Dear Dove: What Has My Daughter Done Wrong?

[David Baxter PhD]

Dear Dove. What Has My Daughter Done Wrong?
By Kim Krause Berg (cre8pc)
October 4, 2007

Dove has come out with another visually compelling campaign directed to women about their obsession with appearance. This one, while breathtaking, made me feel defenseless as the mother of a daughter. Parents KNOW there?s a problem. Where are the solutions in this ad?

Where is the support?

I?ve spent the past 17 years trying to manage the sheer onslaught of merchandise nonsense choices my daughter has had since her birth. In the new Dove ad, we?re subjected to a constant stream of images of women physically torturing their bodies to achieve ?beauty?. They starve it. They cut it. They dye it. They shave it. They cover it up with makeup and show it off with clothing that men claim says women deserve to be raped.

Why do clothing designers continually create merchandise that supports the view that women are nothing more than sex objects, slaves and prisoners?

To lure young girls into wearing thongs and into their stores, which were traditionally for adult women, Victoria?s Secret launched their ?Pink? line of sweat pants and barely-there tops. Who in the heck did they were kidding with this trap?

The Dove ad ends with this statement:

?Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.?

While we?re at it, let?s dump Barbie, the perfect blond chick with tiny waist and breasts that for all eternity will never sag or stretch. My daughter was faced with Britney Spears lunch boxes and school bags and songs about sex targeted to 11 year olds. This wasn?t the ?beauty industry?. This was the entertainment business.

This was MTV and years and years of barely clothed women and topless men singing about ?big butts? and describing how to conduct every possible sexual act by creating a new language that needed de-coding to understand what they were referring to.

My daughter, from toddler age on, has been subjected to the theory that she is for viewing pleasure only. Nothing else about her could possibly matter.

And nothing I, her father, or her step-parents, grandparents, neighbors, girl scout leaders, teachers and church members said ever made a dent against the constant weight of marketing influence in stores, TV, music, movies, magazines, and peer pressure at school.

We had attended one church specifically that held separate classes for the girls from the boys, so that the teachers could work with the girls? self esteem. This church took the problem facing girls seriously. And even at that, my daughter found little help. I think in some ways she felt worse, despite being given tools intended to empower her.

It confused her that she HAD to do that. She was a kid! Why was the world mad at her? What had she done wrong?

I watched my Honor Roll daughter fall into the fathom of hell in her 9th grade year because she felt ?ugly?. She insisted on shaving her entire body, including her eyebrows and arms. She could find no logical reason for body hair because she didn?t see it on models anywhere. It took everything I had to keep her alive during this time because she felt so bad in her own skin.

What was I supposed to say and do? What hadn?t I tried? We can throw out the TV, monitor the computer and I went ballistic over most Rap music. But, as a working mom, I am not with her every minute of the day. When I was a single working mom, I needed daycare. When she was with her Dad, he had different rules.

There are so many things we can?t do and because we can?t, we feel we?re failures. The tortured souls of our daughters are our fault.

I HAVE been talking to her!

I?ve been told she?s so beautiful that I shouldn?t put pictures of her on the Internet because it?s not safe.

It?s not safe to be beautiful.

And yet this is what marketers have convinced women to be at all costs.

Don?t tell me to talk to my daughter, Dove, unless you first stop making any products intended on making my daughter anything other than the incredibly vibrant human being I pushed into this world.

Please direct your campaign to your industry.

They created this mess in the first place.

 

[Into The Light]

so what is a parent to do? how do we protect our children from the onslaught of the advertising and entertainment industry?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

In spite of what the author says in her understandable frustration, I do think the answer is to talk about it and to keep talking about it - how unrealistic and ludicrous these models are.

I think the publicity that is falling to anorexic fashion models and certain movie stars, rock idols, and athletes may help pierce the fantasy a little. I hope it does.

 

[iam*who*iam]

it is so hard though, to even have your message heard, by someone who is young.

and even myself at 24, will not believe your word over the media and society..even though deep down, i feel beauty is more than what you see on the outside.

i cannot go one day without having at least 5 ads about a diet, diet pill, or a commerical with a half clothed woman, bombarding me.

even when i go outside, there goes a bus with a huge ad for a diet pill splashed on the side of it.

my nieces are 8, 10, 12 and 16 and what i see them being subjected to, breaks my heart.

as much as the parents try to talk to their children, and tell them how beautiful they already are, the media brainwashes them with other messages.

i find it hard to even know what the truth is.

it's very confusing, and until the media and fashion industry really care about the young girls they are potentially harming..it isn't going to stop.

so..i'm not sure what the real answer is...if there even is one.

 

[Into The Light]

i think the key may be to somehow teach our children resilience would help. i also think showing that we ourselves don't fall for the "you have to be beautiful/goodlooking" message and talking to it about them often is indeed our best bet.