I read the article in the Washington Post when it appeared and was appaled: this is nothing but the forced sexualization of very young girls (not to mention their preliminary preparation to become massive consumers). There is a difference betweem a young girl sneaking mommy's lipstick and putting on her high heels (I know, very Norman Rockwell) and having them spent time and money in places where that you are not just playing but are there to learn how to become "sexy".

But it led me to thinking that the parents who think this is OK are probably also participating in the mass hysteria about child molestation. I wonder how different the premature sexualization of their daughters is from waving a red cloth to a bull of putting blood in front of a shark.

"I wish my kid would get excited about a Lego party", hey dumbass, they are your kids, so you throw them a Lego party! I'm sure that if you give kids a party, they have a good time, whatever the activity is, just give em toys, candy and cake! Why is it that parents today seem to act like they are at the mercy of media and their kids whims? You are the parent, you have all the money, you make the rules! Oh and I must say that Bratz is the most awful thing I have ever seen, the dolls and the cartoons. I like to watch cartoons for various reasons, the lack of sexual content one of them, so I watched this Bratz cartoon and it made my stomach turn. It focuses on appearance and fad dieting, yeah those are the values I want expressed to my kids, be pretty and thin and you'll be a star!

If your daughter wants to play dress up, go to a second hand clothing store and buy old clothes that you find appropiate. My mother did not let me wear make-up, nail polish or anything like that when I was a little girl, she said make-up was for teens and adults and I'd just have to wait, which I did and I am not worse off for it. They force their kids to take soccer, music, karate or whatever else will look good on a college application but can't extend any control over their kids dress or make-up?

Sexualizing young girls is a disgusting practice, but most of these parents are so clueless they think it's "cute" or it can't be helped because that's just the way the world is so sheep as they were, they teach their children that's it's better to fit in and do what everyone else does than stand up for any kind of rational principles, like 6 yr olds don't need to learn how to shake their milkshake like a pole dancer.

Pathetic.

Little girls' clothes can be tacky, trashy, in poor taste, but not sexy. I just reject the idea that any of us have to worry about our six year old daughters looking sexy, because that's the wrong way to think about little girls' clothes. There is a muslim family in my town that dresses their pre-school daughters in veils- this is the extreme of the attitude that girls can be "sexualized" by clothing alone. False! They be be frou-froued, if I may coin a term, but only a sicko would call it sexy, or blame pedophilia on little girl fashion.

I also find something faintly misogynist about the notion that little girls are somehow contaminated by womanhood if they are allowed to imitate much older women when they play dress up.

This article begins

As if B-roll of murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey at her child beauty pageants wasn't enough to turn your stomach for a lifetime, . . .

Would some kind soul please explain the expression B-roll ? (I've never encountered it before.) T.I.A.

The "Stupid Spoiled Whore" store has become a reality...

Little girls were always encouraged to grow up too quickly. In the Victorian era, parents were urged to treat their children as "miniature adults." Baby dolls that require feeding and diaper-changing, Easy Bake Ovens, Mystery Date, non-functional kitchens made by Fisher Price, Pretty Pretty Princess, Glamour Shots, Tinkerbell cosmetics--these are all bits and pieces of a bigger game of girlhood dress-up, where the child assumes not just the persona of a "princess," but of an independent adult. It might be partly born out of an antiquated parenting technique, preparing a young girl for marriage by age thirteen or whatever, but it’s also part of that childhood fantasy of adulthood, absolutely. Marketing products toward that desire is nothing new.

Unfortunately, the childhood fantasy of adulthood is now farther removed from reality than ever. There are no more "princess" role models--Grace Kelly, Jackie O, well-read and articulate women who know how to deliver speeches in French while rocking a sweet Oleg Cassini ensemble--for girls to look up to. There are no more Harriet-the-Spies, unless you count the movie costarring Rosie O’Donnell. Live action Cinderella Stories now mean transforming an ugly, bookish girl into, not Audrey Hepburn, but into Sandra Bullock or some pop-star drone. And why not? The only rags-to-riches stories in the mainstream seem to involve ordinary Southern girls who finally prove themselves first to Disney (or Fox) and then to the world beyond. What little girl wouldn’t be misled into believing that the key to her own rags-to-riches tale is a hot bod and bedazzled spandex?

I wondered too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Roll#B_roll

Really bugs me when the sexualized little girls are followed around by mother who give lispy helpless sighs and roll their eyes...

It's as though the implicit contract is, "We caaaaan't fight the CULture, because they really liiiiiike it" (siggh, passive giggle).

As in: if little Bipsy likes something, discussion over. Hell, I'm sure I'd like heroin if it were heavily marketed to me at the wrong age and nobody ever ever ever said to me in a FIRM voice:

NO. No we will not be doing that. Here, time for our painting class.

For gods' sake, these poor kids have no parents, no advocates. They have personal shoppers who are sellling...them.