Willow Smith, the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, has been making a lot of waves of late. She, or perhaps more accurately, a team of experienced PR and music professionals, have released a song and video called “I Whip My Hair.” It’s playing on local stations, showing up all over the internet, and is sparking a bit of conversation among my peers. So far, most of the feedback has been positive. Why so? Because for the first time in a long time, a little girl seems like just that. A girl. A very cool little girl.
When you watch the video or look at her pictures you might be struck by her partially shaved hair and colorful clothes. But you won’t be shocked by her lack of clothes or prematurely womanly appearance. And that has a lot of women exclaiming – finally! My daughter/cousin/friend/neighbor has a girl to look up to who isn’t using her sexuality to sell something. There’s been a lot of great work about this very thing (See APA Sexualization of Girls report). In fact, the oversexualization of young girls is so prevalent that just one example of a more age-appropriate presentation is hearlded as a victory. Finally, the good girls are winning!
But what is it that we’re winning? We can be proud that Willow isn’t prancing around in sexy adult clothes singing sexy adult songs. But what IS she doing?
When I watch the video I don’t see a nine year old girl. Though Willow’s face is small and babyish, I see a performer, someone whose movements and even personality emulate a young woman who is, at least, several years older. She’s surrounded by older girls, confident teens whose presence seems to validate Willow’s position as a cool girl. (Imagine if she was surrounded by eight year olds!). She dances in a classroom led by a “teacher” in skin tight pants who later writhes around on the floor as she “whips her hair.”
This is not kid stuff. This is cool girl stuff. She’s confident, stylish, in control. It could very well be Rhianna on the screen. And there it is. Willow’s presentation is neither sexual nor child-like.
The images I see depict an alternative script, one that’s available to emerging adult women undergoing the tricky process of developing a solid identity. But what about Willow? Are we, the viewers, agreeing that this is what nine year old girls are made of? Maybe, just maybe, it’s time that we take a step beyond the question of hypersexuality and begin define what it is we really want for our little girls.
It is so important, as you note, that we look for, create, and celebrate more options for girlhood and womanhood - models that represent the full scope of our possibility. A great resource on this very topic is the book: Featuring Females: Feminist Analyses of the Media. http://www.amazon.com/Featuring-Females-Feminist-Analyses-Psychology/dp/1591472784
ReplyDeleteVirginity is for babies. That was the statement made by a small group of adolescent girls when asked about abstinence. Honestly, the looks on their faces mirrored expressions I would expect to see if I had called them all the B word. Young females at ages 13 and 14 admit to lying about their non-existent sexual experiences. They would rather be viewed as desirable young women, who have been given the social stamp of approval, (i.e. gaining the attention and physical affirmation of a man) than to be publically known as a virgin.
ReplyDeleteThe media underscores these attitudes and thoughts about being sexually naïve.. Popular songs and celebrity female entertainers belt out tunes about the sexual delights they can execute and the sexual feats they endlessly enjoy. From their exposed physique to their exposed undergarments, the female entertainer is often marketing not only her singing voice but her body. She will sing, celebrate, and flaunt her sexuality. Not a single one is celebrating innocence, chastity, or abstinence. And the young girls who watch these entertainers want to be like them--in style and in experience.
Being sexually experienced is in; being sexually ignorant is out. We have sacrificed the value of innocence for the allure of being sexually savvy, and then we turn around and question why our young girls look like precocious teens and why our teens behave like sexually mature women. We have inundated them with sexuality, and their minds are bending around the notion that sexy is a state to which I must attain and quickly. Thus, the race is on for our young girls to shed their unpopular innocence for the more socially acceptable title of being "experienced."