A recent article on YPulse covers the rising industry of Tween salons, specifically one suburban salon called Sweet & Sassy Salon and Spa, where girls are encouraged to be “Diva for A Day.” A quick search on Google and you’ll find similar tween salons and spas that offer any spa service you could possibly imagine. These businesses are capitalizing on a manufactured girlhood that centers on beauty (this one even relies on gossip rhetoric). The YPulse article claims (bizarrely), when you’re a tween, “as Britney put it, you’re not a girl, not yet a woman.” I disagree on so many levels, and not only because Britney was twenty years old when she came out with that song.

When I first read the article, and after discussing it with LAMPpost editor Emily Long, we talked about how problematic it is to encourage girls to emulate the “diva” mentality. “Having fun with the way you look and expressing yourself doesn’t need to mean you’re a diva, or pretending to be a diva or celebrity, and adheres to this message that caring about fashion/beauty equals vanity, snobbery and brattiness as opposed to things like creativity and identity,” points out editor Emily Long, “This salon is clearly funneled toward one very narrow brand of beauty.” In fact most of the tween spas and salons I found were pretty unadulterated about this diva shtick. Yet many of them offered services for children younger than tweens.

Sadly, these salons think they’re providing a positive service. The narrow brand of beauty they’re selling is misinterpreted as empowerment while they claim they’re providing spaces for bonding between girls and their mothers. Yet girls need empowerment and female relationships that run much deeper than the vanity of red carpet fashion show and pop karaoke that comes with the Sweet & Sassy salon packages. These salons are selling the same poisoned Kool-Aid as the problematic beauty industry while masking it with a facade of pink and glittery girl-power. In the end, all they learn is that looking good matters more than anything else.

This photo of Sweet and Sassy Salon is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Through the rhetoric of tweenhood, the beauty industry is reaching girls at alarmingly young ages. With it comes the struggle to figure out how to manage expectations of beauty that encourage these children to act much older than they are. The video (top) for Sweet & Sassy salon eerily reminds me of TLC’s infamous show Toddlers and Tiaras, with young girls prancing down the red carpet and nervously eyeing the camera taping their fashion show. This practice of self-display feels contrived for most adults so it’s especially bizarre when 7-year-olds are doing it. Peggy Orenstein  discusses the princessification and girlie-girl culture of these salons in her book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter. In her first chapter  she explains, “In one study of eighth-grade girls, for instance, self-objectification — judging your body by how you think it looks to others — accounted for half the differential in girls’ reports of depression and more than two-thirds of the variance in their self-esteem. Another linked the focus on appearance among girls that age to heightened shame and anxiety about their bodies. Even brief exposure to the typical, idealized images of women that we all see every day has been shown to lower girls’ opinion of themselves, both physically and academically.” This is not surprising, yet places like Sweet & Sassy create entire business images that–to their credit, probably unknowingly–profit off of these depressing realities.

When I see places like tween salons that conflate the diva mentality of fashion with self-empowered creativity I get really frustrated. It’s difficult enough for girls to negotiate issues of beauty without an entire industry driving it. Don’t get me wrong, I think self-expression and dress-up play is really important. If kids (read: all genders) enjoy colorful nail polish or dress-up, they should have the space to explore these things. But this sort of play doesn’t come without implications. Parents must help their children to contextualize it through the scope of self-empowerment instead of through this snobby, celebri-fied diva mentality. While the issue isn’t exactly new, it appears to be growing ever more dire.

–Emily Breitkopf

Emily is a contributing writer for The LAMPpost. You can find more of her writing on her blog, “Kids and Gender.”

Images from "Jours Après Lunes." Photo array by Jezebel.com.

With the recent uproar about a French company selling lingerie for young children, it’s reassuring that American society largely rejects the idea of putting little girls in sexy bras and underwear. It’s ironic to see kid lingerie being sold in a country where kids being naked in public doesn’t have the same stigma that is held in the United States. There have been criticisms that the uproar in the U.S. about this French company is the product of an uptight American mentality. While I don’t agree that these complaints are, by any stretch of the imagination, uptight, I do think there’s an important underlying dialogue in this criticism.

