American Girls (13 page)

You could use the same passage, however, to argue the opposite case—to ask whether girls placing so much importance on what they wear is itself another aspect of sexualization. The APA report also says that “girls sexualize themselves when they think of themselves mostly or exclusively in sexual terms and when they equate their sexiness with a narrow standard of physical attractiveness,” which it suggests that a hypersexual culture influences them to do.

The nuances of this debate often seem to go unexplored by parents, especially mothers who support the idea that their daughters should be allowed to wear whatever they want as an expression of their rights as young feminists. A woman who is the mother of a fourteen-year-old girl in Brooklyn told me, “In our middle school there was a meeting with parents about dress codes and one mother said, You are sexualizing these girls. The school said, Look, some girls are coming to school in a shirt and tights—not leggings, tights—where you can see their underwear. Can we really call that a good choice for them?” And on the subject of distraction, the APA report also cites studies which have found that sexualized fashions can become a distraction to the girls who are wearing them, even impeding their cognitive function: “Perhaps the most insidious consequence of self-objectification is that it fragments consciousness.”

And not every girl is comfortable with the revealing clothing some girls wear to school; at issue is also these girls' comfort level, which often goes unacknowledged. “It makes me really uncomfortable,” said a fifteen-year-old girl in New York, “when you walk up the stairs in school and all you see is butts. You can see everything coming out of their shorts. Boys like it. But if you say that, then they say you're slut-shaming and they might gossip about you or post something about how you're not feminist” on social media.

It's true that the policing of women's fashions has long been a source of patriarchal control, from whalebone corsets that left women little room to breathe to, some would argue, burqas; and it's also true that some teachers and administrators around the country have abused their authority over girls and have disciplined and shamed them for how they dress in ways that are unacceptable and sexist. There have been reports of administrators taking girls out of class and sending them home, even suspending them for what they wear, as well as making inappropriate comments about their bodies and appearance. You don't need to look any further than the case of the middle school girl in Batavia, Ohio, whose “Feminist” T-shirt was Photoshopped out of her official class photo in the school yearbook to get an idea of what is lurking behind the dress code enforcement in some schools (after the girl and her mother complained to the school, the principal apologized). It's admirable when girls react to such outrages with protest. (The girl with the “Feminist” shirt, Sophie Thomas, started a Twitter campaign.) But the fact that it is dress codes which have become the focus of the feminist activism of many girls seems strange at a time when there are so many other issues facing them.

“Girls want to talk about dress codes everywhere I go,” says Soraya Chemaly, who often speaks at schools. “What I tell them is that this is the icing on the cake. It's fine to confront administrations and try and create new norms. But if you have a highly gendered dress code that is rigidly enforced, that probably means other things are going on in your school that are much more important. Dress codes are unfair and there are double standards, but they may be a symptom of other things going on in your school community.”

And these may be things girls feel hesitant to speak out against or protest because the danger of condemnation for doing so is much greater, the risks much higher: for example, slut pages in their schools, sexual harassment in their schools, and offensive behavior by both boys and girls on social media—including slut-shaming. Dress codes are a weirdly safe subject for girls' expression of their feminism. To protest them is to be in sync with a culture that places a premium on being “hot” and promotes the idea that one can be seen as sexually liberated by means of provocative fashions. And it doesn't criticize boys.

“I gave them this example,” Chemaly says, “of girls who were told by their principal that he was afraid they would be mistaken for ‘prostitutes' if they wore short shorts on a class trip. I said, Well, what did you do to get the boys involved? The boys could have all worn short shorts with you in solidarity. The problem is that boys, while they weren't to blame for the policy, they were privileged by the policy. But none of the girls talked about whether the boys were responsible for what was happening with them, their peers. The girls felt these problems had nothing to do with boys, and that is not true.”

