moms [to] take advantage of those years where you have that window of opportunity to be an influence in your daughter’s life.
AFAJ: What if a daughter wants nothing to do with her mother?
VC: Don’t let her pull away. So many moms take it personally and get their feelings hurt when their daughters no longer think they hung the moon, but now think moms are from the moon. And that’s where moms, because of their own insecurities, take it personally and they allow their daughters to push them out of their lives. By default, they’ve just set their daughters up to be raised by the culture. I really believe it’s a natural part of adolescence for our kids to begin to pull away from us so they can connect more with God, and that’s where we need to make sure that we’re providing them with consistent involvement with youth activities and church and family discipleship.
AFAJ: How do you balance being your daughter’s friend and her mother?
VC: When our girls are under our roof, it’s critically important that they get a mom first and then a friend. The strong thing in today’s culture – even among Christians – is that we seem to have gotten that flip-flopped to where a lot of times we’re more concerned with being our daughter’s buddy than her mother. I’ve seen so many mothers - Christian mothers – who are wrapped up in fear and go to the opposite extreme and jeopardize their relationship [with their daughters] because they draw so many boundaries, and they do it without love. It’s possible to be both mom and friend. Mom, first, I say, and friend second is what you’re aiming for. But if you can only have one or the other during some of those tumultuous years, then you choose mom. And you hope that some day she comes back and thanks you, and you can be her friend then.
AFAJ: What type of impact does a mother have on her daughter?
VC: Oh, it’s huge. I think that Deuteronomy 6 lays this out, and the best parenting advice on the market today is in the Bible. We need to be taking advantage of those teachable moments where we talk about God’s truth, when we get up, when we rise and we walk along the way. All through the day, we need to be pointing things out to our kids. Now we need to also read the signs and signals and not just make every day a sermon, if you will. But try to incorporate talking about things you see. If I see an ad on television where girls are being sexualized, I point out to my daughter and my sons the whole “sex sells” myth. Parent’s should be discipling their kids. We don’t leave it up to the church; we don’t leave it up to the Christian schools. It’s nice if they want to come alongside us, but it is our primary responsibility to disciple our kids. And the only way we’re going to be able to counteract the negative influences of the culture is to speak up and not to shut up.
AFAJ: What issues do young girls face?
VC: One of them definitely is body image, and unfortunately most mothers are also struggling with it. So they’re ill equipped to give their daughter a healthy outlook on that. It’s important that our daughters don’t see us standing in front of the mirror grumbling about the extra pounds after the Christmas holidays or about our newly appearing wrinkles. [Doing so would be] cultivating the same habits in them. Mom is going to be one of the biggest influencers in her daughter’s life as far as body image goes. I tell moms one of the biggest challenges we have is to make friends with our body shape. And then we get to help our daughters make friends with their body shape [while living] in a culture that says only one body shape is acceptable. [Plus], we do need to realize that our girls have been force-fed a steady diet of products and images that tell them they should cultivate their sensualities in an attempt to be sexy. It doesn’t matter how diligent a mom and dad are at building this Biblical foundation for our girls, girls are still going to be showered with messages that tell them just the opposite – that they are objects for the male viewing pleasure. And so that’s where we need to point things out in media. Make them aware that God doesn’t feel that way about us, and He has a different standard when measuring our worth.
AFAJ: How can mothers teach their daughters that Jesus is the one who fulfills?
VC: The best way a mother can model that for her daughter is to live a life that is pleasing to Him, and to live it joyfully. We forget that with Christ’s forgiveness should come gratitude and joy that bleeds over into every area of our life. Is your daughter seeing that Jesus Christ is your everything? We need to let our daughters know that only Jesus Christ, and the cross of Christ, will fulfill us permanently.
AFAJ: What hope would you offer mothers whose daughters are rebellious?
VC: Keep drawing your boundaries, but let her know that even in her rebellion, you are going before your God and bringing her to Him. 
