Amanda Rishworth moves Notice of Motion in House of Representatives

Earlier this month Federal Member for Kingston (S.A), Amanda Rishworth, moved a Private Members Motion acknowledging the findings of the UK Government’s review Letting the Children be Children on the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.

It is heartening for those of us involved in this issue to see MPs like Rishworth take the lead on speaking out in Parliament and recognising the harm of sexualizing children. Rishworth urged governments, industries, regulators and the wider community to act.

Supporting Rishworth’s motion were: Jill Hall, Shortland NSW; Kirsten Livermore, Capricornia Qld; Sophie Mirabella, Indi Vic, Lib; Kelly O’Dwyer, Higgins Vic, Lib; Laura Smyth, Latrobe Vic; Luke Simpkins, Cowan, WA, Lib; Deborah O’Neill, Robertson, NSW, ALP; Jane Prentice, Ryan, Qld Lib.

Here’s what Rishworth said

I am pleased to rise to move this motion, because the increasing sexualisation of our children is a trend that concerns me greatly, as it does you, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke.

I have raised this issue publicly before, both in national debates and in this House, and I have received extensive support from people in the Australian community who share my deep concern about this important issue. One mother from Brisbane, Bridgette, was among many parents and teachers who contacted me to express their
support for action on this matter. In expressing her concern about driving past inappropriate billboard advertising with her children in the car, Bridgette said, ‘I feel powerless to control these kinds of images.’ It was a common theme in the correspondence I received on this matter. While many parents want to be the ones who control their children’s exposure to adult content, they feel it is almost impossible to do so. While I understand that this is a complex and difficult issue to address, I believe it is high time that we as a society start to take stock of these significant concerns and work together as a group to ensure that our children can grow and develop in a positive and healthy way.

The motion before us today acknowledges the findings of the Letting  children be      children: the  report of an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood commissioned by the government of the United Kingdom and released in June last year. This review draws on evidence collected from the survey of a sample group of 1,198 parents as part of a wider evidence-gathering process. It revealed significant public concern about the sexualisation of young girls and boys through the media and the commercial world.

The American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualisation of Girls defines the process of sexualisation as one where a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal to the exclusion of all other characteristics; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified or sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person. The Letting children be children review found that children are growing up against the backdrop of a culture that is increasingly commercialised and sexualised.
The evidence pointed to widespread public concern in the United Kingdom about children’s almost constant exposure to sexualised imagery through billboards, magazines, pre-watershed television programs containing adult themes, music videos depicting sexually explicit dance routines or provocative lyrics, and adult material available on demand through the internet and through the commercial world in the form of advertising and marketing. Images of this kind convey to children a clear message that suggests that women and girls are nothing more than sexual objects.

The report found that many parents felt that these images were becoming increasingly sexualised and gendered and they expressed concern about the influence from exposure to these images on the development and attitudes of their children. As this motion states, the review also found that parents are very concerned about the clothing, services and products being specifically marketed to children, which often reinforce gender stereotypes and portray children as being more sexually mature than their age would suggest. Parents were particularly concerned about the sexualisation of clothes designed for young girls, listing items like padded bras, bikini swimwear, clothing made from fabrics like animal prints and black lace, high-heeled shoes and clothing incorporating suggestive slogans.

Lastly, the review noted that parents often feel their concerns are not taken into account and that little effort is made to assist parents to control what their children are exposed to, despite the fact that they feel they are in the best position to say what is or is not appropriate for their child. As I stated earlier, many parents want to take charge and limit their children’s exposure to what they see as adult content but feel powerless to do so.

As stated in the motion, I believe, along with many Australian parents, that the sexualisation of children is a growing issue not just in the United Kingdom but also here, in Australia. A number of reports into this issue conducted by both the Australia Institute and the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment, Communications and the Arts found a high level of public concern about the premature advancement of the sexuality of children caused by their frequent exposure to highly sexualised images of adults as well as pressure to consume products designed to directly sexualise them.