And the sexualization of girls doesn't come from dress codes alone. As detailed in the APA report, it's found in the fashion and beauty industries, in the media, advertising, and the Internet, among other sources, to which I think you could add porn. It comes from the attitudes of parents—who, according to the APA, “routinely” engage in “fat talk” around their daughters and surround them with “excessive concerns” about their physical appearance. It comes from teachers and other adults, as well as, sometimes, peers.

Meanwhile, the adverse effects of sexualization continue to plague huge numbers of girls. Eating disorders have been on the rise since the 1950s and are now seen across racial lines. Forty to 60 percent of girls ages six to twelve are worried about their current weight or about becoming too heavy, a concern which persists throughout their lives as women, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. More than half of teenage girls use unhealthy dieting methods such as skipping meals, vomiting, taking laxatives, and fasting. A 2014 study by researchers at Florida State University found a link between college-age women's risk of developing eating disorders and their time spent on Facebook, where contributing factors such as the influence of media and pressure from peers are merged.

There's been an increase in anxiety and depression among teen girls that has been linked to sexualization and social media use as well. According to a 2014 review of nineteen studies from twelve industrialized countries, adolescent girls around the world are now experiencing more depression and anxiety attributed to “high expectation on girls in terms of appearance and weight,” among other factors. “What is very clear is that girls have almost double the anxiety and worries as boys,” said child psychiatrist William Bor of the University of Queensland, the study's leader. A 2015 study at University College London found a possible link between anxiety in girls ages eleven to thirteen and seeing images of women being sexually objectified on social media. Girls this age were significantly more likely to feel nervous or show a lack of confidence than they were just five years ago, according to the study. “We were surprised to see such a sharp spike in emotional problems among girls” in “a relatively short period of time,” said psychologist Elian Fink, the study's lead author. It seems relevant that it is in about the last five years that the majority of girls have gotten smartphones.

The constant seeking of likes and attention on social media seems for many girls to feel like being a contestant in a never-ending beauty pageant in which they're forever performing to please the judges—judges who have become more and more exacting. For it's no longer enough for girls and women to be just pretty—even beautiful is not enough; now the goal is to be “perfect,” “flawless.” In the 2000s, beauty companies started promoting products that promised to make women “flawless” and “perfect.” Max Factor, Laura Mercier, bareMinerals, Avon, Pond's, and dozens of other beauty brands now sell products with “perfect” and “flawless” in their names, a trend in marketing with reverberations in the world of girls. Telling a girl she looks “flawless” has become a social gesture, a kind of ultimate compliment, girl to girl; “#flawless,” girls write on each other's selfies. “If I had a dollar for every time someone comments ‘you're flawless' on one of Kendall Jenner / Shay Mitchell / Selena Gomez's Instagram selfies, I'd be able to afford a Birkin,” joked blogger Zara Husaini on the College Candy website.

The age at which girls wear makeup is getting younger, starting between the ages of eight and thirteen, according to a 2013 survey by Harris Interactive; of the three in five American girls who say they wear makeup, many say they have negative feelings about their looks when they don't wear it, such as feeling unattractive, self-conscious, or as if something is “missing” from their faces. When makeup alone isn't enough to assuage feelings of unattractiveness, some seek plastic surgery. More than 220,000 cosmetic procedures were performed on patients ages thirteen to nineteen in 2013, and in that year plastic surgeons were noting that teenagers were saying they wanted to have “something done” for a new reason—to look good in selfies. The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) in 2013 reported an increase in plastic surgery requests from teenagers resulting from patients becoming more focused on their appearance on social media. “Social platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and the iPhone app Selfie.im, which are solely image-based, force patients to hold a microscope up to their own image and often look at it with a more self-critical eye than ever before,” said Edward Farrior, president of the AAFPRS.

To learn how to become “flawless” and “perfect,” some girls turn to beauty gurus. A search of some of the top beauty tutorials finds: “Flawless First Date Look with Lancôme and Michelle Phan.” “Flawless Full Coverage: 5 Makeup Steps by MakeupByMandy24 | COVERGIRL” with Amanda Steele. And “Perfect Back to School Hair, Makeup and Outfit!” with Bethany Mota.

