"And to think..our little girl is only eight!"
Well, no.
But since Abercrombie and Fitch is apparently eager to make its profits by turning little girls into 3-D child porn, this isn’t as unfair a question as it seems.
One of America’s largest clothing retail chains, Abercrombie & Fitch is marketing padded bikini tops to eleven-year-old girls…in fact, girls as young as eight.
The current spring line for Abercrombie Kids, a division of the fashion company dedicated to 8-14 year olds, is the “Ashley” Push-Up Triangle – a triangular-shaped bikini top which comes complete with thick padding for breast enhancement. And you thought Wal-Mart marketing cosmetics to twelve-year-olds was ominous.
It is now clear, is it not, that an amoral corporate America is determined to sexualize childhood right out of existence, because it’s more profitable that way, and the damage to the culture, families, society, feminism and young girls themselves is just collateral damage. The business plan—make girls feel that their pre-adolescent bodies are unattractive. Persuade them that they need to be “hot” at younger and younger ages. Hollywood has already laid the groundwork, and there are enough addled parents around to ensure that the daughters of responsible families will be sucked in too, once they see their friends and rivals sporting teen curves in the third grade.
Los Angeles psychologist, Dr. Nancy Irwin says that wearing a chest-enhancing bikini top at such a young age paves the way for sexual promiscuity, and worse. “Wearing a padded bra at that age when unnecessary is encouraging sexual precociousness, a dangerous muscle to flex for the girl as well as for peers and predators,” she said.
I wonder…does Abercrombie and Fitch have stock in any companies that make breast implants?
“Are we sexualizing young girls to get the attention of men or to encourage women to use their daughters to compensate for their own lack of sexual appeal by living vicariously through their daughter?” Human Behavior expert Patrick Wanis asks. “Is this the extreme extension of the beauty-pageant mother who now seeks to make up for what she can never be?”
Perhaps, but Abercrombie and Fitch can’t pass responsibility on to parents. We’ll stipulate that there are fools among us who can’t be trusted to raise puppies, much less little girls. Giving such people an opportunity to warp their vulnerable daughters and make them unwitting bait for child-porn fancying adults, poisoning the culture for the rest of us in the process and pushing innocence to extinction isn’t “just giving the public what it wants.” It is corporate irresponsibility, unethical conduct and cultural malpractice.
No, Abercrombie and Fitch execs weren’t among the monsters who raped that 11-year-old Texas girl. But they have far too much in common.
And in the end, the executives may do more damage than the rapists.
Ethics Alarms 
Pretty incredible. But that ain’t no 8-year-old up there. You should have used an actual kid pic, if you could find one. (I couldn’t find any actual pix, but I did find this little vid where mom is thrilled cause it may fit her six-year-old!)
No, she really IS 8.
Actually, she isn’t, and of course I didn’t expect anyone to think she was….and if I used one of those little girls in grown up make-up close-ups that make 9-year olds look 20 (young Brooke Shields had several)you might have made the same complaint. The problem is that there is no picture that doesn’t border on kid porn to make the point.
This, however, is exactly what I was looking for—thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t surprise me. I remember looking for a bathing suit for my daughter when she was one. Half of the swim suits were bikinis! Every year (she is 5 1/2 now), it’s more and more difficult to find a cute little-girl bathing suit. No, I don’t want a bikini, nor do I want an open back suit with a matching sarong. She’s 5! I want a swim suit that will cover her well and has ducks or something else cute on it. She’s not sexy, she’s not a mini-woman. She’s a child. So, give me some decent clothing options and stop with the bikinis, low-rise jeans and tube tops.
What, no thongs?
Don’t give them any ideas, Jack.
Actually, Abercrombie and Fitch has released a line of thongs marketed at children that say things like, “eye candy” and “wink wink.” Not kidding.
They’ve done that and worse. The good news is that A&F are in serious financial trouble and may go out of business. I can only hope that The Gap/Old Navy will follow suit.
I still remember when thongs were what we now call flip-flops. SHOES. I have the same issue with swimsuits for my 5-yo daughter. I have found tankinis, which deal with the still-growing torso through the summer but don’t expose as much as the bikini.
Our local middle school has the draconian rule that girls’ shorts must be the length of the wearer’s fingertips. We could never find them (5-6 years ago) so my daughter wore capris. There are NONE in the stores, shorts for little girls to big girls are all tiny, barely covering the derriere. It’s appalling! I am grateful for the school’s rule, which enabled me to not be the bad guy (for once) and to make all those girls and their parents think about their clothing choices.
As the father of a grown daughter who has all her own natural padding in the right places, I say:
FOR GOD’S SAKE, LET LITTLE GIRLS BE LITTLE GIRLS!
When my baby was about 10 or 11, many of her classmates were Hispanic kids, many of whom often start to develop earlier than kids from other ethnic groups. My child had to be reassured that there was nothing wrong with her, just because she still had a boyish figure.
I’m really pissed at greedy manufacturers who try to exploit little kids, make them feel “less than” because they are maturing at their own natural rates, all so they can make a few extra bucks. What a bunch of creeps.
Well spoken among all. The sexualizing, pornifying and endangering of children in so many areas- clothing lines included- should be among the most pressing questions of our time. When children cease to matter, what does?