According to Erikson, adolescents are attempting to resolve a sense of personal identity over role confusion. This is a natural part of life that is essential to becoming a well-rounded, self-assured adult. As young adolescent girls attempt to define who they are, they are constantly bombarded with portrayals of what culture expects of them both in how they look and how they act. When shopping, young girls are exposed to pictures of petite models who are beautiful and scantily clad. Popular lingerie stores now offer "tween" departments boasting pushup bras in sizes as small as 30AA. At checkout counters, tween magazines are found emblazoned with cover articles featuring the best makeout tips, popular crash diets, or 50 moves to "turn him on". Television commercials and shows depict the hot, skinny girls as heroines and the plump, homely girls as their sidekick. What all this says to young adolescent girls is that in order to be successful, you must also be beautiful and sexy. Girls begin to judge their self worth as if they were objects from a third-person perspective. Instead of "how do I look and feel," they ask themselves "how do others think I look?"
This "self objectification" leads to an obsession about how they look and appear to others, leaving little energy to focus on other things, including academia. This is where middle-school educators come into play. According to a study by Herr, "girls often emerge from middle school with a lowered sense of self-esteem, a discouragement with school, and a school performance that does not match earlier achievements" (1996). The more time a girl worries about how she looks to other people, the less time she can devote to her studies, leading to a drop in grades and performance. Body dissatisfaction is also associated with a number of other factors including poor self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and early onset smoking.
Middle school teachers and administrators should teach their students about techniques used to digitally enhance models. Models' photos are increasingly edited to make them slimmer, tanner, more voluptuous, and essentially more sexy. The women that these girls are idolizing do not actually exist. They are simply a figment of an editor's imagination. Therefor, they are holding themselves to an impossible standard. This "media literacy" technique can help girls combat negative self-worths due to media influence.
Additionally, teachers should teach their students empathy. This is the age when girls become the most catty to one another. Teachers should combat gossip due to appearance by having the students role play to examine how the victim of gossip may feel.
Another harmful effect of the oversexualization of young adolescent girls is that it has caused a rise in sexual harassment. Middle school teachers must be especially aware of this and proactive in combatting it. Both boys and girls at this age are ill informed of what constitutes sexual harassment and they may consider these actions normal or even desires. School is supposed to be a safe and welcoming place for all students. Girls who have been sexually harassed or even assaulted are less likely to attend school and more likely to withdraw themselves socially. Middle school teachers and administrators must adopt a zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment.
Overall, teachers and parents of young adolescent girls must educate themselves on the implications of oversexualization of young girls. Growing up in today's world is not the same as most of our experiences at this age. Girls are increasingly pressured to look, act, and be sexy. This can have vastly negative impacts on their education, self-esteem, and psychosocial development. It is our job as future educators to recognize these effects and do our best to curb this trend.
