A furore has broken out in mainstream papers and on radio talk-back programs about the a line of clothing and "lifestyle accessories" for young girls. Released by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the twin actors who first appeared on the TV program Full House as babies, the range includes underwear, clothing and cosmetics targeted at young girls aged six years old to 12. The range includes a padded bra, marketed at eight-year olds.
Some commentators have argued that allowing young girls to wear lacy knickers will bring about a wave of paedophilia. However, this argument comes close to those claims that victims of sexual violence are at fault because of what they wear.
The arguments that have appeared in the mainstream media have failed to oppose the promotion of this type of fashion for young girls on the basis that it continues the barrage of sexist images directed at women, this time aimed at an even younger age group.
Dualstar, the company behind the Olsen twins' products, expects to make US$1 billion this year from the products. Dualstar's Robert Thorne boasts about the controversy the products have caused. He delights in the fact that he rarely has to spend money on advertising because the controversy generates substantial free publicity in every country in which the line is launched.
Press commentators and shock-jocks seem surprised that companies will exploit children to sell products. The verdict from the longest-running legal case in British history, known as McLibel because it was launched by fast-food chain McDonald's against its critics, found that McDonald's deliberately exploited children with its advertising.
But do these commentators bat an eye lid at the billboards, the commercials or the dieting industry that continuously plays upon women's insecurities and maintains their obsessions with what they eat, wear and how they look, making a handsome profits all the while? Of course not.
Policing what children and young people wear won't stop them from making their own decisions about clothing. It doesn't change the reality that young children do play dress-up, imitate older people and copy what they see around them. The products promoted by Dualstar gratuitously exploit children's vulnerability, further clawing down the age at which women are judged purely on their appearance.
Focusing solely on these particular products as having a negative impact on young children ignores the plethora of other products that are marketed to young children. These products show most starkly the determination of capitalists to relentless transform children, from the earliest ages, into dedicated, passive consumers.
What outrages big business and governments is that young people who are drawn into society via consumerism, can dare to have opinions and wish to express them. Young people are constantly accused of not knowing what they're protesting about if they join marches against the war on Iraq or mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
While Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's clothing range has been singled out as having stepped over the boundaries of decency, it just takes the capitalist goal of turning all human beings into buying machines to its logical conclusion. It also highlights the lengths that capitalism is prepared to go to exploit women's market-driven insecurities about body image in order to make profits from any remaining untapped market.
BY BRONWYN JENNINGS
[The author is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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