Childhood Sexuality, Normalization and the Social Hygiene Movement in the Anglophone West, 1900-1935

Egan, R. Danielle; Hawkes, Gail

doi:10.1093/shm/hkp062

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…doctors and teachers) to cast a disciplinary gaze to monitor and control (Foucault, 2012). This was important in the 19th century with the social purity movement, which construed masturbation as a morally corrupting force for children (Egan & Hawkes, 2007) and in the early 20 th century with the social hygiene movement where sex was subject to the disciplinary practices of science (Egan & Hawkes, 2009a). This enabled the construction of the 'normal' child who was free from sexuality, which served to govern parental practices under the guise of protecting the innocence of childhood (Egan, 2013;Egan & Hawkes, 2007, 2009.…”

Section: Problematizing Sexualisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the absence of sexuality in childhood is construed as natural, there is an uneasy tension as this is juxtaposed with an unyielding and ungovernable sexual instinct (Egan & Hawkes, 2007, 2009a. This is problematic as it creates a paradox where sexuality is seen as both absent and present in young women (Egan, 2013;Egan & Hawkes, 2012).…”

Section: Problematizing Sexualisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Governing the souls of young women: exploring the perspectives of mothers on parenting in the age of sexualisation

Howard

Hallam

Brady

2014

Journal of Gender Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The sexualisation of young women has emerged as a growing concern within contemporary western cultures. This has provoked adult anxieties that young women are growing up too fast by adopting inappropriate sexual practices and subjectivies. Psychological discourses have dominated which position sexualisation as a corrupting force that infects the ‘true self’ of young women, so they develop in abnormal ways. This in turn allows psychological practices to govern how to parent against sexualisation within families. To explore this further, six mothers each with daughters aged between eight and twelve years old took part in one to one semi-structured interviews designed to explore how they conceptualised and parented against the early sexualisation of young women. A Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis was employed, which suggested that the mothers talk was situated within a psychological discourse. This enabled sexualisation to be positioned as a corrupting force that disrupted the natural development of young women through deviant bodily practices (e.g. consuming sexualised goods), which prevented them from becoming their ‘true self’. Through the disciplinary gaze of psychology, class inequalities were reproduced where working class families were construed as ‘chavs’ who were bad parents and a site of contagion for sexualisatio

show abstract

Section: Problematizing Sexualisationmentioning

confidence: 99%