(01-21-2014, 05:35 PM)shoju Wrote: And while I do agree that there are far bigger issues in the way we treat women globally, This is an issue that I care deeply about, as it has direct effects, and impacts within my home. My four walls.
The way you combat this stuff is make sure your daughter sees the rest of the story, not just the 'made for young girls' stuff. If you teach them how to deal with the world as it is, not how you want it to be, it'll pay big dividends later.
My girls (20, 17, and 16 now) all saw that same sexualized and/or girlified stuff, but saw right past it, because I didn't try to shelter them from everything else as much as many parents reflexively do. The strategy isn't to censor everything they see from the Internet and media, so that they don't see the stuff you don't want them to. It's to give them the framework to understand what is real and what has been manipulated, and why it has been done.
As nice as it would be to stop the practices in advertising and media, it's not going to happen anytime soon, no matter what we do. Changing this kind of thing takes time. What you can do in the shorter term is prepare your children to understand what's being done. Even tweens can see when they're being manipulated, if they're given the information and perspective to do so.
--Mav