Philadelphia Magazine currently has an article up about pre-pubescent girls getting serious spa treatments, we’re talking bikini waxes, skin treatments meant for middle aged women, etc. I mean bikini waxes on someone who doesn’t even have pubic hair yet! What the fuck?!?! I don’t even know what else to say…
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/pretty_babies/page1
Actually, that’s lie, I have a couple things to say. First, this is talking about the area where I spent my teen and pre-teen years. I pretty much try to pretend those didn’t exist because the kids were so awful there. I was definitely teased for not shaving yet when I was 11 (by a boy) and I was never the most popular kid. I’m pretty sure a lot of that was cause I was smart and didn’t buy into a lot of the beauty crap that the girls in my school did. So, this trend just makes me so angry!
Second, its a shame this article seems to be so exclusively focused on the roles the mothers play in this primping. It is troubling the way the mothers shoulder most of the blame. While the article briefly mentions the role that our oversexualized pop culture plays in encouraging insane notions of prepubescent “beauty” or “sexiness,” the author seems more offended that mothers will allow their daughters to be waxed, shaved, plucked, and dyed before they turn 10. Part of what bothers me about blaming the the mothers almost exclusively is that it feeds into a cultural trend of mom-blaming. It is one of those ways women just cannot win. Women are held up to ridiculous notions of motherhood, where they are expected to be superwomen, and it is clear that they cannot always win when they have to meet such high-expectations. (Not that this lets mothers off the hook, I’m just saying the it is not all their fault, let’s recognize that.)
I think it is important to highlight what else is at play here. Where are the boys/men in this equation? Shouldn’t we also be teaching boys and men to appreciate real women? Shouldn’t the author spend a little more time implicating the media and advertising for targeting young kids with these messages? People went crazy when tobacco was marketed to kids, shouldn’t we be going crazy about marketing insane notions of beauty and potentially harmful the chemicals needed to achieve those ideals the same way? I think it is pretty clear that pushing these products on young girls and allowing them to have access to them is a public health issue. Why don’t we treat it as one, like we do with tobacco and alcohol? Since many of these treatments involve chemicals and can have dangerous consequences for young girls as they develop mentally and physically, isn’t there a way to put our foot down and say this is ridiculous? I hate that this article just has everyone passing the buck of responsibility, salons blame the moms, the moms blame the media and the other kids, the media blames the moms. I’d love to see a real leader take this kind of thing on, take some responsibility, and try to push for change for the better.
