A friend sent me the link for an interesting article in Stuff.co.nz today:
The author asked directly a group of young girls about what they thought of Miley Cyrus’s MTV performance. I think is very interesting to hear their point of view on this and what I can read in this article is not much different from the comments I am reading in my participants’ Facebook wall (all girls 10-13 years old)
Their reaction is very well expressed through an old video of Hanna Montana spotted on my FB wall and apparently gone viral among youngsters these days: don’t forget to read the comments, it’s quite illuminating…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=535714613149558&set=vb.431851636869190&type=2&theatre
My personal impression from talking to young girls directly but also from researching, reading their comments of different forums, social networks and Facebook pages is that most of them are incredibly grounded and maintain a level-head attitude regarding the constant bombardment of sexualised material: it ‘s becoming so normal that I am wondering if all this emphasis the media and celebrity culture put on sex would one day reach the point of having the opposite effect on our children: maybe they’ll get bored out of their heads to see it – completely desensitised – and nothing will really shock them any more, however sexually explicit it might be!
The article made me realise that often adults have their pre-conceptions regarding how young girls (or children more in general) would be influenced or react to certain material, so in many instances talking to them is not enough…we should really learn to LISTEN more 😉