“Hey, guys!” said bubbly Bethany Mota, also known as Macbarbie07. “So right now I'm going to be doing another episode of ‘Back to School with Beth' in my back-to-school series, and today's video is all about the perfect hair, makeup, and outfit for back to school.”

“I love Bethany Mota,” said Jasmine, age fourteen.

We were sitting on her bed in Crotona Park East, her neighborhood in the South Bronx, watching Bethany do her thing.

“I'm wearing this amazing makeup look that I'm honestly obsessed with,” Bethany said, wriggling with delight, “and I'm probably gonna wear it every day…It's really pretty and I like it. It makes me feel fab.”

“I love everything about her,” said Jasmine in her soft New York accent.

This tutorial by Mota, posted in 2013, had gotten more than 3 million views. In it she showed girls how to get her back-to-school makeup look, which included products by Almay, Maybelline, CoverGirl, and L'Oréal. “Of course we need some powder,” Mota said, swirling a brush around her cheeks. “We do not want to go to school with an oily face…”

“I follow her on Instagram,” said Jasmine. “I like to watch all her tutorials.”

Jasmine was a Latina girl with long straight dark hair and oversized black glasses. She wore a pair of fashionable ripped jeans, a pink sweater, and a headband with cat ears she said she had bought online after seeing Taylor Swift wearing one like it in a music video. She confessed to being a “girlie girl” like Mota; her pink-themed bedroom was decorated with Hello Kitty dolls, not unlike the girlie bedroom from which Mota did her tutorials.

“I like her 'cause you don't hear bad stuff about her,” Jasmine said. “She's a good role model. She's nice, she's cute. Like, I would love to meet her.”

Being nice and cute is at the core of Mota's brand. In her videos she often praises things she likes—whether tennis shoes or nail polish or hair bows, which she admits to being “obsessed” with—for being “cute” and “girlie” and “adorable.”

Jasmine said, “She's, like, not ghetto.”

Jasmine told me that, more than anything, she wanted to escape her neighborhood someday. “Basically I'm like a prisoner,” she said, “ 'cause my mom won't let me go anywhere 'cause it's too dangerous.” After a visit to Crotona Park East in 1977, President Jimmy Carter somberly called it “America's worst slum.” The neighborhood had been ravaged by the violent crime and arson epidemics of the 1970s; and then, in the '80s, there was crack. With its burned-out buildings and vacant lots, Crotona became a symbol of urban blight. It was overrun with gangs, dangerous and poor. It was also a hotbed of creativity, a place where graffiti art and hip-hop music and culture flourished.

Today, Crotona has been largely rebuilt. People say it has “calmed down,” partly due to the constant and, according to some residents, unwelcome presence of the police. Blue-and-white cop cars creep up and down the blocks. The cleaned-up streets look beautiful again, with their grand art deco apartment buildings and cozy ranch-style homes. But appearances can be deceiving. In 2013, the Citizens' Committee for Children, a children's advocacy group, called the South Bronx one of the hardest places in New York City to be a child. In 2010, it was the poorest district in the country, with a quarter of a million people living in poverty. Forty-nine percent of children in the South Bronx were living in poverty that year, according to the U.S. Census.

When Mota finished putting on her makeup, she looked as if she were ready to walk the red carpet on Emmy night, forget about the halls of school. Then she demonstrated how to use more products and a curling iron to get her wavy locks. “It looks so adorable,” she said of her own hairstyle, gazing in the mirror.

“I can't really get my hair like that,” said Jasmine, touching hers. “It's too thick.”

Mota, a Latina girl from Los Banos, California, became YouTube's number one producer of beauty content in 2015, surpassing former reigning beauty queen Michelle Phan. At nineteen, she now had 9 million followers and 25 million views a month.
The Wall Street Journal
attributed Mota's appeal to how her “videos often focus on encouraging her teen fans to build up their self-confidence.” Buzzfeed called her “the quintessential girl next door.”
Time
put her on its list of the “Most Influential Teens of 2014.” In 2015, she took a selfie with President Obama at the White House, where she had been invited with a group of other social media stars.

