Six-Year Old Girls Want to Be ‘Sexy,’ Study Finds

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

Girls as young as 6 years old show self-sexualizing attitudes that suggest they identify themselves in terms of “sexiness,” a new study published in the journal Sex Roles has found.  From MSNBC.com:

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.

Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with.

Across-the-board, girls chose the “sexy” doll most often. The results were significant in two categories: 68 percent of the girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll.

“It’s very possible that girls wanted to look like the sexy doll because they believe sexiness leads to popularity, which comes with many social advantages,” explained lead researcher Christy Starr, who was particularly surprised at how many 6- to 7-year-old girls chose the sexualized doll as their ideal self.

Image: Girl playing dress-up, via Shutterstock.

Will Toy Company Create Pregnant Kate Middleton Doll?

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William of England, has been carefully watched for signs of a baby bump since she and the future king married last spring.  Now, as The Huffington Post reports, a toy company that manufactures a Kate Middleton doll is being pressed by customers to create a version with a pregnant belly:

Chelsea-based company Arklu is the toymaker behind the doll. They’ve been inundated with requests to create a pregnant version of their already best-selling Duchess of Cambridge.

Despite the potential volume of requests, the company may want to consider that pregnant dolls haven’t gone over well. In 2002, Mattell released a pregnant version of Barbie’s friend Midge (at the time, her bio included a marriage to a man named Alan and a firstborn son named Ryan). But Wal-Mart pulled the doll after customers complained that it was too real for their little girls (Midge had a magnetic removable stomach with a baby in fetal position inside. TMI, said parents.)

The company told The Huffington Post that there are no current plans to create such a doll, despite customer demand.

(Image via: http://www.amazon.com/)