The photographs of the child models on the company’s site are perhaps more disconcerting than their actual products. Their poses resonate those enacted by grown women in various forms of media. When women strike these poses, they become the subject of the male gaze, something that is not only troubling for women but should be absolutely off-limits for children. There’s a fine line between femininity and hyper-sexualization that’s becoming more and more blurry for young girls in our society. While there’s a huge difference between being ‘uptight’ about kids being sexualized and about letting your kid run around naked, the two issues are complexly intertwined.

If you go to any beach in the U.S., you’ll see shirtless little boys in their swimshorts while the little girls wear a cutesy one-piece, boardshorts and a swim shirt, or a “two piece” swim suit (aka bikini). You rarely see a girl over the age of two without a shirt. When I was five years old I remember standing in my driveway, greeting a friend and hearing the mother ask me why I didn’t have a shirt on. I’ve always remembered the feeling of exposure I had at that moment. While little boys are freely flaunting their upper body throughout their childhood, why are we so concerned with covering our little girls? There’s something about the way we still teach femininity that says that little girls, even as toddlers, should not be naked in public.

When you enter puberty as a young girl, you can feel the process of sexualization happen as the world begins to alter its interactions with you. A common reaction is to cover up, whether physically, emotionally or both, to maintain some sort of security in your body while you’re feeling increasingly exposed. The mere fact that this lingerie company exists is proof that First World girls are becoming sexualized much too early (from early puberty, to sex, to sexualized clothing). In the U.S., we have babikini.com, a baby string bikini company–another veritably creepy concept. As I grew up with my friends wearing “two pieces” from an early age, I always wondered why we couldn’t just wear the bathing suit bottoms if we hadn’t grown breasts yet. What was it about our nipples that the rest of the world couldn’t see? When you begin to tell a child that she needs to cover parts of her body that look exactly like the boy next to her which he doesn’t have to cover, there is a disconnect. When little girls are told to cover their bodies so early, we remove the unabashedness from their relationships with their bodies and replace it with self-consciousness.

It is important for girls to be prepared for the heaviness of the way the world interacts with them. But it’s equally important for them to really know what it feels like to be a little kid for as long as possible before they enter the complex role of sexuality and womanhood. The stigmas prevent our little girls from being just kids and transitions them far too soon into a space that isn’t at all safe for them. Telling children at age three to cover their nipples is the very beginning of sexualization. But since they’re years away from puberty, they shouldn’t be even remotely exposed to the concept. After all, isn’t one of the best parts of childhood being able to run around, not in your French lingerie or American bikini, but unabashedly naked?

–Emily Breitkopf

Emily is a contributing writer for The LAMPpost. You can find more of her writing on her blog, “Kids and Gender.”

Meghan McDermott and Rayhan Islam accepting an award from Michelle Obama

For The LAMP’s April Spotlight interview, we sat down with Meghan McDermott, the Executive Director of Global Action Project (G.A.P.). She is an expert on youth media and social justice, and has seen a lot of change both in technology and the young people who use it. Read on to learn more about G.A.P., her thoughts on the development and production of youth media and much more.

What is Global Action Project, and how did you come to be Executive Director?
G.A.P. is a youth-media arts organization with a social justice mission. We’re just about to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We were originally formed as a project of Global Kids, and over time established our own roots. I joined the organization as Executive Director eight years ago, having been on the board for a year. I just really loved the work.

Media have changed a lot since G.A.P. got started twenty years ago. How has that impacted the organization and work?
That is a huge question. The short answer is yes, media obviously has changed, but more than that, approaches to youth development have changed. And youth media as a field has actually emerged–ten years ago it was just a ragtag of collective initiatives. There’s much more clarity. On our end at G.A.P., we’ve seen a rise in people who are doing organizing work and are incorporating media into their activism, so that’s a shift. But probably the most talked about and least understood shift is the role of social networking. We just don’t know what it means yet. For those of us who do see media as a collaboration process, social networking is still about individual, raw, unmediated monologue, and we’re trying to figure that out. It’s so fluid and new. The Internet as a form of public access is less than twenty years old, so I think we’re still trying to understand what that has done for our lives.

