The Adultification of Little Bodies
Looking at Paisley Dickey and her fellow rivals on “Toddlers and Tiaras”, there is a glaringly transparent aspect of the representation of children in beauty pageants; they are all, for the most part, of Anglo-Saxon or European descent: “light skin, straight long hair, thin lips and a narrow nose” (Price 7). Child beauty pageantry is an essentially all-white, multi-billion-dollar industry. Pageant careers come with a hefty cost, with one mother spending $70,000 a year on weekly spray tanning sessions, catwalk coaching, and gaudy dresses. Hence, participation in child beauty pageants are racialized to white, middle-class little girls. Through the intersectional approach, one can see that race and class also …show more content…
Paisley promotes an unrealistic ideal of the “Cinderella myth,” whereby a beautiful appearance is the key to a woman’s success (Wolf 22). Young girls of all race and class mistakenly internalize that with the proper hair style and glamourous dresses, they too can be attractive and successful. This strengthens the stereotype that caring about their physical appearance is a part of the normative female gender script. Encouraged by the commercial structures of society, girls grow up to become consumers of mass-produced beauty products. They are no longer seen as children, rather as “unformed adults” who will play their role in the capitalistic nature of our society. Likewise, Paisley’s representation also poses a risk for any girl who cares not about her physical appearance, as it is equivalent to behaving outside the gender norms – to incorrectly “do” their gender (West Zimmerman 125). Gender norms also reinforce the policing standards of femininity by both male and female peers that result in stigmatization and alienation of gender-non-conforming individuals. This attends to Judith Butler’s argument that “gender is the product of reiterated acts of repudiation and confirmation” (Pascoe 323). Child beauty pageants are therefore constitutive of the reinforcement of gender norms as it displays the bidirectional relationship between behavior and gender inequalities. Gender inequalities place pressure on girls to obey normative gender scripts, yet conforming to gender norms also sustain existing gender inequalities. Hence, whilst Paisley’s representation lays in the highly specific niche of child beauty pageants, the image she portrays is relevant in various other social contexts. She demonstrates that the way in which we naturalize the sexualization of children’s bodies is influenced by
Looking at Paisley Dickey and her fellow rivals on “Toddlers and Tiaras”, there is a glaringly transparent aspect of the representation of children in beauty pageants; they are all, for the most part, of Anglo-Saxon or European descent: “light skin, straight long hair, thin lips and a narrow nose” (Price 7). Child beauty pageantry is an essentially all-white, multi-billion-dollar industry. Pageant careers come with a hefty cost, with one mother spending $70,000 a year on weekly spray tanning sessions, catwalk coaching, and gaudy dresses. Hence, participation in child beauty pageants are racialized to white, middle-class little girls. Through the intersectional approach, one can see that race and class also …show more content…
Paisley promotes an unrealistic ideal of the “Cinderella myth,” whereby a beautiful appearance is the key to a woman’s success (Wolf 22). Young girls of all race and class mistakenly internalize that with the proper hair style and glamourous dresses, they too can be attractive and successful. This strengthens the stereotype that caring about their physical appearance is a part of the normative female gender script. Encouraged by the commercial structures of society, girls grow up to become consumers of mass-produced beauty products. They are no longer seen as children, rather as “unformed adults” who will play their role in the capitalistic nature of our society. Likewise, Paisley’s representation also poses a risk for any girl who cares not about her physical appearance, as it is equivalent to behaving outside the gender norms – to incorrectly “do” their gender (West Zimmerman 125). Gender norms also reinforce the policing standards of femininity by both male and female peers that result in stigmatization and alienation of gender-non-conforming individuals. This attends to Judith Butler’s argument that “gender is the product of reiterated acts of repudiation and confirmation” (Pascoe 323). Child beauty pageants are therefore constitutive of the reinforcement of gender norms as it displays the bidirectional relationship between behavior and gender inequalities. Gender inequalities place pressure on girls to obey normative gender scripts, yet conforming to gender norms also sustain existing gender inequalities. Hence, whilst Paisley’s representation lays in the highly specific niche of child beauty pageants, the image she portrays is relevant in various other social contexts. She demonstrates that the way in which we naturalize the sexualization of children’s bodies is influenced by