THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES SENSITIVE TOPICS SUCH AS SEXUAL ASSAULT
As America Ferrera’s Barbie monologue so famously details, being a woman feels almost impossible. Understanding this, why are we as a society throwing the pressure of womanhood onto little girls?
Allow me to explain myself.
A Brief Historical and Medical Background
The social transition from girlhood to womanhood is traditionally marked by puberty, specifically the menstrual cycle. A middle school girl will undergo menarche, more commonly referred to as one’s first period, and then be congratulated on “becoming a woman.”
This response stems from cultures and time periods during which it was common to marry off one’s daughters as soon as possible. This was a very prominent practice of the Middle Ages, during which time girls commonly married at 12 or 13 years of age. Some historians rationalize that the marriage timeline was expedited in this manner as a means of compensating for the relatively short lifespans of individuals of the 15th century. But, it is worthwhile to note that teen brides were typically quite younger than their grooms — or, dare I say, groomers — and many of them had yet to reach puberty, meaning that their early marriages did not always serve immediate reproductive purposes. During the 17th century, this age disparity was propagated as colonial families could marry their daughters off as early as age 12 (in accordance with the English civil law) but couldn’t legally marry their sons until at least 14 years of age.
The justification for this was that boys had to focus on their craft and personal development before tying themselves down to a family. This extended bachelorhood was not a burden to the boys’ parental families, as they continued to help support their parents and siblings during this time. Young girls, on the other hand, were much more expensive to keep around long-term, so families began exploring marriage propositions as early as possible to alleviate the financial burden of having daughters in the household.
Today, of course, gender dynamics have changed. Women are more career-oriented than ever, with over half of college undergrads consisting of female students. There are also more unmarried women than unmarried men in the U.S., suggesting that the independent woman lifestyle has superseded trad wife ideals in popularity. Women who do choose to marry are now marrying later than ever. Additionally, while child marriage persists as an underground societal issue, the majority of American couples are getting married later than ever, in their mid to late twenties.
Conversely, the average age that American girls are hitting puberty has plummeted. According to Dr. Liji Thomas, the median age that American girls are achieving stage two breast development is around their tenth birthday. While the median age of menarche continues to be twelve years old, there is an increasing amount of second and third grade girls developing menstrual cycles unexpectedly. Due to hormonal imbalances caused by the childhood obesity crisis and propensity of rGBH in processed foods, this minority group is expected to grow.
What Does This Mean for girls?
The root cause of the growing propensity of precocious puberty is unknown, but the fact remains that women’s biological clocks and social timelines have begun to move in opposite directions, meaning that it is highly inappropriate to regard a woman’s physiological and social development as one and the same. An eight-year-old girl remains eight years old, whether or not she undergoes monthly bleeding, and it would be a major faux pas to regard her, a literal elementary schooler, as a woman.
And yet, we do anyways.
impact on women’s sexuality
As young ladies’ physiological development continues to take precedence over their social development in controlling the way that they are perceived by their peers and superiors, pubescent girls are sexualized long before they reach legal adulthood.
For example, girls who develop a “womanly figure” at an earlier age face an onslaught of sexualization by both teachers and fellow classmates alike. If said girl is being raised in a religious community, purity culture will additionally teach them that is their responsibility to minimize or even conceal their secondary sex characteristics (specifically her breasts and enlarged hips) to prevent their male peers and adult male superiors from falling into sexual temptation. In the case of sexual molestation or assault, this often leads to victim-blaming, where women are blamed for instigating or failing to prevent the unwanted sexual advances of men. Considering that 20% of American women experience completed or attempted assault in their lifetime, this is a highly problematic attitude to have about sexual harassment and abuse, as it disempowers its primary victims.
In other words, at an age where most girls are uncertain about their own sexuality, they are being asked to control the sexual urges of men. When they fail to do so — when teenaged girls are catcalled, groped, molested, assaulted, and/or impregnated against their will — they then face an overwhelming amount of unsolicited guilt, shame, and blame. They are asked irrelevant questions (What were you wearing? Are you sure you didn’t like the attention?) and given erroneous justifications (Boys will be boys! What else did you expect, putting yourself in that environment?). Then, when these young girls actually reach an appropriate age to engage in voluntary intercourse and explore their sexuality, they are hindered by the sexual trauma that they carry from childhood. The emerging woman is enmeshed in a fragmented inner child who then problematically emerges during sexual experiences, producing a trauma response to sex and sexuality.
This typically manifests in one of two ways. A majority of women will attempt to reclaim their sexuality through hypersexual activity, engaging in impulsive, frequent, and unsafe sexual experiences. Other women will become hyposexual, repressing their sexuality by either denying their right to sexual pleasure during intercourse or avoiding sexual experiences entirely. The hypersexuals women are slut-shamed, and the hyposexual women face complaints of sexual unfulfillment from their boyfriends and husbands. Both parties of women indubitably suffer, and in both cases, this suffering could be prevented by taking care of the broken children within these women, the little girls who were asked to grow up too fast.
