Customer Reviews

The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Media and cultural theorists and people like Roland Barthes, Erving Goffman, and John Berger have been talking about many of the media construction ideas presented here for decades. What Durham does is to do away with the academic footnotes (even helpful footnotes and comments are supplied at the end of the book) and condense it into readable chapters, each ending with helpful suggestions to get one's daughter (and son) to question and eventually, challenge the industry-constructed truths ("myths"): they will ask themselves "how is this magazine or tv ad selling this idea of conformity to me and why should I be listening to it?"

Although Rosalind Wiseman (who wrote Queen Bees and Wannabes, which the movie Mean Girls was based on) have mentioned that young girls readily buy into the blond hair blue eyed Barbie ideal, even though they instinctively know it's a ruse. At the end of each chapter, The Lolita Effect does present great conversation starters between parents and their children on discussing ways to navigate around the labyrinth of media.

The internet today has shrunk the world into a few taps of the keyboard. Therefore I think it is important to examine the "myth" on an international level. For example, Hajaruku fashion (a Japanese phenomenon) actually features a style known as Lolita Gothic. Take a casual glance at the blog entries online and you will see many American teenage girls chatting about this look as if they just saw it on their way to the store. The point Durham makes is that in our modern technological age, everything is interconnected. If a teen pop star makes a face on an internet picture in LA, some girl in South Korea is going to be forcing "round contacts" into her eyes in less than 24 hours.

And why are these bits of information being constantly shuffled around? Sex is used to confuse and suspend us in a state of distraction. But the real motivation, the author succinctly points out, is only one thing: profit. So I think one of the strongest points that Durham makes is the need for us to truncate sex from being the scapegoat. She repeats the importance of differentiating between sexualization vs. fostering positive attitudes towards sex.

There is also a helpful appendix on where readers can go (online addresses and mail addressed) to look for more resources and places for more information.

I have mixed feelings about the cover. On one hand, it is obvious that it's a play on the notion that advertising corporations use the young, thin, Western, blond-hair blue-eyed ideal to sell a product (all topics covered in the book). At the same time, the publishers of the Lolita Effect teeter on the brink of disseminating the very notion the author makes a clarion call to all her readers to challenge. No matter how you argue the point, if the image of a young, thin, blond girl with open red lips made you "notice" a product (in this case a book)...it has, in effect, propagated the Lolita Effect one more time.

I also felt a little sad that the author's first name was not presented on the cover. After expounding on the importance of teaching one's daughter to challenge the status quo, I'm sure it would have been inspiring to young female writers to think outside the box and know they themselves have a fighting chance of toppling the Lolita Effect when they see that such a thoughtful book can be penned, picked up, and published by someone not by the name of Michelle, Mary, or Megan, but Meenakshi.

I actually got my hands on a copy of The Lolita Effect about half a month ago in a bin of free books outside of a coffeehouse in Philadelphia. The copy I have is one of the unproofed galleys, so I will preface this review with the statement that some of my concerns may have already been addressed.

Overall, Durham provides some thought-provoking examples of how female sexuality is subverted by mass media and by culture. I learned of a few products I'd never heard of before (there's actually a pole dancing kit sold as a kids toy?) and was made more self-aware of existing products (I honestly hadn't given a second thought about what young girls wear these days, and was somewhat shocked to realize how sexually charged some of the sold clothing really is). She makes a good case for most of this trend being a matter of marketing rather than actually culturally ingrained. Even more useful, she includes sections at the end of each chapter on discussion topics, things which parents should talk to their children about. I've already passed my copy of the book on to a mother at my workplace who'd been complaining about how short girls' shorts had been getting. Overall, it was a good read, both engaging and informative.

The biggest problem I had with the book was one which Durham pointed out in the prologue of the book. Sex, especially when it comes to younger people, is a very polarized topic. It's hard to talk about it without being perceived as either saying "Sex is bad and you should avoid it" or "Sex is good and you should engage in it as often as possible." And, in the end, she largely avoids falling into either pole by avoiding the topic. She expresses her beliefs that sex is a positive thing, but that it should avoided until one is mature enough. When one is mature enough is, of course, never discussed and with the way she talks about rampant promiscuity, you're left with the impression that it doesn't matter how carefully you talk to your son or daughter; they're going to be engaging in sexual activities, and probably when they're too young to avoid getting damaged by it.