“One day I will get there,” Jasmine said. “I am going to be famous. Maybe from a reality show.” She said she also might want to be a fashion designer. “I think my style is cool.”

Mota got dressed, putting on a floral, short “cute dress” from Brandy Melville, an Italian-based clothing company, trendy among girls; the line has been accused by some media outlets and blogs of encouraging “body dysmorphia” with its “one-size-fits-all” sizing, which has been found to fit skinny girls most comfortably.

Mota called her oversized Brandy Melville cardigan “perfection…I love it so much.”

“I love that, too,” Jasmine said. “I'd wear it. And it would fit me.”

Mota started vlogging in 2009, when she was thirteen, as an escape from cyberbullying; she has said that the likes she got on her videos made her feel better about herself. Her early videos were “hauls,” videos where mostly girls and young women who've returned home from shopping trips show off what they've bought, usually makeup and clothes. “I think that this is so adorable!” Mota says in a haul from 2014, holding up a sunflower-patterned dress from Forever 21. “I love sunflowers, they're one of my favorite flowers, and when I saw this I was just like, That is
adorable.
”

Haul videos started appearing on YouTube as early as 2007; by 2010 more than 250,000 had flooded the site. At a time when the media is full of images of conspicuous consumption and unattainable luxury brands, a study found that YouTube viewers liked watching hauls because the products featured were affordable, “low- to mid-range fashion and beauty” items rather than the more high-end items displayed in fashion magazines such as
Teen Vogue.

“I shop online,” Jasmine said. “That's where you can find everything for bargains.” She lived with her single mom. Her dad, a mailman, lived in Brooklyn.

After gaining a following with her hauls, Mota started doing beauty and fashion tutorials. Her signature style is her girlie self-deprecation, which involves making faces, crossing her eyes, and drawing attention to her own “awkwardness.” She's like a teen version of the adorkable actresses you see in rom-coms who are always falling down for no clear reason. Mota's accessible and nonthreatening girlie-girl persona has proven attractive to corporate sponsors. She makes an estimated $500,000 to $750,000 in annual ad revenue. She also has her own clothing line with Aéropostale.

I asked Jasmine if she knew any girls who acted like Mota in real life, in the unfalteringly upbeat mode of beauty gurus. She laughed and said no. “You couldn't act like that in this neighborhood,” she said. “People would think you were corny.” In her neighborhood, she said, you had to be tough. “You have to show people they can't mess with you.”

“It's so much people getting killed, in jail, drug dealing and all that stuff,” Jasmine said. “There's a lot of gang activity. In my grandmother's building there's people doing nasty things in the hallways. There's people passed out with needles in their arms. I'm not allowed to go in that building. I don't feel safe walking around in this neighborhood by myself as a girl. I get scared. I have never experienced walking by myself around here.”

On her computer screen, Bethany Mota was breezing into a high school building, outfitted in her “perfect” back-to-school look.

Watching Mota's video with Jasmine brought home to me that, for girls who are poor, the omnipresence of images on social media stressing the importance of “beauty” had a whole other layer, an added set of pressures. Beauty costs money. When Jasmine compared herself with Mota, and Mota's ability to “flawlessly” execute some look, she was not only challenged to wonder how she might measure up physically, but also reminded of the difficulty she might have in purchasing the things she needed to pull the look off. No matter how relatable Mota tried to be with her trips to Forever 21, Brandy Melville was an expensive brand. And then there was the issue of race. There are many successful beauty gurus who are girls of color, and Mota herself was Latina. But Mota's “cute” persona read culturally, for Jasmine, as “not ghetto,” and therefore in some way aspirational. Jasmine wanted to be like her. But when she couldn't be like her—when she couldn't get her hair like hers, for example, because it was “too thick”—it was another reminder for her of a racist discourse which says that girls of color are “too” this or “not enough” that physically.

“You want to watch another one?” Jasmine asked.