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Carol Midgely looks at The Lolita Effect, by M. Gigi Durham, in The Times: "Last Halloween, Gigi Durham opened her front door to find a five-year-old girl standing on the doorstep. The child was wearing a boob tube, gauze miniskirt, platform heels and glitter eye-shadow. “I’m a Bratz!” she declared. Durham was put more in mind of a child prostitute that she had once seen in Cambodia. There wasn’t that much to choose between the two girls’ outfits.
So begins Durham’s new
book,
The Lolita Effect, a critique of the modern obsession with prematurely sexualising young girls and a manifesto on how to renounce it. We have all seen this “effect” — the push-up bras for pre-teens, the satin thongs and “Eye Candy” T-shirts, the pink plastic “Peekaboo Pole Dancing” kit that was sold at Tesco, the magazines that tutor girls who have barely started their periods how to pander to an imaginary “he”. Who would disagree that the “baby-faced nymphet” — perhaps embodied most explicitly by a school-uniformed Britney Spears in the Baby One More Time video — is a regular fixture on the media landscape? What we might disagree on though is how to counteract it. Some believe that shielding girls from sex for as long as possible — preaching the abstinence message and the pregnancy/STD/victimhood perils of sex — is the only way.
Durham disagrees. Girls do not need “rescuing” from sex, she says. Merely the media’s one-dimensional, profit-driven version of it, which is based purely on male fantasies without a nod to female needs or desires. Rather, girls should be encouraged that it is their right to enjoy it, thus reclaiming their sexuality from a culture that increasingly positions them as passive, objectified sex kittens who are not encouraged to actually want sex or get any pleasure from it yet are mandated to be desirable to males — to look up for it but not, of course, act on it, for that would be sluttish.
What we should also do, says Durham, is empower them to see how skewed marketing messages manipulate females to reach for impossible standards of beauty — the Barbie body — as the one and only way to be “hot”. The reason this is peddled globally as the ideal female model is because it is profitable. A billion-pound industry of cosmetics, diet aids, fashion and plastic surgery depends upon it. It is this that makes millions of girls develop, very early in their lives, a false “self”.
“The Lolita effect begins with the premise that children are sexual beings,” says Durham. “As they mature they deserve to be furnished with factual, developmentally appropriate and useful information about sex and sexuality.” She describes herself as a “pro-sex feminist”. “I think sex is a normal and healthy part of life, even of children’s lives. I want my two young daughters — indeed all girls — to grow up unafraid of and knowledgeable about their bodies, confident about finding and expressing sexual pleasure.” This is not to encourage under-age sex — though she believes that non-coercive sex between teenagers is not automatically harmful and that we shouldn’t always treat it as though it’s the end of the world — but to encourage more public discourse on it. “I think that a lot of girls under 16 have sexual feelings. My belief is that the longer they wait the better they’ll deal with it because the older you are, the more capable you are of thinking through the consequences, where you stand and what you want. But we shouldn’t though be so terrified of the idea that kids are thinking about it because it really is a very normal part of adolescence.”
We cannot, however, just blame the media for this state of affairs. None of this would happen if people didn’t buy into it. True, says Durham. In fact, studies have shown that parents, teachers and other adults may unconsciously perpetuate the Lolita effect.
Do you? Do you instinctively favour prettier children who meet the Lolita criteria, while reacting negatively to plainer girls with larger bodies? Do you compliment female children on their looks, clothes and hairstyles, sometimes forgetting their achievements in a way you never would to boys?
“I see this a lot . . . when I watch people interacting with children,” Durham says. "People are very quick to praise girls especially for their looks, ‘Oh, how pretty you are/ great dress/ I love your hair today’, those kinds of things. And girls don’t get complimented on their achievements [in the same way that boys do] or at least it’s much more infrequent.” It’s easily done — we all want our daughters to look lovely, not least, if we’re honest, because a compliment to them is a vicarious one for us. Durham says that we can combat such effects by focusing much more on their achievements — on what they do creatively, in sport, for the environment, for charity — rather than how they appear. Magazine covers, she says, hardly ever feature images of young female writers or athletes, but of models and actresses, fortifying the message that looks are everything. We can help to make girls media-literate, teach them the lies of the airbrush, engage little girls in discussion about why it’s awfully dated that Disney princesses always need a man to rescue them, send e-mails and letters to companies that use images that we find unacceptable and tutor girls in how to challenge the mythical male gaze which is so often ill-informed about what boys really “want” anyway.
