Thanks to everyone for your comments on our recent blog post, Getting real (and angry) about the sexualisation of girls. It’s great to be part of a vigorous online conversation about the topic, which continued over at The Dawn Chorus, where Mel Campbell responded with some quite different thoughts of her own on the topic.

As promised, we have a copy of the new book Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls  (which sparked the post) to give away, courtesy of Spinifex Press. Nikki Anderson, publisher at Spinifex, has kindly judged the comments for us and picked a winner, as I found it too hard to choose. Here’s what she said:

 
If we have to choose one comment then we think Cristy is the winner: we agree that media literacy is so important for kids to learn to navigate their way through the minefield that is today’s cultural landscape; as are feminist parents and friends to show girls especially that having opinions and ideals is far from boring!

Congratulations Cristy! Please email us your address details at [email protected] and a copy of Getting Real will be on its way to you. Enjoy.

For those who missed it, here is Cristy’s winning comment:

My mother spent my childhood fighting against this stuff (she even wrote a book about it) and yet, somehow, it seems to have become worse rather than better. This makes me feel pretty despondent about my power to change the status quo.

That said, the way that she managed to equip me to navigate all of the ridiculous gender messages that were so blatant in the media (and reproduce thoughtlessly in the classroom) was impressive and has given me hope that I’ll at least be able to manage to do the same for my little girl.

I came here via a link from Mel Campbell at the Dawn Chorus and she has brought up the issue of how to remain “edgy” while still upholding feminist values with our kids. She expresses concerns that feminist rejections of raunch culture will just make us seem boring and daggy. I must say that I never thought that my mother’s articulate rejection of sexism was daggy or boring. Instead I felt empowered and strangely superior to my classmates when I was able to analyse what was going on. Hopefully I will be even half as successful now that it is my turn.