impact on women’s identity
There is another problem with referring to little girls as women, and it has to do with the power of linguistic nuance. Swedish author Fredrick Backman points this out in his New York Times Bestselling novel, Beartown, in which he wrote “She’s fifteen, above the age of consent, and he’s seventeen, but he’s still “the boy” in every conversation. She’s ‘”the young woman.” Words are not small things.” The connotative effect of referring to a young girl as a “woman” is immense, as it demands that girls take on the responsibilities of a full-grown adult. Beyond victim blaming, however, this vocabularic choice erases critical years of girlhood that are integral to the construction of their self-concept. Consider, for example, psychologist Erik Erikson’s developmental model, consisting of eight key stages, which are as follows:
1. Babyhood: the development of trust.
2. Toddlerhood: the development of autonomy.
3. Preschool age: the development of initiative.
4. School age: the development of industry.
5. Adolescence: the development of identity.
6. Young adulthood: the development of intimacy.
7. Middle age: the development of generativity.
8. Older adulthood: the development of integrity.
Stages one through five can be lumped together as childhood, during which time a female individual should be regarded as a girl, while stages six through eight fall under the umbrella of adulthood, during which time it is then appropriate to make the vocabularic switch from girl to woman. However, the tail end of Erikson’s fourth stage of human sociological developmental, which takes place between ages six to eleven, is now overlapping with thelarche (breast development) and menarche. Consequently, many girls who are in stages four and five are treated as being in stage six, because society insists on falsely classifying girls with developed secondary sex characteristics as women. This has severely negative repercussions, as it forces girls who have not yet developed a secure self-concept into an emotional network that they are not equipped to thrive within.
School age girls should be focused on developing a sense of industry. They should be proud of personal accomplishments and not afraid to make mistakes along the pathway to success. If they fail to develop a strong sense of industry, they will instead begin to feel inferior to others. Problematically, in a Western world where boys are allowed to “be boys” but girls are expected to conduct themselves as “young women,” it is only the boys who develop this strong sense of industry, whilst girls grow to feel inferior to their male counterparts. Yet we wonder why so many women struggle with confidence and self-esteem — we can blame this on the fact that they were never given the space to develop it during their childhood!
Further, adolescent girls should be focused on building a strong sense of personal identity. They should be allowed to reflect on the hobbies and interests of their earlier childhood, prune some off, begin to take some more seriously, and start exploring new ones. They should appraise their strengths and weaknesses and determine their place in the world. Once again, however, many girls are inhibited from doing this, because they are being regarded as stage sixers due to their sexual development. They are steered past this critical stage and thrusted into the intimacy stage.
As a result, a lot of adolescent girls tend to hyper fixate on dating and relationships. Society criticizes these teenaged girls for being “boy crazy,” when this disposition towards dating is actually a direct response to societal pressures. See, when womanhood is classified as synonymous to sexual maturity, and sexual maturity is achieved at a very young age, then girls will internalize this false belief that dating is a rite of a passage to womanhood. So, romantic relationships supplant the development of female industry and identity, leaving women feeling insecure and unsure about their purposes in the world.
effect on the 21st century girls of today
The newest generation of girls, Gen Alpha, is the byproduct of girlhood’s adultification. This generation is often criticized for acting too mature for their age, highly evident in their selective consumerism. For example, rather than playing with American Girl Dolls or arts and crafts kits, Gen Alpha’s 11-year-old girls shop at Sephora. They chase fashion trends from TikTok influencers and praise designer labels. They face more sexual pressure from their male peers than prior generations — in part propagated by the porn addiction crisis — and their female role models continue to grow more and more sexualized, as well.
Take, for example, controversial singer and actress Olivia Rodrigo. This Disney kid turned popstar has turned twenty-one and is undergoing a major rebrand. Many speculate that this performer is now in her “Miley Cyrus Era” as her concerts grow more and more sexual. In recent performances during her Guts tour, the singer even handed out free condoms and lube to her fans, knowing that many of her fans are underaged. While it is not a performer’s responsibility to maintain a kid-friendly brand if she doesn’t want to, the fact that Rodrigo collected a large audience of underaged girls before rebranding her career does raise ethical questions. Is this really sexual liberation, or is it sexual limitation? What message is being passed down to young girls when their role models are so hypersexualized? When former child star Jojo Siwa turns twenty and makes an announcement that her newest project contains themes that are sexual and violent? When Billie Eilish turns twenty and shocks fans with her lingerie photoshoot for British Vogue?
I am not suggesting by any means that celebrities who begin their careers as children must maintain kid friendly branding throughout their adult lives. Jojo Siwa is allowed to make mature content, and Olivia Rodrigo is allowed to hand out contraceptives at her concert. What I am saying is that it appears almost as if female celebrities who begin their careers as girls feel that their adulthood cannot be proclaimed through any other means than hyper sexualization, and that this passes down a negative message to their fanbases, especially when their fanbases consist of minors who are being treated as women and want to be respected as such.
in conclusion
Society needs to look out for women, not just during National Women’s History Month, but all the time. That starts with looking out for girls and creating safe spaces for them be children and find beauty in their childhood. That way, when these girls do become women, they won’t have internalized a misogynistic and limited view of what womanhood actually means, magnifying across generations. More importantly, however, these young women won’t look back on their youth and lament years of childhood wasted and adulterated by inappropriate adultification. They will have lived out their girlhood to the fullest, enabling them to be the best, most fulfilled version of themselves possibles.
But that is if, and only if, we create safe, child-friendly, girlhood-friendly spaces for them to do so.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.