Would you let your dd go to little mix concert?

[gutsywillow]

Okay so my question is if you are a feminist and disagree with the sexualisation of young girls would you allow your DD to go to a little mix concert?
My cousin has offered to take my DD with her DD. My DD is 9. Would I BU to say no?
I feel uncomfortable with it, firstly I don't want to be promoting this kind of portrayal of women and how women should look, secondly its really, really crap music.
Will she grow up and think, blimey why did my mum let me go to that? I thought she was a feminist!

WomblingThree I would love to understand the rules but I definitely dont! The sexualisition thing confuses me a bit too.

Is it that all forms of female clothing which are perceived to exist because of a heterosexual male influence are bad? Both skimpy clothing and hijab are seen by many women as man pleasing and therefore bad?

PhilODox I definitely believe that people should wear what makes them happy and I think it's a shame that some people are offended by the sartorial choices of others.

I have no issue with how the girls dress. As a feminist, it's nice to see young women embrace their sexuality and their bodies. Feminism is about choice.

That being said, I wouldn't take a 9 year old. Mainly because their song lyrics are very sexual in nature. I'm quite a big fan of the girls and have gone to all three tours so far and have to say, it was so awkward watching them perform ADIDAS (look up th lyrics) in front of an audience of pre-teens.

DD is 9. I just asked her about Little Mix. She knows who they are, and the names of 2 of their songs, but not the tunes. I would never bring her to a Little Mix concert, even if she loved them.

When Little Mix come on the radio, I turn it off. In my view, Little Mix aren't appropriate for girls of that age. When she's older, DD can make choices about what she likes, but just as I won't allow her watch movies I don't think are appropriate for her age, I won't let her listen to music that isn't appropriate for her age.

There is a vast world of music out there for DD to listen to, and sing along to, that doesn't include lyrics like the following:

'I hope she gettin' better sex
Hope she ain't fakin' it like I did, babe'

'Thought that you would be my Mr. Love
You can be my lover
I can be your love
Won't won't you you be my loverboy?'

'All the girls on the block knocking at my door!
Wanna know what it is make the boys want more!'

'Get your boy on his knees
And repeat after me, say
Take a sip of my secret potion,
I'll make you fall in love.
It's a spell that can't be broken
It'll keep you up all night'

'They wanna know who I'm sneakin' into my place
They don't need to know, no one's business how I play'

The list goes on for lyrice of theirs you can pick as just not being appropriate for 9 year old children.

Only this week, a DJ on a national radio station here posted this on Facebook about Little Mix.....

I'm going to have another of my sad middle aged man rants about something. You might not care a hoot about it, in fact you might totally disagree with me, but it's my place to vent and you have the option of unfollowing me if my dull arguments annoy you. My poor wife has no such unfollow device.
My problem is with Little Mix.
To be honest, before I became a parent, I really couldn't care less about Little Mix. They were as relevant to me as the word Isofix or the need to sterilise the dog before he humps the baby. But, as you would expect, life leads you in other directions and you find yourself having to tell the difference between the members of Paw Patrol or else you will struggle to keep up.
Now we are a fairly musically minded household - the radio would always be on and it's usually a mix of oldies and new stuff. But our 6 year old lady loves the bit of Little Mix. We have long since banned her watching the videos ("Those girls are very poor love...they can't afford clothes...") and today I decided to ban their new song. I am ignoring the fact that they turned up last night to the Manchester concert dressed for the pole. Ariana, Katy & Miley all respected the occasion.
The new Little Mix song is called Power. They have some brilliant pop songs and you can't deny their amazing voices and "sass". My problem is with the fact that they are blatantly marketed at young girls of all ages - you can get Little Mix duvet covers, lunch boxes (obviously), school bags etc. Now they aren't all for the age that knows the birds and the bees.
So up to now I have suffered her ladyship singing songs to her grandparents on the coffee table that went
"Just a touch of your love is enough to take control of my whole body"
But I have to draw the line at their new song which just came on the radio. The lyrics include
"Just because your packing' whoop down south don't mean I'm gonna take it lying' down baby"
and my favourite
"Start my engine, push the button, cos I'm gonna be coming' first, yeah I'm a machine when I do it"
Now, all of this would be fine if it was coming out of the gob of Snoop Dog but I just don't think a band blatantly targeting children should be pushing the sexual message so, eh, hard. Now I have never been at a Little Mix gig, but I'm sure there are some reading this who have seen them at the Marquee and the O2 and can confirm if under-10's make up a fair portion of the crowd.
I'm not even sure if I'd want my 18 year old going around singing "I'm gonna be coming first" unless she is talking about the Egg N' Spoon Race at the school sports day.
I expect I am going to get a load of flack for this post but I just think an act such as this need to have a higher level of moral responsibility, particularly as they were created by a tv talent show which is very clearly aimed at a family audience.
I miss the days when girl bands dressed in double denim and sang about "Fightin' like me Da..."

Little Mix songs are only immoral if you also have an issue with young women having sex outside of marriage and enjoying sex (shocking eh?)

Your children only know all the subtext because you choose to make a big deal of it and don't allow them to listen to something.

There's nothing immoral about wearing a low cut shirt and enjoying sex. It's not 1950.

The response you get on this sort of question depends on the crowd in at the time.

