Over the past two weeks, Primark, a clothes and accessories retailer with stores all over the UK and Ireland, have been in the news regarding the sale of a padded bra marketed at preteens. In fact, the product is marketed as "For 7 & Up". Members of the public, with the support of some British Parliament Members, have demanded that the product be taken off the shelves as they believe that it promotes the premature sexualisation of children. The argument has more or less gone uncontested by Primark as they have stated that they are going to remove the product from their stores. I say "more or less uncontested" because there have been one group who have been surprisingly against the removal of the product and as such are doing nothing to help the causes of women; feminists.
Now please, don't brand me a misogynist, I do support the causes of, understand and have both studied and written about feminism, theory and issues, before. I believe that this group of feminists are a very minute proportion of the feminist population and would actually, I hope, be seen as damaging to the feminist cause by the feminist majority itself.
The web is rife with articles and blogposts that address the issue regarding the Primark debate, many of them insightful, personal, theoretical, empirical and others which downright irresponsible and potentially dangerous. As an avid reader of The Guardian and Guardian.co.uk, I come across many articles dealing with a myriad of issues. Their 'Comment is free' section, I have grown to particularly enjoy. Yesterday however, I stumbled across an article which was entitled "Let Girls Wear Primark's Padded Bar", by Laurie Penny, a self-proclaimed feminist and "shouty junior socialist" who, I believe, doesn't seem to get 'it'. What's 'it'?, I hear you ask; the fact that the issue of Primark's padded bra for preteens is not a feminist issue per se but rather an issue of child safety.
In her article Penny wrote:
This sort of organised moral outrage is deeply unhelpful to young people negotiating the complex world of adult sexuality.Now, call me old-fashioned, but I somehow don't think that 7 year old girls are contemplating 'adult sexuality' and if they are, I have my reservations about whether or not this is has occured organically. She continues:
In fact, in countries where children are routinely well fed, a significant minority of seven-year-old girls have already started puberty, and most foster a natural curiosity about bodies and intimacy.This may be the case (although I would love to see where she gets this evidence from) however, there is a difference between organic curiosity and the blatent promotion of a sexual asthetic norm for children. While her initial assertion regarding the stigmas thrust upon Primark, whereby it is labelled a brand for the less well-off as their products are generally much cheaper than highstreet clothes, and how consequently, other retailers such as Marks & Spencer have not come under the same scrutiny selling similarly dubious products is a very good argument, she goes off on an irresponsible tangeant. Actually, the tangeant was her argument about the previously mentioned stigmas surrounding Primark's products and the main body of the article conveys a rather limited knowledge of feminism as well as exposing dillusions manifest by her own self righteousness. There are mentions of her days in school where she claimed she would love to have had the opportunity to wear a padded bra instead of having to "stuff Andrex" down her top to make her appear to be more developed and thus avoid having been called 'flat chested' by the alpha males in her school. She also argues that the seemingly self righteous society opposing the preteen padded bra are denying thier children the right to explore their sexuality and deal with the everyday trials and tribulations of growing up. A cheap jab at preteen boys with "undecendant testicles" acts as the final nail in the coffin of her weak and rather poor argument as it simply acts as a form of hypocracy regarding her general argument. Penny's argument appears both uneducated and incredibly confused within itself. It seems as though she has understood little relative to what people are actually protesting about regarding the issue and her own, I repeat, self-righteousness has caused her to make radical, unevidenced assertions that are, to put it lightly, far from relevant or coherent.
In short; she fails to realise that this is not about a girls rights to express and explore her sexuality, it is about the safety of children in general, an issue which quite simply transcends gender.
As far as the issue itself goes, if a 7 year old girl wishes to stuff a pair of socks down her top, then let her. It is perhaps wrong to suppress someones own sexual exploration and discovery in my opinion. The invention/retailing of a product that enables, or even promotes, it on the otherhand, I disagree with. I sincerely doubt that any market research that was carried out for this product, and other similar products, indicated that there was a high demand for such items. If young girls at that age feel that they need bigger breasts, so as to avoid bullying, I believe they have deeper self-esteem issues that should be addressed. Indeed, these issues may be, in part, caused by gender roles and norms being forced upon them. Certainly in the 18 - 24 year old demographic of both males and females, one simply has to look outside of their window to see that the idea of striving for slim bodies and a more mature, cosmopolitan look is normal these days. Now, while I see nothing wrong with people, male or female, wanting to appear a certain way (their body is their body afterall), I feel that to encourage this form of conformity within children is both unfair and wrong. If, as Penny suggests, a girl is bullied, whether verbally or physically, about her bust size, that should be addressed the same way as any other form of bullying.
There are clear risks of promoting sexual exploration within children: they start to question their own 'flaws' at an age where it can haunt them for life and lead to adverse health effects as they get older, such as body dysmorphic disorder; they an become sexually active too early and permanantly damage their bodies; as well as these points, they also risk greater attention from sexual predators. All of these points Penny failed to address.
...Perhaps her feminist characteristic is not informed from the literary pioneers of feminism but rather some burdgeoning aspiration to be seen as a feminist thought guerilla and alas bears little knowledge of feminism at all?...
In another light, parent's cannot go without blame. Afterall, they are the ones who I would imagine buy the products in the vast majority of instances. Are parents becoming 'weaker'? Are they accepting that there is an emerging mould that people should fit into and that it has now trickled down to children too?
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that while it is acceptable to let children, boy and girls, regardless of age, explore and discover their own sexuality, it is quite another thing to promote and stimulate it. Having products such as the padded bra will surely make a girl who sees it, and hasn't developed breasts, recognise an apparent deficiency in her physique and therefore covet the item. In short, the product actually doesn't fix the 'problem' more than it does cause it. The problem is that Penny, and like minded feminists have, is that they are the ones fighting in the corner of those who like the idea of the product but are themselves actually telling girls, and women alike, that pandering to societal demands regarding gender roles and in turn the way in which a woman should look, is "OK". This perspective would have Simone de Beauvoir rolling around in her grave as it actually takes feminism backwards and further objectifies women under the guise of "let girls be girls". They should perhaps rephrase and say "Girls, be girls!". I'll leave that for your darling minds to mull over.
Until next time,
Yours etc.
SHC
PS: The new site development is taking longer than expected as, it seems, that developing a website is bloody tough stuff and rather complex. Hopefully, things will be up and running in a few weeks. If you have any suggestions feel free to email and let us know at info@smokinghotcoffee.org
PPS: May 6th is UK Election Day and so, between now and then, we'll be making a series of posts about ongoing campaigning and debates. Oh, and merch is on the way, but I'll tell you more about that later!