What Durham advocates in her book, which she describes as a feminist manifesto, is to find a way to think about sex separately from money and with young girls perpetually cast in the man-pleasing role. “Can we move to a place where we can consider sexuality as a human impulse that’s about ethical relationships between people and not just something that generates profit?”
In other words let’s not focus not on the imaginary He but the actual Her."
An excerpt from M.Gigi Durham's The Lolita Effect ran today in The Guardian (UK): "Lost Youth: Turning Young Girls in to Sex Symbols."
New in paperback, The Lolita Effect is a groundbreaking account of how the media sexualizes young girls. University of Iowa professor and journalist M. Gigi Durham presents new insight into media myths and spectacles of sexuality. Using examples from popular TV shows, fashion and beauty magazines, movies, and Web sites, Durham shows for the first time all the ways in which sexuality is rigidly and restrictively defined in media often in ways detrimental to girls healthy development. The Lolita Effect offers parents, teachers, counselors, and other concerned adults effective and progressive strategies for resisting the violations and repressions that render girls sexually subordinate. Durham provides us with the tools to navigate this media world effectively without censorship or moralizing, and then to help our girls to do so in strong and empowering ways.
By: John Mark Boling,
on 6/24/2009
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Professor M. Gigi Durham's acclaimed study of the media sexualization of young girls will be available in a new paperback edition next week. The Lolita Effect includes a fascinating new introduction from the author in which he discusses the Miley Cyrus/Vanity Fair fiasco that occurred just as The Lolita Effect rolled off the presses and into bookstores.
M.Gigi Durham will discuss
The Lolita Effect at the
Capitola Book Cafe in Capitola, California on
Thursday, July 30, at 7:30pm.
By: John Mark Boling,
on 2/16/2009
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M. Gigi Durham, author of The Lolita Effect, will be appear on the Dr. Phil show today! In a show called "Growing Up Too Fast," Dr. Phil talks with parents who say it’s difficult to raise their teen daughter in an oversexed, celebrity-obsessed, cosmetic surgery-seeking society. Check your local listings for the time and channel, or go online to find about more about today's provocative show and The Lolita Effect.
This week's Time Magazine includes a feature article on "The Truth About Teens," noting that "girlhood sexiness seems to be everywhere: on TV shows and in movies, in advertising, in teen magazines and all over the Internet." The article includes comments from M. Gigi Durham, University of Iowa professor and author of The Lolita Effect: How the Media Sexualizes Young Girls and What We Can Do About it."
In this week's People magazine, University of Iowa Professor and author of The Lolita Effect, M.Gigi Durham discusses our culture's sexualization of younger and younger girls-and what we can do to protect our daughters. In a Q & A with Nina Burleigh, Durham has this advice for what parents can do to curb the The Lolita Effect: "Talk about how clothing sends signals. Convey that girls are multidimensional: athletic, artistic, intelligent. Sexuality is only one part."
M. Gigi Durham, University of Iowa Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, will appear on the nationally syndicated Fox Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on Thursday, May 22. Professor Durham is the author of a new book, The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It, that offers insight, information, and instruction on combating the early sexualization of young girls. Tomorrow's show includes a report on Moms taking their very young daughters to Spas for facials and massages and pampering.
M. Gigi Durham, author of The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It, talks to Katharine Miezkowski of Salon.com about the "many ways that young girls' sexuality is shaped and exploited by a marketplace where younger is better and the line between child porn and art gets ever blurrier." In a wide-ranging interview (podcast is available on Salon), Professor Durham comments on the marketing of grown-up sexuality to little girls, the Miley Cyrus fiasco, and ways parents can open up the conversation with their daughters about images of girlhood sexuality.
Coming next month is an important new book that is already drawing attention, The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About it by M. Gigi Durham.