The motion recognises that the sexualisation of children and, in particular, of girls has been associated with a wide range of negative consequences, including body image issues, eating disorders, low self-esteem and mental illness. We all know that viewing images that depict an unrealistic standard of beauty can make us all feel bad. I often feel bad when I open up a magazine and see unrealistic images of women. However, the important point is this: unlike adults, children have not yet developed the cognitive ability to objectively analyse these kinds of images, and so they are particularly vulnerable to this kind of content. While adults are able to determine whether something has been airbrushed or is unrealistic or a person has had their body altered, children are unable to do this.

The report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualisation of Girls presents a summary of the significant body of evidence linking exposure to highly sexualised content with a process of selfobjectification, whereby young girls internalise the sexualising images of the culture in which they are developing and start to criticise their own physical selves for failing to conform—which is often impossible—with what is a narrow concept of attractiveness. The report notes that constant attention to one’s physical appearance caused by self-objectification can often have a disruptive effect on performance in a range of areas, including schooling, because less time and energy is available for these other tasks. I saw some reports that showed that young girls were unable to attend to their school work because they were obsessing about their bodies.

The report highlights studies showing that young girls exposed to sexualised and gender stereotyped content in magazines and through television can experience low self-esteem and become extremely dissatisfied with and anxious about their bodies. These feelings of inadequacy can then lead to serious health concerns, such as disordered eating.

In addition, research shows that the sexualisation and objectification of girls in society can have significant adverse effects on the attitudes that boys have and on the ways that they perceive and interact with females throughout their lives. Not only can this lead to men struggling to maintain intimate relationships because they have unrealistic expectations of women but it can also teach young boys negative messages about how it is appropriate to treat and interact with girls. Worst of all, it can cause young boys treat women purely as sexual objects. There is little doubt that the frequent exposure of young children to sexualised content leads to a whole
range of negative consequences.

The motion before us today urges governments, industries, regulators and the wider community in Australia to take note of this report. But it is also time for action. I believe that as a community, we in Australia, including industry and government, need to work together to address the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood in Australia. We are living in an increasingly sexualised and commercial world. While adults have developed the skills to navigate this—not always successfully, but a lot of the time we are able to navigate, analyse and critically evaluate this material—children can be extremely vulnerable to these influences. As a result, these influences can affect how they develop and determine what kinds of adults they grow up to be. I do not think that it is any one group’s responsibility, and that has been the trouble—one group of people has
not been responsible, because it is complex issue. But I believe that we need to raise awareness of this issue.

We need to work together. Industry, government, parents and the community need to work together to ensure that as a society we deal effectively with this important issue so that future generations of Australian boys and girls can grow and develop in an environment that promotes positive and healthy messages. Unfortunately, I feel
that we are going the other way. I strongly believe that we need to prevent the increased sexualisation and commercialisation of our children.

That is why I am moving this important motion. I notice that there are quite a few speakers on the list. I hope for their support on this motion. I commend the motion to the House. 

Deb O’Neill, Member for Robertson (NSW), also recognised the importance of corporate social responsibility, making these comments:

I really do want to speak about the importance of the industry coming to some sort of understanding of their responsibility as important corporate and social citizens. Businesses do not exist outside and beyond the ethical practices; businesses sit within communities and they rely on communities to succeed. We need an ethical response to what we can see is an increase in eating disorders, an increase in challenges to a sense of body image, increases in students’ and young people’s sense of identity, at a particular time they are growing in their understanding of sexualisation. These are pressures that should not be brought to bear on young people unnecessarily. Some businesses are very much responsible for pushing the envelope way too far.

Still waiting

Of course, we are still waiting for the review of the Senate inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment, which was meant to have happened by December 2009. It seems to have disappeared.

Dr Emma Rush summed up the issues in an earlier piece I published here, titled ‘The market is eating our children’.   It’s a must read for anyone interested in understanding and advancing this issue. Dr Rush writes:

But what can government do?