Ultimately, once one gets outside of the main topic of the "Lolita Effect", parts of the book get a bit uneven. As aforementioned, there's waffling on how to deal with the fact that children are engaging in sexual activity at a young age. Durham flops back and forth between the necessity of teaching children about sex at an early age and a fear of instilling in them a healthy fear for what can happen if they do engage in it. Lastly, there's a slightly annoying bit in the book where she denounces the American culture for how it's twisted sex as compared to European countries... which works until you notice that many of her statistics on increased sexual activity among children are regarding these European countries.

As I said before, these may have been fixed since the early copy I got my hands on. And, overall, it is a good read as long as you ignore the minor inconsistencies.

Is this book a bad joke? Is Durham really blaming Victoria's Secret, Barbie dolls, Peek-a-Boo Pole Dancing Kits, and media images supposedly inciting girls to act out "Lolita" fantasies for global teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, HIV, child prostitution, sex tourism, sex slavery, deaths from pregnancy and childbirth, intertribal rape in Africa, and Islamic honor killings? Can she be serious?

Durham's illogic is scary. And so is her gross misinformation. First, contrary to Durham's claim that media images are causing increased "teenage pregnancy," teen pregnancy rates actually are plummeting worldwide, especially for the youngest ages. In the U.S., the most recent National Center for Health Statistics reports show pregnancy rates for girls under age 15 have fallen to their lowest level ever recorded, as are birth rates among all teenagers. There was a slight increase in births among older teens in 2006 after 15 straight years of decline, hardly evidencing a "Lolita effect" and still leaving the teen birth rate near the lowest levels measured in 80 years of records. United Nations tabulations show similarly falling teen birth trends in most other countries.

Second, FBI and National Crime Victimization reports likewise show rape, sexual violence, and violent crime against both younger and older teenage girls are at their lowest levels since tabulations began 35 years ago. The best information indicates girls today are safer and less likely to get pregnant than any past generation we can reliably assess. I realize the news media and interest groups constantly try to profit by scaring us into thinking sex and violence are rising, but we should expect PhDs like Durham to do original research and provide accurate information.

Third, Durham wildly exaggerates surveys of teenage sexual activity, comparisons with the original reports she cites show. A lot of the scary numbers and trends in "The Lolita Effect" seem to be copied secondhand from unreliable sources or simply made up by someone.

I understand that Durham and others are deeply offended, often rightly, at many aspects of popular culture. But that doesn't justify her wholesale butchery of facts to manufacture the misimpression that girls today are more dangerous and endangered and to downplay serious threats that do exist.

The most offensive aspect of this book is Durham's suggestion that sexual violence, rape in African tribal wars, murders of girls by Islamic fundamentalists, maternal and infant mortality, and impoverished and abandoned children forced into prostitution are rooted in young girls acting out Lolita fantasies. Despite feminist pretenses, Durham resurrects primitive 19th century notions that girls are weak, self-destructive ninnies corrupted by the sinful culture they seek and in need of more restriction and supervision. But isn't it really the men who rape and exploit girls who should be held responsible? Why isn't this book titled, "The Humbert Effect"?

The reader has to wade 200 pages into this book before Durham mentions (briefly) some real causes of girls' victimization: domestic violence, epidemic poverty, repressive anti-female customs, brutal tribalism, and war. Durham also admits (briefly) that sexual exploitation and violence against girls was worse in the past, long before MTV, MySpace, and pushup bras. But "The Lolita Effect" is a conventional, puritan book that spends pages berating the sins of fictional media without bothering to show they have anything to do with real-life dangers. Durham rhetorically affirms girls' right to sexuality but then righteously disapproves of even their mildest sexual expressions.

I worked in child abuse prevention and youth programs for years and now analyze the rampant misinformation on young people. Books like this one manufacturing silly, sensational pop-culture panics obscure real, hard-to-confront dangers to girls like poverty and family violence. They also create unwarranted fears of and for girls, who in reality and are handling pop culture and modern life remarkably well and are not as stupid and corrupted as Durham thinks.
http://www.YouthFacts.org

I recently came across this book and couldn't help but pick it up, being a mother of two teenage girls. Durham really approaches this topic with a fresh set of eyes, and discusses examples that we come across every day. This is a refreshingly smart look at what has (for me at least) been a really troubling issue. She talks about cultural trends without getting too academic and keeps it at a really relevant level. After reading this I feel much more comfortable discussing these things with my daughters. This is a must for anyone with young girls.