From Publishers Weekly: "We’ve all seen it—the tiny T-shirts with sexually suggestive slogans, the four-year-old gyrating to a Britney Spears song, the young boy shooting prostitutes in his video game—and University of Iowa journalism professor Durham has had enough. In her debut book, she argues that the media—from advertisements to Seventeen magazine—are circulating damaging myths that distort, undermine and restrict girls’ sexual progress. Durham, who describes herself as “pro-girl” and “pro-media,” does more than criticize profit-driven media, recognizing as part of the problem Americans’ contradictory willingness to view sexualized ad images but not to talk about sex. Chapters expose five media myths: that by flaunting her “hotness” a little girl is acting powerfully; that Barbie has the ideal body; that children—especially little girls—are sexy; that violence against women is sexy; and that girls must learn what boys want, but not vice versa. After debunking each myth, Durham offers practical suggestions for overcoming these falsehoods, including sample questions for parents and children. In a well-written and well-researched book, she exposes a troubling phenomenon and calls readers to action."
The Lolita Effect will go on sale nationwide on May 1.
If you love reading YA fiction, you’ll probably want to enter the contest over at 100 Scope Notes; there are three different books you can win, and all of them ARCs, which means they’re super-new: “Getting It” By Alex Sanchez; “Canned” By Alex Shearer; and “A Little Friendly Advice” By Siobhan Vivian. All you have to do to enter is send an email, and say which book you’d prefer. Looks like another great contest to me.
Love reading? Love teen fiction? Then you’ll want to check out this contest that offers you the chance of winning 6 different books that will be published this year–brand new, hot off the press!
The books are:
Liz Gallagher - The Opposite of Invisible - coming this January
Lisa Schroeder - I Heart You, You Haunt Me - coming this January
Jody Feldman - The Gollywhopper Games - coming this March
Stacy A. Nyikos - Dragon Wishes - coming this March
Elizabeth C. Bunce - A Curse Dark as Gold - coming this March
Marissa Doyle - Bewitching Season - coming this March
There are 10 questions to answer, which you can find at the website and the authors’ websites–and then you’re entered for all the books, plus a grand prize of three of the books. Have fun!
I love books–and a free book is all the better (if it’s a good one).
Here are some contests you may be able to enter to win a free children’s or teen book this month.
Win 1 of 6 copies of YA fiction book Jimmy Coates: Sabotage by Joe Craig. Contest is run through Families in the UK, but seems to be open to entrants worldwide. The competition closes November 9th, 2007.
Three teachers will win a complete set of Debra Frasier’s books, including Miss Alaineus, On the Day You Were Born, A Birthday Cake is No Ordinary Cake, Out of the Ocean, and The Incredible Water Show from Harcourt. The winner will be chosen in a random drawing. Contest closes November 15, 2007. It may be open worldwide, since it doesn’t list restrictions.
Anorak Magazine is giving away 5 box sets of Lady Grace mysteries. Contest closes November 15, 2007. Open only to UK residents.
Win an autographed copy of Sharon Creech’s The Castle Corona, AND a library of Sharon Creech novels, including Replay, Heartbeat, Walk Two Moons, and Ruby Holler. AND there will be 5 winners, all through HarperCollins. Open only to residents of the US. Contest closes November 21, 2007.
HarperCollins has a contest to win a complete set of Little House on the Prairie books. Open only to US residents. Contest closes November 25, 2007.
Win a copy of Max and the Gatekeeper (YA fantasy) by James Todd Cochrane. Contest open only to US and Canadian residents. Contest closes November 30, 2007.
Win 1 of 10 autographed copies of Howtoons by authors Saul Griffith and Joost Bonsen and comic illustrator Nick Dragotta from HarperCollins. Open only to US residents. Contest closes December 6, 2007.
Win 1 of 25 sets of Rotton School Series #14 and #15 by R L Stine by HarperCollins USA. Contest open only to US residents. Contest closes December 6, 2007.
FlamingNet has a monthly draw for free teen fiction books. You have to join their newsletter in order to win. This month there are four books in the giveaway: Bad Girls Club by Judy Gregerson; Drama Club: The Fall Musical by Peter Lerangis; Fell by David Clement-Davies; and The Finnish Line by Linda Gerber.