• It could start by conducting the now overdue December 2009 review of industry’s response to the Senate Inquiry recommendations, which would put clearly on the public record the failure of industry self-regulation to promote children’s interests.

• It needs to recognise that what is happening today is sexualisation ‘by a thousand cuts’. One sexualised billboard, one television show or advertisement, one internet site, one toy, one child’s magazine: none of these alone cause the problem of child sexualisation. It is the combination of many sexualised billboards, television shows, advertisements, internet sites, toys, magazines, and so on that cause child sexualisation.

The ‘case-by-case’ approach to regulation which is currently used by both government regulation and industry self-regulation will not work for this issue. We need an integrated regulatory approach covering all relevant industries, with the expertise of child health and welfare professionals structured into the regulation process, and regulation enforceable by law. Read full article here

See also: ‘UK takes action to address sexualisation of children – what is Australia doing?’, MTR blog

‘Corporate paedophilia’ is a worrying global trend on the rise.

For those who might have missed it, Witchery has just launched a new clothing range for eight- to 14-year-old girls called “8fourteen”. In a brilliant stroke of imagination, the launch occurred on Valentine’s Day – because, of course, girls from the age of eight need to understand that male romantic approval, and attracting it through your physical appearance (euphemistically termed “personal style”), is what really matters in life.

The advertising campaign presents two girls from Sydney, aged 11 and 12, as “little sisters” to Australia’s Next Top Model Montana Cox, aged 18. Leaving aside some leopard print, the clothing range itself appears to be mainly age-appropriate (although, curiously, this isn’t well indicated in the campaign). The list of “facts” presented about each girl appears unobjectionable enough (about which, more later). The accompanying films of the girls, however, artistically shot in black and white with acoustic music, made us gasp. Read more>

See also:  ‘Children are not miniature adults or fashion accessories’, Dr Emma Rush, MTR blog.

‘Witchery: recruiting children as adult-like models’, MTR blog.

‘Encouraging teens to wait until they feel ready for sex is not to promote oppression. It is to promote empowerment’

By Dr Emma Rush

Clueless, to say the least. Michelle Griffin’s claim (‘Why teens should read raunchy novels and straight-up smut’) that “teens should read more porn”, not to mention her implied claim that more Year 10 students should be having sex, are the flashpoints of a piece which lacks anything vaguely resembling a clearly structured argument. The lumping together of a ‘reality bites’ book specifically pitched at adolescents, such as Judy Blume’s Forever, with the porn-fest of Nicholson Baker’s “surreally explicit new title”, House of Holes, should alert us to that.

The apparent spur for Griffin’s piece is a recent La Trobe University study finding that despite much talk about the importance of sex education in schools that locates discussion of the biological facts about sex within a broader understanding of healthy relationships, not all Year 9 and 10 students have access to this.

Only one in four hear that “experimenting with sexualities and pleasure is OK”, something particularly important given the potential impacts of homophobia. (At the same time, the research does suggest that at least some teachers are rising to the challenge, and we should all congratulate them for that.)

The socio-emotionally disconnected version of sex provided by parts of the education system gives rise to the question: how do teens link this school-based information with their actual lives? The ubiquity of porn may well fill the gap. And researchers like Alan McKee, whom Griffin cites approvingly, seem to believe that the pornography industry is well prepared to fill that gap, a pornography industry that promotes cruelty, brutality and inequality.

Griffin is to her credit concerned about the resulting “shackles of banal commercialised sexuality”. She advocates reading more books over watching YouPorn. That’s great, but she avoids a much more challenging question: precisely which books?

Teens, like the rest of us, are whole people, with rich socio-emotional lives. Some books do justice to the location of sex within a broader socio-emotional context, some do not. But Griffin, apparently relying on a ‘consent makes any kind of sex ok’ philosophy, makes no such distinction (there’s no problem with ‘brutal’ porn, apparently), and in doing so, she sells us all short.

