Porn & the sexualisation of girls - gender neutral language hides the harm..

[persistentwoman]

Stephanie Davies-Arai & Transgender Trend have published this chilling article about the impact of the porn culture and sexualisation on children, especially girls and how the use of gender neutral language serves to disguise what is happening to them:

www.transgendertrend.com/gender-neutral-culture-erases-girls/

I should have said gender neutral culture not language in the title.

It's well worth a read.

Thanks persistentwoman.

What shocks me, but doesn't surprise me is that 40% of girls as young as 7 are unhappy with their bodies.

Also, as society has become more sexist, (with porn, popular culture, attitudes etc) there's more of a drive to introduce gender neutral language and culture. To diminish the language of women and girls whilst simultaneously sexually objectifying us.

I'm at a loss as to how we turn this porn juggernaut around. Even on this board, we are regularly treated to displays of complete contempt for children's rights and safeguarding while celebrating porn. The focus on lecturing women rather than listening is enraging.

Juggernaut is the right term for it.

It would take a massive, concerted collective effort from most of society to even try to put the brakes on porn. I don't think enough people are concerned about it. It's not on their radar, or they consume it, or they may think it's no big deal.

The biggest impact would come from the porn sites themselves but they really don't have any incentive do they? Not unless they are heavily regulated and heavily fined.

Thanks persistent, keen to read this, Stephanie is always on point.

Transgender Trend are publishing so many well researched evidenced articles and this one's particularly good - and so depressing in terms of what's happening to children, especially girls.

It’s so frustrating- in the last 100 years women’s rights have come along in strides , yes there is still a long way to go but things have improved so much , and now we have porn culture and seeing women as hyper-sexualised objects, society is increasingly looking at the value of a woman being in how alluring and available for sex she is.

(Look at the bloody Ann Summers maternity /post partum range thread from MNHQ yesterday!! I’m so cross with them about that! )

Around puberty, as boys’ lives typically expand, a girl’s world shrinks: girls give up sport, become less active, take up less space, lose confidence. Girls are suddenly judged by very different criteria to boys; specifically how they look, how they measure up in the ‘hot and sexy’ stakes.

There are so many good quotes in this article. But this does resonate.

Yes it's a huge impossible problem. But we have to keep fighting it. Here's one small but significant action: Safe Schools Alliance have a petition to get ChildLine to remove their 'WTF is Porn' video which glosses over the harms and suggests searchwords for the kids to check out. Yes, that's ChildLine.

The petition is on their FB page: www.facebook.com/safeschoolsallianceuk/).

Around puberty, as boys’ lives typically expand, a girl’s world shrinks: girls give up sport, become less active, take up less space, lose confidence. Girls are suddenly judged by very different criteria to boys; specifically how they look, how they measure up in the ‘hot and sexy’ stakes.

So true