Although I liked a great deal of what the author wrote, there still seemed to be something cursory about the effort-- she could have done so much more, and she should have limited her overview to American problems with the ongoing sexualization and tacitly approved lewd pursuit by men of pre-adolescent and teenage girls, not go through the international problems -- which are terrible, yes, but this society needs to focus on the direct trouble caused by our immediate culture.

I remember wondering when I was just entering my teens myself in the 1970's why grown men suddenly began "bothering" girls right around the time they entered the 7th grade --why at that age my peers and I were cruelly scrutinized, rated, berated, and preyed upon in loudly obscene vocal summarizations and threatening lurking by adult males in cars passing us on the street, and in shopping centers, etc. when a year prior to that none of us were pursued or even noticed by them. It was as if the moment a girl became even vaguely pubescent in appearance, it was open season not only for boys to judge, comment, and harass us, but for men to do so. Male teachers in my junior high school approved of, favored, and flirted with the prettiest girls whom they openly referred to as "sexy" and "foxy" [hey, remember that term, 70's nostalgia buffs?]and insulted or even bullied the unattractive girls in their classrooms. This tawdry behavior by adults set the tone for boys to cruelly demand unreasonable criteria for pulchritude in their female peers, and make them miserable if they didn't meet the set standards. It also gave carte blanche for girls to humiliatingly mock and bully other girls for the same reasons, and thus the behavior continued throughout the rest of the teenage school years.

I don't see the media being entirely to blame for this, whether nearly 40 years ago or now, although it certainly always has fed into the culture and glutted the market with a disgusting aand very prurient objectification of girls. I blame "men in control" who are so threatened by women having any sort of power or autnomy that they have to prey upon helpless little girls and sexualize them (and yes, that is directly what influences advertizing and entertainment). I also just as much blame the adult women who feed into this scheme of things and complacently comply, in a manner pandering and pimping these very girls by demanding their maintaining a highly sexualized physical appeal and making sure girls always please, service, and subordinate themselves to the boyfriends, men teachers, male job supervisors, sports coaches, and so forth in their lives. Female beauty contestent judges, cheerleading coaches, fashion magazine editors, guidance counselors, and therapists are just as guilty for demanding that even very young girls must be attractive in the "Barbie doll"/TV celebrity criteria and HAVE to be sexually appealing to "make it in life" -- that they won't find boyfriends and husbands, succeed academically, make it through college or have decent careers if they are "failures" in attracting and appealing to discerning males (and I shouldn't wonder if gay/lesbian people must maintain just as cruel a standard of criteria among themselves to obtain the "right" to personal happiness). The author was very correct to point out how fashion magazines for teenagers center around pleasing males and ask nothing of a girl's individuality and interests. Women are automatically disenfranchised from the get-go -- power and apparently one's self respect lies only in appeal and desireability. It is a shameful distintegration of what passes for culture in this country now.

This is a great book for parents and educators of adolescents and pre-adolescents. It looks at how media affect the way we as a society and as individuals perceive girls/women. Arguments/Ideas are clearly presented and well supported.

This book is absolutely amazing. Everyone should read it! Very informative, thought-provoking, stimulating, and an important piece of writing. Durham does a fantastic job of making certain realities plain to see. Her style is fluid and approachable. This is an easy read in terms of diction, but it will challenge you to think a lot about what you like, feel, and who you are. Support media literacy education: Buy this book!

I will recommend this book to all mothers as a great help in bringing up your daughter very healthily. I see this as one of the finer books for developing good sexuality. I like it since it doesn't give you a bunch of gobble guke, rather very defined facts of guidance.

As a high school teacher who is concerned about the conflicting sexual messages my female students are getting, this book was incredibly helpful. Beyond a thoughtful description of the problem, The Lolita Effect offers practical tips for discussing these issues with girls--and boys--of all ages.

The author does not demonize sexuality, but aims to teach girls to be critical of the media's images of female sexuality. When I see 15-yr-old girls wearing Playboy paraphernalia and thinking it's a symbol of female empowerment, I know something is wrong. This book has given me some tools to address this issue with students and with my own children. A must-read for anyone with a young daughter!

I just finished this book, and have since recommended it to everyone I know with daughters. The author not only compellingly illuminates this "lolita" phenomenon, but takes it a step further by giving parents tips on handling this media barrage, and starting a dialogue with their children. There's not much we can do about what the media portrays as "sexy," but we can educate our kids and ourselves about it. I enjoyed the author's level-headed, intelligent, and proactive approach.