The value of consent rests on the possibility of free and rational choice. The idea that either perfect freedom or perfect rationality applies in messy sexual contexts is a fantasy. All the more so for the adolescent context, where the psychological literature clearly shows that teens are more impulsive and more prone to extreme highs and lows than more mature adults.

Add to that peer pressure and alcohol and you’ve got a heady mix. That’s not to say that some psychologically mature teens don’t have healthy sexual relationships – the literature clearly shows that they do – but consent is hardly all that is required for this. Consent is necessary but not sufficient for a healthy sexual relationship. And actions need to be more than just acquiescence, more than just ‘going along with’, to count as consent.

Let’s face it, even if sex is entered into in a spirit of ‘all you need is consent and no strings attached’, that doesn’t make us flourish. Physical intimacy can all too easily lead to emotional connection and then significant distress when this is not mutual. Who has not seen this happen, even with mature adults? Who does not know how the headspin of even potential sexual attraction can throw everything else out of perspective, even in a mature adult? Who seriously thinks it’s a good idea to encourage in teens the idea that, provided you’ve got ‘consent’, anything goes?

The very idea that you can just ‘consent’ to physical intimacy with someone you don’t have a caring relationship with, in the goal of mutual pleasure seeking, is bizarre. The kind of psychological separation from your body (not to mention the other human being in the equation) you would have to achieve to do that sounds more like the kind of pathology that results from sexual abuse, than any kind of healthy sexual development.

The psychological task of adolescence is to develop a holistic sense of who you are, and to become over time an independent and autonomous adult. Sexuality is an important part of that, but it’s far from the only part.

Reading material that portrays sex as a part of caring, complex, human relationships is one important way of promoting such holistic development. Another way is to construct a loving sexual life with someone who genuinely cares about you – when you are mature enough to form such a relationship. Encouraging teens to wait until they feel ‘ready’ for sex, and to wait for someone with whom they feel safe, is not to promote oppression. It is to promote empowerment. House of Holes seems unlikely to teach anyone that sort of respect for self or others.

Dr Emma Rush is a lecturer in philosophy and ethics at Charles Sturt University. She was a contributor to Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (ed. Melinda Tankard Reist, Spinifex Press, 2009).

See also:

 Australia lagging behind while sexualisation gets worse

A six-month independent review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood, in the UK published Monday, called on retailers, media and regulatory bodies to take action in the best interest of children.

The inquiry report, Letting Children Be Children,  is the product of surveys and interviews with hundreds of parents, along with input from children and young people, focus groups and submissions from interested parties.

Commissioned by PM David Cameron, the inquiry was headed by Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mothers’ Union, who found parents felt undermined by a sexualised culture in their efforts to raise healthy children. “Society has become increasingly full of sexualised imagery. This has created a wallpaper to children’s lives. Parents feel there is no escape and no clear space where children can be children,” he said.

The recommendations include:

• Providing parents with one single website to make it easier to complain about any program, ad, product or service.

• Putting age restrictions on music videos to prevent children buying sexually explicit videos and screening guides for broadcasters

• Making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material from the internet

• Retailers offering age-appropriate clothes for children – the retail industry should sign up to the British Retail Consortium’s new guidelines which checks and challenges the design, buying, display and marketing of clothes, products and services for children.

• Restricting outdoor ads containing sexualised imagery where large numbers of children are likely to see them

• Banning the employment of children under 16 as brand ambassadors and in peer-to-peer marketing, and improving parents’ awareness of advertising and marketing techniques aimed at children.

 • ‘Lads’ magazines to be moved to the top shelf in shops or sold in covers.

In an encouraging sign, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has acted by publishing good practice guidelines on children’s wear.  Nine major companies had already signed up.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) also came out in support of the review’s recommendations. “The protection of children from harmful or inappropriate advertising is one of the Advertising Standards Authority’s top priorities and to do this we know we need to reflect the views of parents and young people in our work,” Chief Executive Guy Parker said. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England also welcomed the report.

