“Bad Girls Rule”: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Commentary on the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls

Abstract Feminist, critical, and postmodern scholars have long recognized sexuality as a site of power relations. The recently released Report of the APA (American Psychological Association) Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls is a welcome addition to ongoing feminist and activist conversations on how to intervene on issues of sexuality in the name of girls' and women's health. This article offers a critical interdisciplinary analysis of this influential APA report, expanding on and challenging several of its main claims. This article critiques the report as over-determining the negative impact of sexualization; offers other literatures as critical additions including feminist literature on media, consumer culture, gender, and the body, and earlier "pro-desire" feminist psychology scholarship; and critiques the task force's conflations of objectification and sexualization. The article concludes with a call for broadening feminist scholarship and activism across disciplinary boundaries to emphasize girls' and women's sexual agency and resistance, as well as sexual health and rights. Notes 1"Bad Girls Rule" is one of several phrases inscribed on the front page of the American Psychological Association task force report, with the intent of illustrating and critiquing slogans that sexualize girls. Other terms include "good girls do bad things, " "flirty baby, " "hot chick!, " "hottie, " and others. We borrow this slogan for our title to suggest that this phrase and others like it can evoke more than one type of feminist interpretation. 2Recent American Psychological Association positions are concerned with the negative impact of violent media (including video games) on youth and the negative impact of advertising on young children. 3Other sources included newspaper and magazine articles, unpublished manuscripts, conference papers, dissertations, organizational reports, and documentary films. 4Stakeholders include, but are not limited to, parents and caretakers, public health researchers and practitioners, feminist activists, criminal justice workers, coaches and teachers, commercial advertisers, religious officials, as well as adolescent girls and boys themselves. 5Psychological theories include socialization, sociocultural, cognitive, psychoanalytic, and objectification theory. 6The term sexual health is not used or developed in the report, but the task force's concern with girls' and women's misconstrued, detached, or passive attitudes toward their own sexuality is clearly in the realm of sexual health scholarship and activism. 7Suggestions including urging psychologists to document and analyze the prevalence and impact of sexualization; recommending that the report be included in national standards for high school, college, and graduate school curriculum; calling for the American Psychological Association (APA; 2007a) to "work with Congress and relevant federal agencies and industry to reduce the use of sexualized images of girls in all forms of media and products" (p. 44) ; and suggesting that the APA and other stakeholders "develop media awards for positive portrayals of girls as strong, competent, and nonsexualized" (p. 45). 8Title IX was passed in 1972 as a federal law that helped to establish girls' sports at the high school and collegiate level. Since the passage of Title IX, significant improvements have occurred for girls and women in terms of opportunity to play sports and a corresponding increase in strong and athletic women in movies, magazines, ads, and popular culture (see Dworkin Heywood Rand, Citation1995). 15One irony of this study is the extremely objectifying measures used to assess the girls' throwing techniques. Trait objectification asked respondents to rank order their bodily attributes according to how important these were to an individual's own self-concept. State self-objectification refers to statements that ranked the ways in which individuals objectified themselves. In addition to these measures, researchers also recorded girls' leg, arm, and trunk movements while throwing a ball. Researchers rated these movements in a detailed fashion according to bodily "performance" levels (what the standard was that was used to assess performance, we do not know, but perhaps it was male movements? ). Thoughts while throwing examined how much girls thought about their looks when they threw a ball. Might the very process of participating in such a study create a sense of self-consciousness and self-objectification? 16For example, facilitating opportunities for girls and women to appreciate and take pride in their bodily functions; providing opportunities for girls and women to build muscularity and physical skills. 17If G. I. Joe was human, his chest and bicep muscles would have grown exponentially over the past few decades. In his 1964 version, he would be 5' 10", with a 44-in. chest, 32-in. waist, and 12-in. biceps; by 1991, he would have a 29-in. waist with 16½-in. biceps; by the mid 1990s, he would sport a 55-in. chest and 27-in. biceps, almost as big as his 29-in. waist (see Pope et al. , Citation1999; Pope et al. , Citation2000). 18For example, in their analysis of male and female fitness magazines, Dworkin and Wachs (Citation2009) argued that traditional subject–object and male–female dichotomies are no longer adequate given that these have been partly broken down in image and text. In one of the first relational gender analyses of over 10 years of health and fitness magazines, they found that there is an increase over time in the trend toward the objectification of men. 19The concept of individual sexual rights is also problematic, rooted in Western neo-liberal assumptions about personhood, but we still find this to be a more promising approach for girls and women. 20For the World Health Organization's ongoing discussion and "working definition" of sexual health and sexual rights, see http: //www. who. int/reproductivehealth/gender/sexualₕealth. html#4