What do you think makes media production such a uniquely powerful tool for youth empowerment and education?
Not everyone is going to agree with me on this, but for me it is the fact that it’s really well-suited for collaborative work. And you could say, “Well, what about theater ensemble or sports?” But there’s something about building a story together, and doing it with the media arts craft and tools that makes it different. I think theater ensemble is actually very similar, but the power of theater is that it’s live, and the power of media is that it goes on and on to reach vast audiences over time…it is the production means of our time. It’s a currency. It’s about developing a language and an ability to communicate. Media production with a purpose that is creatively engaged can be really amazing for opening people up to their own potential, and I do think media are unique because of the craft and audience and analysis. Ideally, it’s about pushing a person’s sense of potential beyond themselves, and not as an individual.

What would you say are some of the biggest differences between students twenty years ago and your students today?
Twenty years ago when G.A.P. was founded — and this is especially true because of how we started as a leadership organization — young people were really excited to gain access to these tools, just as they are today. And I don’t think the desire to communicate was any different. What may be different now is an immediacy, an urgency to their efforts; twenty years ago they had to sit down in front of a giant SHVS or 3/4 inch deck to edit and now it’s non-linear. Then, the cultural context was about addressing diversity, tolerance and multiculturalism…the context now is that there is more talk about young people as artists who are shifting both the aesthetics and demographics of the country, or being “social agents of change.” In some ways now, the youth development field may be more polarized with a focus on either social justice/change work on the one hand and strict academic achievement on the other, as if we have moved from a discourse of multiculturalism to workforce or 21st century literacy, for example. But fundamentally, what has not changed, is a real desire from young people to be respected and acknowledged by adults and peers for what they have to say, and for them to witness their own power and potential.

How have your students become more involved in their communities as a result of working with G.A.P.?
We haven’t done any real alumni tracking, except anecdotally. The thing I struggle with in answering this question is whether it means they get involved in their community now or community in general by moving on, going to college, becoming a teacher or whatever it is they want to do. So there are individual achievements over time to take into account. We have tried to make the direct connection to community much more concrete and real, where young people are making media to address a campaign or as part of a community movement. For example, we recently partnered with a great organization in the Bronx called Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice to help their young organizers produce a video in support of their restorative justice campaign. Restorative justice is an innovative youth-centered approach to addressing conflict in schools that is a direct response to zero tolerance policies. The focus is on being very peer-to-peer as opposed to punitive. Now YMPJ is using the video, called Breaking the Pipeline, as a central part of their campaign. You can find out more about the design of our partnership here, because we were featured in the Citizen Active series exploring Next Generation leadership strategies. So, in that sense we are working to make our links and impacts to community concrete, measurable and real. But young people are engaged in so many ways–whether it’s by screening their work, sitting on panels, going to conferences or bringing their sisters, brothers, cousins, parents to our programs and events—we have to work across tiers of impact.

G.A.P. recently received an award from Michelle Obama. What was that like?
That was really wonderful. Last year, we were one of fifteen organizations across the country to receive the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program award, which is a gold star from the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities. What was exciting was that one of our students, Rayhan Islam, came with me, and he got to meet Michelle Obama and other people from around the country, and he learned about other the programs being honored at the White House that day. When you’ve worked so hard for so long, it is really gratifying to get noticed at that level.

Reese's Puffs, named one of the least nutritious but heavily marketed cereals

A few days ago, Yale University released the results of a study conducted around the television advertising of cereal to children. Also a few days ago, according to an editorial in this morning’s L.A. Times, the Food & Drug Administration made some noise about plans by the food industry to add “Smart Choices” labels to cereals and other foods which are high in sugar and other non-nutritious additives. On the one hand, I applaud the FDA for stepping up to protect consumers from misleading information, but on the other hand, I’m still furious it took this long. Really–the FDA is just noticing this now? For far too long, it has been too easy to slap a “Smart Choices” label on less-than-smart food.

Among the findings of the Yale study was research demonstrating that marketers in the cereal industry are pretty liberal with their health claims.  For example, Lucky Charms, Golden Grahams, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp and Reese’s Puffs average three or more health claims per box.  A look at the Nutrition Facts box on Lucky Charms reveals that although it does provide several vitamins, it also contains a lot of sugar–14 grams per serving, and that’s a one cup/35 gram serving. And, that one serving fills 10% of the recommended daily intake of both carbohydrates and sodium. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but on top of this, I doubt that most kids eating Lucky Charms are only eating one cup.