Bailey has recommend Government monitoring of implementation of the recommendations and a stock-take in 18 months. The Prime Minister and Children’s Minister will invite businesses and regulators into Downing Street in October and ask them to report on steps they have taken to address the issues.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

Child development authorities, child psychologists, and children’s advocacy groups have been waiting since 2008 for action following the Senate committee inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment.

The report made a number of recommendations which seem to have sunk without a trace and industry has shown almost no willingness to be pro-active. Profits before children seem to be the motto despite a growing body of evidence of harm to the physical and mental health of children. As Emma Rush, lead author of the Australia Institute’s Corporate Paedophilia report summarises:

There is substantial evidence that sexualisation harms children: it promotes body image concerns, eating disorders, and gender stereotyping. Premature sexualisation also erases the line between who is and is not sexually mature, and as such, may increase the risk of child sexual abuse by undermining the important social norm that children are sexually unavailable.

The Senate Inquiry recommended a review of the recommendations – supposed to take place in December 2009 – to assess the response of industry to the recommendations. A year and a half later, and we’re still waiting.

Meanwhile, ‘self-regulation’ continues to mean the industry gets to do what it wants and get away with it.

If Britain’s regulatory bodies, retailers and children’s commissioner can get behind the Bailey recommendations, why can’t the equivalent bodies in Australia get on board?

Here’s what I said about the issue on Channel 7’s Sunrise. Was good to see Kochie realise that we also had an inquiry and a report which was now wasting away on a shelf.

Fashion company ignores experts – again

Witchery just doesn’t get it. Or chooses not to.

Last year a number of child development experts expressed concern about a Witchery campaign which presented adultified images of children modelling its fashions. Emma Rush, lecturer in ethics at Charles Sturt University and lead author of two significant reports on the sexualisation of children published by the Australia Institute, wrote about Witchery in a piece titled ‘Children are not miniature adults or fashion accessories’  here late last year:

A child is not a miniature adult. They are not a fashion accessory. They are a developing human being and need the cultural space to be just that. Yet we are now seeing constant marketing of adult appearance culture to children, as in, for example, the latest ads for the Witchery Kids brand. The Witchery Kids campaign is simply one particularly sophisticated example of corporations functioning to close down that cultural space for kids to be kids, with resulting ‘appearance anxiety’ for children during a period in their lives when they need the space to develop into their own person.

The wording of the new Witchery Kids campaign, ‘We believe that fun and imagination are the centre of every child’s universe’, is not reflected in the marketing images. Not one of the children in the images is smiling and it would be stretching it to say that even three of them are engaged in imaginative activities…

Nothing about the campaign images recognises that children are anything other than miniaturised adults. You could replace the children in the images with adults and nothing would appear odd. The images invite you to ‘read’ the children as adults…Read the full article and see pics from that campaign here 

But Witchery couldn’t care less. They’ve repeated the exercise a mere five months later, stylising and posing children as fashion-conscious mini-me’s:

As described by the Herald Sun in Witchery’s Style Recruits campaign “unsmiling children aged 5-8 are pictured against a drab streetscape, decked out in combat-style garb, knee-high socks and short skirts, and leopard print.”

                                                                                                                                                                    Kids Free to Be Kids director Julie Gale has complained to the company. Here’s her March 10 email:

Attention Customer Service

To whom it may concern,

As the Director of Kids Free 2B Kids I have been inundated with emails from people concerned about the way you have portrayed children in your catalogues.

I notice that complaints were also posted on the Witchery Kids facebook page prior to the article in the Herald Sun this past Monday. I notice the comments page remains disabled.

A person unknown to me emailed your reply [to them] this afternoon.

It is easy to reject the notion that you ‘intentionally’ conveyed children in an adultified way.

Whilst that may be true, it is extraordinary, given the reaction from child advocates and child developmental professionals to your previous catalogue.