You can win a teen book–and even pick out which one you want from the list–from YABookCentral every month. See “winners” on the left hand column. Right now there are 66 books in the prize bucket. You can earn books by submitting reviews or participating in the forum. Open only to residents of US, Canada, and Mexico.
TeensReadToo has a monthly contest to win a free book. 3 copies of Dustin Grubbs: One-Man Show, and Dustin Grubbs: Take Two! by John J. Bonk; 3 sets of the Date Him or Dump Him? series, including The Campfire Crush, The Dance Dilemma, and Ski Trip Trouble by Cylin Busby; 3 copies of Beginner’s Luck by Laura Pedersen; 5 copies of Head Case by Sarah Aronson; 2 sets of the Drama! series including The Four Dorothys and Everyone’s a Critic by Paul Ruditis; 1 copy of Vintage and So Fey by Steve Berman; and 3 autographed copies of Cristo’s Chronicles: The King’s Challenge by Anthony J. Mirarchi. Open only to US residents.
Win a 50th Anniversary Box Set I Can Read contest, which includes Amelia Bedelia, Biscuit, Frog and Toad Together, and Danny and the Dinosaur. 25 winners. Contest closes December 8, 2007. Open only to US residents.
HarperCollins has a contest to win 1 of 10 copies of Purplicious and Pinkalicious by Elizabeth Kann and Victoria Kann. Open to US residents only. Contest closes December 6, 2007.
Children’s book reviews appears to have a monthly contest where they give away some of their review copies of books. There don’t appear to be any restrictions.
Know another contest to win a teen or children’s book? Let me know.
Do you love books as much as I do? Getting a free book in the mail is such a high. Especially if the book is well written, or one you’ll love.
There are a number of contests right now where you can win a teen fiction book. Why not enter? Maybe you’ll score a good read.
Teen Fiction Book Contests:
You can win a teen book–and even pick out which one you want from the list–from YABookCentral every month. See “winners” on the left hand column. Right now there are 66 books in the prize bucket. You can earn books by submitting reviews or participating in the forum. Open only to residents of US, Canada, and Mexico.
Linda Joy Singleton has a contest where you can
win a free autographed copy of one of her books. It looks like the contest ends Oct 31, but then there’s another around Valentine’s Day.
HarperCollins has a “Pitch Black” contest where 10 winners will win a copy of these books: The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle; Jinx; Prom Nights from Hell; Wicked Lovely; Wicked Dead: Lurker; Vampire Kisses: Blood Relatives, Volume I; and Vampire Kisses 4: Dance with a Vampire. Contest open only to residents of the US. Contest closes November 1, 2007.
HarperCollins has a contest to win custom-designed, authentic racing helmet by premiere helmet designer Herm Johnson, and a signed copy of Yellow Flag by Robert Lipsyte. Ten runners up will win a copy of Yellow Flag signed by the author. That means you have 11 chances. Open only to residents of the US. Contest closes October 31, 2007.
Bloomsbury has a monthly YA book contest. This month they’re giving away copies of The Highest Tide, and Alfred Kropp: The Seal of Solomon. Open only to residents of the US.
Win an autographed copy of Sharon Creech’s The Castle Corona, AND a library of Sharon Creech novels, including Replay, Heartbeat, Walk Two Moons, and Ruby Holler. AND there will be 5 winners, all through HarperCollins. Open only to residents of the US. Contest closes November 21, 2007. Wow, huh? (WHY aren’t there more contests open to Canadians? Not bitter. No, not me. 
Simon and Schuster have a monthly contest to win teen books. This month you can win a Gary Paulsen book: a copy of the 20th anniversary edition of Hatchet, or a copy of Dogsong, Woodsong, Tracker, Dancing Carl or Sentries. There are 35 copies of Hatchet to be won, and 200 copies of Paulsen’s other books. Contest closes October 31, 2007. Open to residents of the US and Canada.
TeensReadToo has a monthly contest to win a free book. Open only to US residents.
Penguin USA has a contest to win an iPhone and a copy of Those Girls by Sara Lawrence. Contest closes October 31, 2007. Contest only open to residents of the US.
FlamingNet has a monthly contest to win teen books. You have to join their site to win.