Ok, so Lucky Charms is only advertising its strong points. That’s typical; if I wanted to sell a product I would also choose to accentuate the positive while downplaying the negative. But the real trap here is that most people see those few positive things, and forget to ask about the rest. In my opinion, the fact that Lucky Charms is 41% sugar outweighs the benefit of the calcium and vitamin D in it, since I can get my calcium and vitamin D in lots of other ways that don’t also require me to overload on refined sugar. Plus, research shows that fewer consumers under 30 years old are looking at nutrition labels.

The application of media literacy to  this issue is clear. Consumers and children are not asking questions about how something is being marketed to them (why are all the kids cereals on the bottom shelf at the supermarket?), nor can they identify the constructed message which may not tell the whole truth up front.  Like I said, I’m glad the FDA is doing something, and I hope the momentum continues. Better late than never.

–Emily Long

One example of a mission was, “How can fisherman only catch the kind of fish that they can sell?” The player on this mission would then work to solve the problem, perhaps by designing a new kind of fishing net, or by going out to talk to fishermen about the obstacles that keep them being more profitable while also sustainable. The player would then create a design using the game’s platform, and that design would be shared with the expert, who could potentially put the ideas into practice. Players earn points for missions, and can also work in “tribes” to collaborate on a mission–for example, a player who has chosen to play in Mexico City but who actually lives in India might do well to partner with someone with someone in Mexico. As players gain more points, they move up on the leadership board, and have the opportunity to win sponsor prizes. The difficulty also increases with the more missions players accept.

The director of The Ten Project is John Tattersall, who also administered the demo. He has filmed 16 seasons of “Survivor,” been nominated seven times for an Emmy in cinematography, worked with various philanthropic organizations throughout the world, having visited 90 countries and lived in 18.  He certainly has a great idea with Mega-City Hero, and hopes that it will be an after-school program in urban and rural schools all over the world. I personally love the empowerment it brings to young people to have an impact on their world, and the interaction between players and professionals who can use some of that creativity to work on problems in their city. I love that the kid in India and the kid in Mexico can work together and share ideas about how urban problems are solved or viewed differently in each of their countries. When we at The LAMP talk about working with teachers to integrate and explore new media in their classrooms, this is the sort of thing we’re talking about.

My concern is the territory of need that may prove an obstacle to the game being a success. In particular, I wonder about access. The teacher sitting next to me was saying how she loved the game but wasn’t sure if her students would be able to participate, because the game is Web-based and her school doesn’t have a decent Internet connection. In addition to needing the Internet connection, players also benefit from having access to things like digital cameras that they can use to present and share their ideas, and interact with each other across the globe. There is also the issue of how media literate the children and teachers are in a certain area. Low-income schools and communities may be able to get computers with government grants or philanthropic support, but the machines are useless if they are not also provided with the media literacy that is necessary for them to be productive, responsible citizens of the digital world. In his presentation, Mr. Tattersall spoke about wanting to engage squatter communities and slums with the game, but I’m not sure yet about how they would be able to do that without expensive equipment.

To be fair, Mega-City Hero is not going to solve all the problems of the world, nor does it intend to–I don’t think it was created to address or solve the issue of access or poverty. In order to have the greatest impact with the broadest spectrum of players worldwide, Mega-City Hero will need to incorporate organizations like The LAMP, One Laptop Per Child, Kiva and many, many more doing similar work in their countries. Truly, this is a project of gigantic proportions, and I think it is an incredible opportunity for young people to make a positive change and consider the impact they have on the world around them.  Because it is so large, it will move in baby steps at first in relation to the scope of the vision Mr. Tattersall described for us last night. Yet they will nonetheless be giant steps to a world of empowerment, creativity, understanding and growth.