I also think it’s extraordinary that you state the children chose the poses without direction. In my experience photo shoots are highly controlled and managed to the finest detail.

I am fully aware of the role of the NSW Children’s Guardian. Kids Free 2B Kids placed an FOI application in 2008 to better understand the process involving children and advertising at the government department.

It was revealed that Saatchi and Saatchi (for David Jones) gave the photo shoot directive “They are 10-12 years, so slightly more adult and sexy”.

That directive passed through the NSW Children’s Guardian. The directive also stated: “This is a branding exercise for DJ’s where we must communicate aspirational kid’s fashion”.

Last year when Cotton On came under fire for its adult sexualised slogans on children’s wear – there was a lot of initial resistance.

The CEO eventually called a meeting with me and then invited me to Geelong to meet with the National Clothes buyer.

They understood, after a lot of outcry from the community that they had crossed a line – even though they were aiming for ‘edgy and humorous’.

They also withdrew 40,000 items of clothing from their stores Australia wide and put in place protocol that did not previously exist.

Whilst they were initially re-acting – I appreciated their willingness to listen and learn and ultimately take proactive responsibility.

My invitation to the Witchery CEO is to make contact with myself or Dr Michael Carr Gregg to hear the concerns of child development professionals and learn about latest research.

Regards

Julie Gale, Director, Kids Free 2B Kids

Witchery claims it doesn’t support the adultification of children. It’s just got a funny way of showing it.

Ralph Lauren goes down the same path

In the same week Witchery employed its children-as-adults marketing tactics, came the latest issue of Vogue Living, featuring a front cover fold out which opens to reveal a young girl also posed, dressed, and styled in an adult woman way, dressed in riding gear and situated in a huge mansion.

I dare anyone to justify this with standard ‘It’s just a little girl playing dress ups’ line. This is no dress-up. The clothes fit perfectly. This is a young girl deliberately made to look older. Her hair, make-up, fashion style, pose and mature intense gaze invite us to read her as not as a girl but a woman. And that is a dangerous thing to do.

If we don’t protest this, what will be next?

Don’t buy Witchery. Don’t buy Ralph Lauren either.

                                                                                                                                                                         To contact Witchery email: customerservice@witchery.com.au

To contact Ralph Lauren email

Nothing about the Witchery images recognises that children are anything other than miniaturised adults. The images invite you to ‘read’ the children as adults

It’s always a pleasure to publish the work of Dr Emma Rush. A lecturer in ethics at Charles Sturt University, Emma is lead author of two significant reports on the sexualisation of children, published by the Australia Institute. She is also a contributor to Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of children.

Closing down the cultural space that allows children to be children

A child is not a miniature adult. They are not a fashion accessory. They are a developing human being and need the cultural space to be just that. Yet we are now seeing constant marketing of adult appearance culture to children, as in, for example, the latest ads for the Witchery Kids brand. The Witchery Kids campaign is simply one particularly sophisticated example of corporations functioning to close down that cultural space for kids to be kids, with resulting ‘appearance anxiety’ for children during a period in their lives when they need the space to develop into their own person.

The wording of the new Witchery Kids campaign, ‘We believe that fun and imagination are the centre of every child’s universe’, is not reflected in the marketing images. Not one of the children in the images is smiling and it would be stretching it to say that even three of them are engaged in imaginative activities

This campaign needs to be seen in context. Four years have elapsed since the release of the landmark Australia Institute paper Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualisation of Children in Australia . This paper criticised the sexualisation of children in marketing images (among related issues) and provoked considerable public debate, ultimately leading to a Senate Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media .

Over the same period, confirmation of the risks of sexualising children has come from major reports by psychologists in the United States and United Kingdom (Papadopoulos, 2010).

So put yourself in the position of an advertiser. They have to push the boundaries to get attention, but they don’t want to attract a backlash like the one seen four years ago… so this is the result. The public don’t like sexualisation? Let’s try adultification instead.

