Growing up too fast

– Tween-targeted toys and fashions are prime examples of marketing attempts to make young girls, even those under the age of eight, grow up much too fast.

– Marketing aimed at children from ages eight to twelve, a group commonly called “tweens,” now targets them with advertising previously pointed at teenagers.

– This past Christmas season’s top-selling dolls for girls, the Bratz line, illustrate the pressure tween girls are under because of this type of marketing.

– The difficulty trying to buy an age-appropriate doll this past Christmas revealed the abundance of “highly sexualized” dolls now being produced for tweens and even younger girls.

– It’s important for us to remember that the toys that we give to our children send messages to them about our perceptions of society, value, and beauty.

– When you give a Bratz doll to a little girl, you’re saying this is what women should look like, this is what girls should look like — this is what they should aspire to.

– These popular dolls, which now outsell even Barbie, present an image problem for girls who are, at an early age, already feeling pressured to meet a standard that has no basis in reality

– The Bratz are a highly sexualized, male fantasy, or a stereotyped male fantasy, of what girls and women should look like.

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