Too Much? Too Young? The Sexualisation of Children Debate in Australia

Lumby, Catharine; Albury, Kath

doi:10.1177/1329878x1013500116

Cited by 38 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…So too did a succession of policy papers and government and institutional reports published in the UK, USA and Australia secure the ‘sexualization’ of girls as a pressing social problem (Egan, 2013). Amongst these, the Australia Institute Report, provocatively titled Corporate Paedophilia (Rush and La Nauze, 2006), and the American Psychological Society Task Force Report on the Sexualization of Girls (APA, 2007) exerted a particularly strong influence in highlighting the ‘sexualization’ of girls as a ‘crisis’ requiring swift educational and political intervention (Duschinsky, 2013; Lumby and Albury, 2010). Collectively, this body of literature has both underlined the problematic of ‘sexualized’ representations of women and girls in the media and, perhaps unwittingly, cast girls as the naïve and damaged victims of ‘sexualization’.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Too many bad role models for us girls’: Girls, female pop celebrities and ‘sexualization’

Jackson

Vares

2015

Sexualities

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In recent years the 'sexualization' of pre-teen and younger girls has been a dominating presence in the media and popular press. Female celebrities' hypersexual performances and styling, in particular, have been significantly implicated in claims about girls being launched into premature sexuality under the influence of their idols. Yet, despite the claims, relatively little is known about how pre-teen girls make sense of 'sexualized' media in relation to self and others. This paper contributes to an emergent feminist literature that aims to expand our knowledge about pre-teen girls' understandings and negotiations of sexually saturated popular culture. Drawing on material from a project in which 71 pre-teen girls recorded media video diaries about their everyday engagement with popular culture, the paper examines girls' negotiation of female pop celebrity performances of hypersexual subjectivities. Our discursive analyses highlight girls' negotiations of hypersexual celebrity as necessarily complicated and contradictory, reflecting their location in intersecting discourses of age, sexuality, and femininity.

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confidence: 99%

“…Tethered to broader critiques of the term ‘sexualization’ itself (e.g. its elastic and labile meanings; Gill, 2012; Lumby and Albury, 2010), scholars have underscored the limitations of a psychologizing gaze and media-effects model (e.g. Gill, 2012), erasures of girls’ agency (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘Too many bad role models for us girls’: Girls, female pop celebrities and ‘sexualization’

Jackson

Vares

2015

Sexualities

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“…Tankard Reist, 2009b: 33) and those who challenge them (e.g. Lumby and Albury, 2010: 145–146) disagree about the size and significance of public concern about sexualisation these well-attended public meetings suggest that, if not a movement, there is certainly a popular (and socially well-connected) constituency available to be mobilised. These meetings are a current phenomenon at the time of writing but it is the three public meetings that I attended in the city of Adelaide, South Australia, held between October 2009 and May 2010, that are the beginning point of my analysis here of the media sexualisation discourse as it manifests in Australia.…”

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confidence: 99%

National virtue and the ‘media sexualisation of children’ discourse in Australia

Baird

2013

Sexualities

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Most studies of the media sexualisation of children debate focus on its significance in terms of discourses of sexuality and gender. This article makes observations about public meetings called to express concern about media sexualisation held in several Australian capital cities 2009–2010 to argue that media sexualisation is also meaningful in relation to discourses of nation. Drawing on the claim made by Valerie Walkerdine that concern with the eroticisation of girls is a defence against acknowledgement of difficult sexual desires and Gayle Rubin’s observation that concerns with children’s sexuality often carry other political agendas, this article argues that the concern with media sexualisation of children in the Australian context carries meaning about national identity and national virtue. It places the emergence of the discourse in the recent history of revelations about the systemic abuse of children by the state and the Christian churches throughout the 20th century and into this century, and argues that the media sexualisation discourse constitutes subjects who, via their investment in innocence, are exonerated from any culpability in this compromising national history.

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“…'Childhood innocence' has continued unabated to define the child and its place in the world today. In fact, any challenge to the sacrosanct concept of childhood innocence generally leads to a heightened level of concern in society (see critiques by Renold, 2005;Blaise, 2010;Egan & Hawkes, 2010;Lumby & Albury, 2010;Taylor, 2010;Renold & Ringrose, 2011;Egan, 2013).…”

Section: Children's Knowledge Sexual Subjectivity and Sexual Citizenmentioning

confidence: 97%

Doing Sexuality Research with Children: Ethics, Theory, Methods and Practice

Robinson

Davies

2014

Global Studies of Childhood

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This article is a critical reflection on undertaking qualitative research with children and young people about sexuality issues. Framed within a feminist post-structuralist and queer theoretical perspective, the authors understand sexuality as a historically and culturally contingent category of subjectivity, and a complex signifying system founded on individual and institutional relations of power. Based on Australian research that has spanned the past decade, the authors reflect on their experiences of research with children and young people around sexuality, and the issues encountered in gaining approval to undertake this research from institutional human ethics committees. The authors also discuss the use of images from popular culture and media representations as a methodology to engage children, young people and adults in discussions on relationships and sexuality issues within the context of interviews and focus groups. In conclusion, the authors reflect on what it means to be a researcher in this field and offer some thoughts on how best to support researchers to continue engaging in this research.

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Too Much? Too Young? The Sexualisation of Children Debate in Australia

Cited by 38 publications

References 12 publications

‘Too many bad role models for us girls’: Girls, female pop celebrities and ‘sexualization’

‘Too many bad role models for us girls’: Girls, female pop celebrities and ‘sexualization’

National virtue and the ‘media sexualisation of children’ discourse in Australia

Doing Sexuality Research with Children: Ethics, Theory, Methods and Practice

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