How do you explain smutty pictures of your children's favourite characters?

[Guyliner]

Dd is 8 and into superheroes. When she googles her favourite female characters she's often confronted with fan art from men way way old enough to know better. How do you explain the hyper sexualisation to your children when you see it to children or do you ignore it?

I've started saying it's from men who think women should look a certain way all the time but hope I'm not making it worse by being honest. She's not stupid and that there is a marked difference between the female and male character representation is obvious.

I once took her to a comic book store when she was 5 and the only 2 posters of Wonder Woman and Super Girl were of them engaged in sex acts.

@Fazackerley Good plan, I won't let her use google ever. I think I won't let her out of the house ever or at a friend's house either.

Look I could have asked this on AIBU if I wanted my parenting judged. I really don't give a shit about your opinion on that. I wanted to discuss feminism and how it pertains to child rearing (as you used to be able to do here.)

Thank you LangClang, my google is actually set to safe search but I obviously don't want to be stuck on kid search as a default for myself.

DC superheroes kids Harley Quinn

I 100% should have done that but it's 5 days into the school holidays and was having a parental brain fail! I was only trying to get her the colouring pages to buy me some time on MN so I can work.

Take some responsibility for what you allow your child to be exposed to on the internet and don’t let them use google until you switch on safe search.

Also, just one last impotent scream into the solar system, but shouldn't you be able to search for a female character colouring page on safesearch without finding a boob shot?

@Bankofenglandfiver

Learn to read. Or even look at the pictures I added.

Thanks in advance.

When I googled that particular search in images it gave a number of filters I could use. One was kids. Others included simple and line drawing
I am using my phone at the moment.

This isn’t a feminist issue. It’s an internet safety issue.

It’s your responsibility to put controls in place.

If safe search isn’t enough, get something else. And use it. Set her up with her own log in so that she can only see her stuff, instead of just having an open log in. Or get her a kids kindle for eg.

@Bankofenglandfiver

No, I think it's a literacy issue.

Like here

I agree with your sentiment but is the issue here not more specifically about Harley Quinn? I am not very knowledgeable so I may be 100% wrong but is the sexy look not part of the character?

Personally, I wouldn’t say Harley Quinn was an appropriate character for an 8 year old. She’s very sexualised all together - your child is 8.

Find more age appropriate colouring pages.

@passmethecrisps but by then yo've already got the first pics up.

At what age do we expect our children to be able to use google alone? Am I meant to monitor all of them doing their homework from 9 and 10 too?

X post with passmethecrisps.

I just googled Harley Quinn.

I wouldn’t let a primary school have any access to comics that feature characters with those kind of themes.

*primary school aged child (cracked screen on iPad)

Ah ok. So adding DC Superhero to the search gives entirely safe results from what I can see.

I do agree with your frustration and your general sentiment but it may be that for the next wee while you test searches first before letting her see the results

My child's Catholic Primary have said they can't ban all search words as it makes it impossible for the children to use the internet, and NO a teacher doesn't sit there with them. There's one in the room.

All primary schools have extremely high “safe for children” filters on their internet search engines. Your child is safe using the internet at school. Unless you have the same filters at home, you aren’t comparing the same thing.

Yes. You put appropriate safeguards in place until they are old enough to deal with all of what is out there and you gradually loosen the safeguards as they get older.

That’s your job as a parent.

@passmethecrisps she may well be but she is most definitely also a children's character on DC superhero girls. But I have seen all the female characters come up in searches before. Maybe before I switched my personal settings to safe. I often google and print pics for her room. It's hard to find lots of female superhero stuff, or at least not as easy as it is to get the boy stuff.

It's hard to find lots of female superhero stuff, or at least not as easy as it is to get the boy stuff.

That is true and it’s depressing. So until your Dd is older, just don’t let her anywhere the internet regarding these characters, you need to protect her at this age rather than having to explain.

I would urge any parent to be present while their child uses the internet right into their teens. You cannot police what goes up online but you can manage what they see to some extent.

My DD knows that all types of people use the web and not all of them put things up made for children. If you want to give a little more freedom you need to prepare them for what they might see. In your case with regard to socialisation I would maybe think about having a chat about there being different versions of that character for different kinds of fans - some of them grow ups and not suitable for kids.

What would you do if she saw women dressed up as that character in real life?

I teach internet safety so can see it from all perspectives.

I didn’t say porn.

I said inappropriate for a primary aged child.

It is your job to supervise what your kids are doing on the internet until they’re well past 8.

Harley Quinn is a highly sexualised character so I’d expect to see sexy pics if I googled for her and wouldn’t google her around my kids. I think you’re going to have that issue wherever there’s an adult and a kids version. Safe search isn’t the same as ‘suitable for kids’.

Are people missing that the OP has said she was sat right next to her DD when they were googling?

So this isn’t about supervision, it’s about just not using google at all, for this subject.

What would you do if she saw women dressed up as that character in real life?

Well really that's what I wanted to discuss. This specifically led me to think about writing a thread on it, but internet safety specifically wasn't what I wanted to discuss. Though if you teach it I can see why you'd pick up on it!

If it is Halloween and we walk past a bunch of girls wearing "sexy" versions of characters that are normally dressed very different. Do we say anything, do we ignore the elephant in the room? I try to be quite open with my kids about things like sexism, racism, homophobia, but it's hard to explain the concept of "sexy" to children who I don't think quite understand those feelings yet.

@Bankofenglandfiver it's literally a show for primary aged children. I don't know how I can say it any plainer.