I had a Spice Girls phase at that age (although I suppose that was a bit of a feminist movement) and ended up an Ani Difranco / folk fan so I would say she can probably enjoy it without it having a lasting impact. I did dislike 90% of popular music growing up though, I was (and still am) a bit of a weirdo . Totally get where you're coming from though as I have similar views xx

This parody of the Fifth Harmony song Work from Home sums it up with the line

"and why are their songs all about boning, it's messed up, their fans are young teens"

My DD is 6 and is going to a Little Mix concert in the summer. I must admit I didn't know how sexualised their songs are and when I saw one of their videos... Blimey! But the tickets are booked now and I think DD is still innocent enough that she will enjoy the concert and not think too much into it.

Or you could go and also talk to your daughter about healthy body image and healthy relationships. Just an idea.

YABU to not let her go! What is that to do with feminism? Do boys go?

They don't care what you think OP Little Mix Answer Critics

The music industry is run by men and they want Little Mix 'dressed for the pole' (good description!). It's nothing to do with female empowerment or healthy body image - they're wearing what they're told to wear.

They're not dressing for themselves though are they? They're dressing to sell a product, and you have to decide whether you want to buy that product on behalf of your child.

So the answer is to block all access to pop music and never discuss anything with your young dd. Of course not. My parents did that with me in the 70s.
All pop is packaged. Kids like pop. 'Twas ever thus.
Ban it make it exciting. Go along and Mum dance; they'll move on to something else.

I took 10 year old dd a couple of weeks ago to their concert and they were brilliant. Yes they don't wear an awful lot of clothes but so what- lots of the audience were in mini shorts and crop tops, plus it's their stage costumes, agree with earlier posters that lots of kids don't 'see' them as dressing sexily. As adults you notice things like that a lot more, for example I didn't realise how sexualised the film 'grease' was when I was young.
I do agree that it's sad that women performers as a rule dress/act sexily a lot more than male performers but I wouldn't not take my daughter out of protest if it was a band/singer she loved.

It was a fab atmosphere, I'd say age range from about 7 years up mostly mums and daughters and I didn't realise how much if their songs I loved.

I think it's quite naive to think that LittleMix, have a free choice in what they wear. For me that's the difference between a woman wearing what she wants and he freedom to do that and the "constructed" (can't think of a better word) sexualization of women in the entertainment world. You would have to be very high up the ladder, I think, to say "No, I'n not wearing a basque and heels to that gig"

StatelessPrincess, I think there is something similar going on about the feminist response to the hijab. Yes, some women make a completely free choice to wear it. But some women don't. And one of the important things that feminism has shown women is that even when they think they are making a completely free choice, they are so conditioned by society and yes, the patriarchy, that the choice is not as free as they think it is. This is a very challenging issue and one that non feminists get very angry about. But it is sooooo important. None of us make decisions in a vacuum. This was something feminists used to spend a lot of time with-consciousness raising- but I think it's one of the battles a lot of people think we've won and don't have to bother about.

So if I see Little Mix, I think "What would happen if they said-actually, we don't want to dress like this any more?" I reckon there would be another band along in 10 minutes who would, and that would be the end of LM. So not really a free choice. Unlike someone like my young adult dd, who does have much more of a free choice about what she wears, as she should.

And when I see a woman in a hijab, I think the same. What would happen if she decided she didn't want to wear it any more? Would thwt be fine , or would overt or covert societal pressures make it very hard, if not impossible.to make that choice.o

Having been to a little mix concert 18 months ago with my then 8yo I'm going this summer again with now 9yo and 5yo twin dds.

It's fun and we all love it. For me it's about teaching my dc that they can dress how they like and that doesn't mean a man gets to rape them. I don't understand feminism at all. We're supposed to be outraged that in Muslim countries women are expected to cover up but then slate women over here when they don't. Isn't this opposite to feminism?

It's theatre / showmanship and it's all around us. If I let them see it (which they will anyway) then I can have those conversations with them.

Am I the only one who went round singing "I'm horny, horny, horny, horny, horny!" Much to my mother's horror?

motherofdragons wasn't my thing. I did a fine line in dancing to Girls Girls Girls by Mötley Crüe 😂

mother-I we cross posted I just wrote my thoughts about that. What do you think?

But Little Mix's fan base is mainly girls and women, right? They wouldn't care if LM wore jeans and tees to perform in, would they?

LM are dressing for men! But why? Hw many men buy their records? or go to their gigs?
Odd.

None of us make decisions in a vacuum True, so I guess none of us have the right to criticise what other women wear
Interesting post BertrandRussell Thank you.

"None of us make decisions in a vacuum True, so I guess none of us have the right to criticise what other women wear smile "

I don't think this is about criticising what other women wear, is it? Isn't it about societal expectations of women? And women having their choices policed by society?

I think girls see it and I see girls dressed like it for the school disco. We all have our lines as parents. For me, I'm happy for my dc to see little mix but they know that they won't be dressing like them while they are children and I will teach and guide them as best I can. I don't think I can do that role successfully by shielding them from it and my dc love music so much I know it will be a real memory for them. Some lyrics are pretty rude but dc don't get that - like pants is often filthy. I was way too young when exposed to the rocky horror picture show - (dad left it in the video player and I was about 10) but my parents were always open with me and we still have a great relationship now.

We all parent the best we can do if you're uncomfortable that's fine but please don't claim it's due to feminism and imply I'm supporting negative images of women by having a different parenting style.

Dd saw them at the weekend & is seeing them again in a couple of weeks, Dd is 11.
My Dd is a far more vocal feminist than me - constantly questions why aren't there more female MPs, famous sports people, popes ( I kid you not!) she questions everything yet she has shit taste in music!
Dd knows their clothes are awful, she has no desire to dress like them but she like singing & dancing along to their songs.