–Emily Long

Let’s stop for a second and imagine a world where junk food goes the way of the cigarette, and can no longer be advertised on TV, in youth magazines, in theatres showing movies with a rating lower than an R. Let’s also think about how the Working Group will determine which foods are healthy and which foods are not–remember that back in 2003, the USDA determined that frozen french fries should be defined as a fresh vegetable. Depending on how it is prepared, almost any food can be made less healthy; slather an apple in caramel and peanut butter, and it’s suddenly no good at keeping that doctor away.

I applaud measures that challenge advertisers to be responsible in their tactics, but such measures are not enough without the education to accompany it. Where is the U.S. Department of Education in all of this to determine the impact of junk food ads on young minds? Who is going to look at how unhealthy foods and beverages are marketed in public schools? You can censor, ban and regulate all you want, but that doesn’t make junk food disappear, any more than it has made cigarettes go away. Education–in this case, specifically and especially media education–is the key for real and lasting change from within.

While the program itself is certainly worthy of note and discussion, Miller also makes another really interesting point that addresses the overall idea of “e-learning.” “Education,” she writes, “is one area that Internet has not yet transformed.”

The Internet has some amazing capabilities as a learning tool, but many educators have largely ignored its potential. In fact, schools tend to go in the opposite direction, limiting students’ access to computers or imposing time constraints. Certainly schools are justified in some of these restrictions that promote healthy online experiences, but the resistance educators have to employ new and innovative educational online programs and tools in the classroom indicates that they are not eager to explore this new terrain.

However, by refocusing our approach to the Internet in schools, we might find, as DreamBox has, that e-learning creates both a thus-far untapped market for developers and a new, interactive method of teaching our students.

As of now, mtv.com is currently running ads and online content for shows such as “A Double Shot At Love With The Ikki Twins,” “Bromance,”  “The Hills” and any number of music videos that are highly sexualized.  So, wait–your kid is on mtv.com and you’re worried that they’re seeing an ad about Plan B? What about the depictions of casual sex, the objectification of women, drugs and alcohol, body image and relationships?

I am completely aware of the heated debate around sex education, early termination of pregnancies and abortion.  I respect viewpoints on all sides.  No matter what you as a parent believe about these issues, understand that your kids are already getting a plethora of mixed messages about sex from the media.  Maybe you’re not ready to have “the talk,” but there is another kind of talk you cannot delay, and that is about what your kids are seeing and doing online, what television shows they watch, the movies they see, the video games they play, etc.  I consider myself a fairly well-educated person, but even I am confused when a Plan B banner ad is running above a clip of the scantily clad Ikki Twins licking frosting off their suitors.  Again–you think the ad is the only thing wrong with this picture?

We know kids are attracted to television commercials, and are, for the most part, impressed by catchy ad messages, wherever and whenever these ads catch their attention. I see the attraction in my own children, though I try my best to point out to them the flaws in the messages every chance I get. As a result, my 10 year-old has become a bit cynical. Good for him.

What most people may not know is the lengths to which marketers go to shape children into consumers – even going so far in their “research” as to visit the homes of these malleable little spenders, talking to them about what they eat, what they wear, and what they like to do, all in the interest of figuring out the best way to sell to them. The marketers also get the wee friends involved, since it’s best for marketing practitioners to witness kiddie group think. The worst part is that not only do the marketers talk at length, and intensely, with these burgeoning consumers, they also just sit and watch them—with the video camera running. As one critic featured in Consuming Kids aptly explained, it’s just absolutely creepy!

The video is a must-watch for parents. It reminds me of a kiddie version of “cool hunting,” a practice explained in the PBS documentary Merchants of Cool, where marketers penetrate the minds of urban youth trendsetters, looking for ideas to steal so they can brand their sodas, sneakers and other products using techniques that continuously associate those products with the latest, hippest trends.

The irony is that it’s just so uncool to shape children into consumers. I realize it’s been happening for a long time, and that it’s virtually impossible to steer clear from it. After all, how did we get into this financial mess in the first place? But thank goodness for a video like Consuming Kids, which lays it out there–cynical marketers, cutesy advertising, the resulting eternally dissatisfied children slathered in advertising–all of it.

Truth be told, kids need to watch this, too. I’ll get my 10-year-old to sit down and watch. Maybe we’ll get a viral anti-marketing thing going at his school, for the kids and the parents.

–Katherine Fry