The campaign for real role models

the campaign - research

There are loads of good books out there, our favorites include:

The Story of Childhood: growing up in modern Britain
Libby Brooks

Consumer Kids: How big business is grooming our children for profit
Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn
It is not prudish. It is fact. The sexualisation of our children where children of a younger and younger age are exposed to more and more provocative imagery – too much, too young – exacts a heavy price, now, soon and later.

Toxic Childhood: How the modern world is damaging our children
Sue Palmer
'The cloying schmaltziness of girl-oriented marketing leads most parents to withdraw in distaste, hoping their daughters will soon grow out of it. But this early initiation into pinkness is just the beginning. Another strong evolutionary yearning present in all young children is the need to belong to the group, which opens up social and emotional vulnerabilities ideal for market exploitation.'

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing our daughters from marketeers schemes
Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown
'The image of girls and girlhood that is being packaged and sold to your daughter isn't pretty in pink. It's stereotypical, demeaning, limiting and alarming. Girls are beseiged by images in the media that encourage accessorizing over academics; sex appeal over sports; fashion over friendship.'

Female Chauvinist Pigs: The rise of raunch culture
Ariel Levy
'I first noticed it several years ago. I would turn on the television to find strippers in pasties explaining how best to lap dance a man to orgasm. I would flip the channel and see babes in tight, tiny uniforms bouncing up and down on trampolines. Britney Spears was becoming increasingly popular and increasingly unclothed, and her undulating body ultimately became so familiar to me I felt like we used to go out.'

Please link below to a summary of findings from various studies which you may find useful.

Please click here to view PinkStinks uselful research statistics