Sexualization of Little Girls in the Media

Does the Media Sexualize Little Girls? Many different articles and essays use statistics to back up their claims but you is to say if they are accurate or not? In “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” by Stephanie Hanes and “Toddlers in Tiaras” by Skip Hollandsworth they use many different statistics to back up their claims that the media is sexualizing little girls and that it is a problem for themselves and society.

Even though they shock you with their disturbing statistics you wouldn’t know if they were correct without some further research. The statistic that I chose to research in “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” by Stephanie Hanes was that, “The marketing group NPD Fashionworld reported in 2003 that more than $1. 6 million is spent annually on thong underwear for 7- to 12-year-olds. ” What I found left me confused but didn’t necessarily prove the statistic wrong.

When I researched the statistic the only places I could find this statistic were on websites or blogs using from statistic “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect. ” NPD Fashionworld may have very well done the research to back up their claims but I could not find any other companies or researchers doing the same study. I would say that the research is not very credible because of one major thing; there are no other sets of data to compare it to.

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The statistic that I chose from “Toddlers in Tiaras” by Skip Hollandsworth was that, “A small study published in Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, that involved 22 women, half of whom had participated in child beauty pageants, concluded that there were “no significant differences” between the two groups on measures of bulimia, body perception, depression, and self-esteem. But it did find that the former beauty pageant girls scored significantly higher on “body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation [an ability to resist performing actions that would be harmful to themselves or others]. This statistic shows that women who participated in pageants as young girls were not affected medically more than women who did not but they did suffer some effects that aren’t necessarily threatening. When I researched this statistic and this study I found that there are not too many studies on this subject. When I looked up the effects of beauty pageants on women if they competed as girls I found that there were a lot of blogs and websites pointing out individual cases or small groups. I find that this statistic is not credible because the group tested is too small.

Only 22 women were tested which is a cause for concern. You can not get all the evidence you need from 22 people to make a strong claim. Another reason why I feel that this statistic is not credible is the fact that there hasn’t been any major studies on the issue. There have been many small studies like the one mentioned in the statistic but none providing any substantial evidence. Articles like “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” by Stephanie Hanes and “Toddlers in Tiaras” by Skip Hollandsworth provide many statistics to try and shock you.

They are very effective at first glance but once you look into them a little more you start to fell a little skeptic. Many of the statistics used are influential but not in the fact of providing hard evidence. Many of the statistics used were either found by small studies or there had only been one study performed on the issue which does not give enough proof. Statistics are a great way to provide support for you claims but it does require the reader to a little research if they really want to know for sure.

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