Nothing about the campaign images recognises that children are anything other than miniaturised adults. You could replace the children in the images with adults and nothing would appear odd. The images invite you to ‘read’ the children as adults.

But what is really creepy is that the campaign ties into the child-as-fashion-accessory-for-the-parent’ trend, encapsulated in the expression ‘mini-me’. To all who see children in this way, I say children are not “a reflection of the adult’s personal style”, as the celebrity blogger on the Witchery Kids website says. Is there an expert out there who can explain to me how such colossal egoism can be compatible with effective parenting?

So I’ve coined a new definition of adultification: pressure put on children to prematurely adopt narrow and stereotypical forms of adult appearance and behaviour. ‘This is the way kids should look. This is the way kids should behave.’ This is about making money with scant respect for anything else. Give us a break.

The risks of adultifying children are similar to those of sexualising them, but sometimes not as obvious.

If children are vulnerable to self-image concerns, these may develop over time into self-objectification, that is, experiencing one’s body as an object. Psychological research suggests this detracts from both cognitive and physical performance.

We all recognise this in our daily lives: the child (or adult) who is overly focussed on their appearance will not be fully attentive to other things in their lives. This is of particular concern in childhood while the brain is still developing.

Even without the fully blown consequences of self-objectification, time and energy spent on conforming to adultified stereotypes may distract children from the important tasks of developing skills (physical, creative, intellectual) and relationships that provide a real foundation for rewarding teen and adult years. Think playing sports, climbing trees, making music, making art, reading, developing technological capacities – and developing caring relationships.

Contrast this with the Witchery Kids campaign, where the underlying message is clearly: ‘It’s all about me and how I portray myself through my look’.

Well, no. The world is so much bigger than that. That kind of limited self-understanding leaves children very vulnerable to the opinions of others. Children, just like adults, need a self-understanding based on substance rather than style.

Of course the Witchery Kids campaign will not cause such limited self-understanding by itself. It doesn’t need to. It’s just part of the constant corporate dripping that wears away the stone of a sane and healthy human life. We can’t just cut children off from the broader culture. Parents can’t do that and they shouldn’t have to.

We need a broader culture that doesn’t undermine children’s healthy development. Advertisers and marketers need to stop seeing children as fodder for their campaigns. In suggesting children are older and more knowing than they really are, Witchery has sent a harmful message. They need to be reminded that children are not smaller versions of adults.

Read more by Emma Rush: ‘Making children vulnerable to sexual danger and harm’; ‘The market is eating our children’

I’m just so pleased to welcome Dr.Emma Rush to my blog today. Associate Lecturer in Ethics and Philosophy at Charles Sturt University, Emma is to be commended for kicking off the debate on the sexualisation of children in this country, as lead author of Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualisation of children in Australia and Letting Children Be Children: Stopping the sexualisation of children in Australia, the discussion papers published by the Australia Institute in 2006. Emma also wrote the chapter ‘What Are the Risks of Premature Sexualisation for Children?’ in Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls. Emma makes a compelling case for Government to get involved because of industry failure to act and also asks: what’s happened to the review of  the Senate inquiry recommendations that was supposed to take place last year?

Time for government to set standards preventing child sexualisation

It’s great to see bi-partisan concern about the sexualisation of children. I commend those MPs who spoke up for children’s interests in the House of Representatives this week on a Notice of Motion introduced by South Australian Labor MP Amanda Rishworth.

The issue is not about banning little girls from putting on mummy’s lipstick or playing with Barbies – activities Jane Caro claimed critics of sexualisation were wanting to ban, on ABC’s PM program Tuesday night.

It goes well beyond playing dress-ups. There is substantial evidence that sexualisation harms children: it promotes body image concerns, eating disorders, and gender stereotyping. Premature sexualisation also erases the line between who is and is not sexually mature, and as such, may increase the risk of child sexual abuse by undermining the important social norm that children are sexually unavailable. Read the rest of this entry »