Sexualistation of Young People

Parents also have an important role to play
in challenging gender stereotypes, teaching
their children what is acceptable behaviour
and language and helping set appropriate
personal boundaries. Initiatives need to be
developed that encourage parents to talk
to their children about these issues and,
where necessary, give them the tools to do
so. I recommend that:
• The government includes information
on body image, self-esteem, eating
disorders and e-safety in its proposed
‘Positive Parenting’ booklets for
parents of older children and young
people.
v) Advertising and magazines
Increasingly, media messages are being
delivered via the internet, with companies
spending millions on developing interactive
advertisements on their commercial
websites. These adverts and ‘advergames’
can be targeted at children or contain
offensive content and yet are currently
unregulated. I recommend that:
• The government recognises the
work being carried out by the
Advertising Standards Authority and
supports it in taking steps to close
this regulatory loophole by extending
the existing standards to include
commercial websites.
Evidence suggests that even brief
exposure to airbrushed images can lead to
acute body dissatisfaction. To help combat
this, efforts to raise levels of media literacy
should be accompanied by initiatives
aimed at encouraging society to take a
more critical and questioning approach
to the harmful perpetuation of unrealistic
ideals. I therefore recommend:
• The introduction of a system of
ratings symbols for photographs
to show the extent to which they
have been altered. This is particularly
critical in magazines targeting teen
and pre-teen audiences.
The stereotyped – and often sexualised
– images of women that appear on
posters and billboards point to a double
standard whereby images that would be
unacceptable in a school or workplace
are deemed acceptable for public display.
Realistically, there is no way of preventing
children and young people from seeing
these images, so I recommend that:
• The content of outdoor
advertisements is vetted by local
authorities as part of their gender
equality duty to ensure that images
and messages are not offensive on
the grounds of gender.
vi) Music videos
Sexually provocative music videos are
commonplace and easily accessible by
children on TV and on DVD. Section 1.20
of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code states
that: ‘Any discussion on, or portrayal
of, sexual behaviour must be editorially
justified if included before the watershed,
or when children are particularly likely to
be listening, and must be appropriately
limited.’ 416 Yet sexual posing and suggestive
lyrics are found in many music videos
shown before the watershed. In the
case of DVDs, music videos escape the
statutory classification required for other
types of content by virtue of a loophole in
the Video Recordings Act 1984. 417
416 Ofcom Broadcasting Code (2009)
417 Office of Public Sector Information, Video
Recording Act 1984
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