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For all of those who missed the underground meeting, here is a summary of my thoughts behind the piece. If you want pick up a poster you know where to find me.

I wanted to explore questions about gender norms, medias contribution to gendered violence and if it’s ok to depict little girls nude or sexualized in any form. Are there instances where it is ok vs. not ok? How do people feel about young girls being sexualized in advertising vs. fine art depictions like Sally Mann and her children?

There was already quite a bit of discussion about the Coppertone baby depiction from my research before the meeting. Such as, some who are for it and say come on people it’s an innocent cute picture of a baby, it’s natural for babies to be naked, we need to let children be accepting and understanding of their nude body, we can’t be so censored, it’s like women breast feeding, they should be allowed to do that in public, women should be allowed to walk around nude and not be assaulted, we need to stop avoiding teaching kids about body parts and sex, we can’t keep our kids hidden in the house because of pedophiles, etc. Yes, it is important that women should be able to feed their baby where they need, dress or undress however they want without being assaulted, children are often naked, they should be taught about their bodies and be comfortable in them, and we do need to openly teach sexual education at home and in schools.

There is also the component that a child cannot give legal consent to sex, being sexualized, etc. There is also a lot of sexualization of little girls in advertising that is problematic, as well as the implications of continually making adult women look like and reference little girls. So, it is not just about hiding from pedophiles, which I agree we shouldn’t have to live our lives restricted, but it’s also about how we condition people to view women, of any age. And asking if these depictions are furthering the objectification of women and hindering both women and girls right to their own bodily autonomy and safety. How does viewing women in this way contribute to sexualizing young girls and women in real life and not just in media? How does it perpetuate violence towards them?

These images also speak to gender roles. Do we see little boys being depicted in this way? According to some sources Little Miss Coppertone Facebook page had an ad calling parents to submit photos of their daughters aged 2-7 but sons were not allowed. Furthermore, what little girl would have that pose or face if a dog was pulling off their towel? We could at least show a child how they would actually be reacting instead of placing a pin-up girl face and pose on a child. So, I thought this face was more appropriate and comical if she realized she had pockets. As many people in the meeting mentioned, this face resonated with how they feel when they figure out their clothing has functioning pockets. “Wait I have pockets” on this advertisement specifically allowed me to pose questions about gender roles, gender norms, the various ways gender has been engrained in our culture, pose questions about what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable depictions and which ones sexualize and objectify.

An interesting question we all left thinking about -  why are they called pin up girls and not pin up women.

Plan for the next poster is about poking fun at this contradiction - for a lot of history women were exclusively told to wear skirts, now when we wear skirts we’re asking for it.

Fun facts: “In 1989 California state senator Rebecca Morgan became the first woman to wear trousers in a U.S. state senate. Hillary Clinton was the first woman to wear trousers in an official U.S. First Lady portrait.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trousers_as_women%27s_clothing#:~:text=1980s%20and%201990s,-In%20the%201980s&text=In%201989%20California%20state%20senator,official%20U.S.%20First%20Lady%20portrait.