Sexualize Children

Emma Renold (2005) describes gender in reference to Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity by saying, “gender is not something that you have, but something that you do and continually do through everyday social and cultural practices” (p. 4). This paper intends to examine the social and cultural practices in which children and young people engage in and also, how these practices solidify their gender identity within the boy/girl binary. I will explain the contradictory notion that “childhood is a time of presumed sexual innocence” (Renold, 2005, p. 17) through my experience at Walmart. Furthermore, this paper will look at how toys gender and sexualize children and young people by examining the differences between White and Black dolls,

20) adults would claim that these children have been robbed of their childhoods. However, children are active in the process of producing their own sexual identity within the “limitations of the adult world” (p. 20). According to Renold (2005), the eroticisation and sexualization of young femininities play a role in the ways children and young people are gendered and sexualized. One of the reasons I took a picture of the Bratz dolls at Walmart (refer to Appendix A picture 2) was because the adolescent figured dolls with tiny waists, big breasts, wear a lot of makeup, have plumped limps and model sexy clothing send a sexualized message toward young girls. In a study by Starr and Ferguson (2012), young girls overwhelmingly expressed their interest in looking like the hypersexualized Bratz doll over the non-sexualized doll. That being said, Walmart’s status as a “family friendly” corporation contradicts with the products they sell because they are sexualizing young girls by selling this eroticised adolescent doll, in which young girls would describe as their ideal self. Renold (2005) states that the “eroticisation of innocence and the fascination with the erotic child is deeply gendered” (p. 23). A family friendly store selling sexy dolls eroticises girl-child innocence, therefore creating a paradox between adults’ desire to

First and foremost, it is easy to differentiate between which aisle is for girls and which aisle is for boys. The girl toy aisle contains babies, strollers, tea carts and kitchen sets – which are all mostly the colours pink and purple. The boy toy aisle contains nerf guns, superheroes, Tonka trucks and police cars covered in green, blue and yellow. Furthermore, the toys that are sold at Walmart provide young girls with images of unrealistic ideals of beauty and what it means to be feminine, for example: the hypersexualized Bratz dolls, toys representing domestic household work and toys which enforce the nurturing “nature” of girls and women. Moreover, the prices that Walmart valued (or devalued) the Black Bratz and Lalaloopsey Girls dolls reveals to young people that White lives are cherished over Black lives, and also sending the message that idealized femininity is not race-neutral. Additionally, the toys in Walmart’s boys’ section were of a more competitive, aggressive and violent nature in comparison to that of the girls’ section where the toys were characterized by nurturance, physical appearance, and manipulability. In the case of the young boy and the out of place toy, it is situations like these that highlight how Walmart’s gender-based toy sections can foster bullying. I propose that one of the simplest things Walmart could do is change