The Right of Children to be Children

Well, I've started to read Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls, which I wrote about here. Last night (or, more accurately, this morning!) I read the preface, "The Right of Children to be Children", written by Noni Hazelurst. I found this really interesting. This has been an issue that I've often talked about with friends. It seems that children aren't being encouraged to be children (Melinda Tankard Reist showed a video clip, "Ruby Who?", which brought out this issue).

In "The Right of Children to be Children" Hazelhurst reflects on the last sixty years, starting the preface discussing the effect the Second World War had on women. Many women left the domestic life and entered into the work life as the men were at war and workers were needed to keep developing the industry. But, when the men returned, women had to return home and give their positions to the men. Hazelhurst notes that many women weren't too happy about this situation, so "a massive campaign was mounted to make being a little homemaker seem like an attractive and normal thing for women to aspire to." If you've seen the advertising of washing machines, irons, kitchen appliances, etc., from this period, you'll understand to what Hazelhurst is alluding. This new 'occupation' for women was reinforced through, "glittering new domestic appliances were dressed up as objects of desire in print, radio and television ads, television shows and films...".

Hazelhurst then comments on the rejection of these values in the 60s and 70s by the next generation as feminism came into the picture. Hazelhurst is quite cynical as she reflects on her own naivity at the time, "we honestly believed that we could give 50 per cent of the world's population the equality, independence and freedom that had been denied for too long...Like many young men and women in the seventies, I rejected media manipulation and rampant consumerism, and determined that my reality would be a construct chosen by me, not imposed by society's expectations and marketing ploys."

What I find really disturbing is that we are living in a post-feminism world. Theoretically, attitudes and values towards women should be better than they were, and they should be getting better. But, as I look around at society, I see that it's getting worse and worse. How did this happen? Hazelhurst picks up on this idea, "I think equality is further away than it's ever been. In fact the forces that we rebelled against have gained strength, and are more pernicious than ever." I couldn't agree more. I find that feminism has become a dirty word these days. Even the students I teach automatically respond very negatively towards feminism, or any idea that is remotely related to it. When I bring up ideas about gender stereotyping and getting students to challenging gender assumptions, I am automatically labelled a feminist.

Hazelhurst calls on us to not buy into the idea that "things have never been better because we have unprecented power and choice thanks to new paradigms and technologies." Hazelhurst argues that the evidence "that we are causing irreparable damage to our children" is prolific. Children "are bombarded on a daily basis with images and concepts that they are not able to assimilate, understand or contextualise." As a teacher, I see this happening all the time. Students are being exposed to such an adult world and they really have not got the skills to respond to this world appropriately. We expect them to be a lot more discerning, critical, savvy and mature than they are capable of being. They simply do not have the ability to navigate through these images and concepts (they think they do, but they don't). "If women are constantly and overwhlemingly portrayed as sex objects, helpless, simpering idiots, or dried-up old prunes, then that must be the way things are. The media focus on celebrity, sex, diet, wealth and plastic surgery, and the implication that these are the only things that count, is causing our kids' imaginations to atrophy."

Hazelhurst argues that children's imaginations are "dying", that "their sense of themselves as worthy, strong individuals who are valued because they are unique is constantly being undermined." I think that she has a valid point. This is a real concern for me. It challenges me as a teacher, and a (new) parent, to speak up about it and to be constantly questioning the values and attitudes that so many parts of society present as 'normal' and appropriate. I need to reassure and reaffirm my students that they are made in the image of God and that they have been wonderfully made by him.