TeenReads has a monthly contest to win a teen fiction book. They haven’t yet updated the contest for October, but I’m sure they will soon. Open to residents of the US and Canada.
If you ilke Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ books, this could be an exciting contest for you. You have to send in 10 questions that you would ask Amelia and tell them why you should be the first Strange Lands Correspondent, and you can win: A trip to New York City and a free pass to the Comic-Con Convention; Lunch with Amelia Atwater-Rhodes; and a podcast of your interview published on Amelia’s web site at www.ameliaatwaterrhodes.com and in the Strange Lands Newsletter. Contest open to residents of US and Canada. Contest closes January 15, 2008.
RandomHouse UK has a contest to win a copy of Jacqueline Wilson’s Kiss and the Girls Collection audio books, and Johnny and the Bomb & Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett. Contest closes October 31, 2007. Open only to residents of the UK and Ireland.
Penguin Books Canada has a monthly contest to win a library of Our Canadian Girls books. Only one entry per person. There don’t seem to be any more limitations than that.
HarperCollins has a contst to win a signed set of the original Warriors series, a signed set of Warriors: The New Prophecy series, a signed copy of Warriors: Power of Three: The Sight and a copy of Warriors: Super Edition: Firestar’s Quest, Warriors Field Guide: Secrets of the Clans, and Warriors: The Lost Warrior. Five other winners will receive a signed copy of Warriors: Power of Three: The Sight and a copy of Warriors: Super Edition: Firestar’s Quest; and twenty runners-up will receive a copy of Warriors: Super Edition: Firestar’s Quest. Open only to U.S. residents. Contest closes October 25, 2007.
Okay, this isn’t a book, but author Robin Brande has a monthly contest where you can win chocolate.
Picture Book Contests:
Picture Book Junkies are having a contest for two autographed picture books by Janee Trasler–
Ghost Gets Dressed! and Ghost Eats It All!. To enter, you send them a drawing or photo of you, your kid, or one of your characters wearing a Halloween costume or fancy dress. Contest runs from Sunday October 21st through Thursday October 25th, 2007.
See more details at their blog. Thank you to Sandra for letting me know about this.
Penguin has a contest to win Nursery Rhyme Jazz by Andy Blackman Hurwitz. Contest closes October 20, 2007. Open only to residents of the US.
BookLoons is offering 5 chances to win Chuck Fischer’s pop-up book Christmas Around the World. Open to residents of US and Canada. Contest closes October 31.
RandomHouse US has a contest where you sign up for their newsletter and you can win books. This month 3 winners will win one of each of these picture books: Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly; Junie B., First Grader: BOO…And I Mean It!; and Punk Farm. Open only to residents of the US. Contest closes November 15, 2007.
Win 1 of 1,000 copies of Jan Brett’s The Three Snow Bears. The first 1000 correct entries will win a copy.
Harcourt has a contest where three teachers will win a complete set of Debra Frasier’s books, including Miss Alaineus, On the Day You Were Born, A Birthday Cake is No Ordinary Cake, Out of the Ocean, and The Incredible Water Show. Contest closes November 15, 2007. It seems you have to be a teacher, but I don’t see any other limitations.
Lee & Low has a monthly contest to win one of their picture books. This month the prize is an autographed copy of Mama Elizabeti, written by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen and illustrated by Christy Hale. There are 3 copies to be won. The contest is open to everyone, except for previous winners. Contest closes October 30, 2007.
Know any more contests for teen or children’s books? Let me know.
Carol Midgely looks at The Lolita Effect, by M. Gigi Durham, in The Times: "Last Halloween, Gigi Durham opened her front door to find a five-year-old girl standing on the doorstep. The child was wearing a boob tube, gauze miniskirt, platform heels and glitter eye-shadow. “I’m a Bratz!” she declared. Durham was put more in mind of a child prostitute that she had once seen in Cambodia. There wasn’t that much to choose between the two girls’ outfits.
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Hi, Cheryl
PBJ blog is having an Online Costume Party and BOOk launch from Oct. 21 - 25. There will be 2 drawings for autographed books. Here\\\\\\\’s the link for more details: http://pbjunkies.blogspot.com
Thank you, Sandra, for letting me know! That’s great. I’ve updated the post to include that contest.