The Grooming of Girlhood | Explored Through Innocence (2004)

WHERE TO FIND ME

Sources:

Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women

Susan Sontag, The Double Standard of Ageing

Collette, My Apprenticeships

Lauren Groff, Delectatio Morosa, Lolita in the Afterlife

The Fetishization of Girlhood

Cami Wheeler, The Star or The Victim

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(credit: Steven Vondran)

[FinalGirlStudios]

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the ending!! So curious to know people’s interpretations.

[FishareFriendsNotFood]

"Girls are trained to value aesthetics over exploration and fun" wow what a great line! Thanks for this

[anny_draws]

As a girl I hate it how I have no choice but being uncomfortable by either being lusted over and sexualised when I look "good", or not even being considered a human being deserving of empathy and respect when I look "ugly"

[Laribhaven]

As a former child ballerina. I think is very symbolic that the ballet routine is mediocre. Dancing in a not-so-perfect form is something we usually associate with children from the 3-5 age group in pre-ballet classes.
Being an older girl like the purple ribbons, performing like a toddler, to me just shows how much men gaze at us from the moment we start to go out in the world. And how much they value the aesthetic of pre-pubescent, over everything else. Even though many are not attracted to minors per se, they do want a woman who looks like a young girl...

[foxflinga]

This movie hits hard. When I was a little girl I did ballet for 7 years and I also performed with white butterfly wings. I was so proud to be told by our teacher how good I behave. After practise I usually went home alone by train. I still had my leotard on with jeans and hair in a bun with a ribbon. When I was 12 I started notice the looks by men on the train. Sometimes they tryied to talk to me or touch me. What is even worse is that I always looked younger than I really am. I am still misstaken for a teenager even though I am 25 now. I really like pink, ribbons, cute girly dresses. I only wear them when I am at home. I think for me it is about somehow reclaiming my girlhood back.

[aaniad]

as an older teen girl who now works around and helps a lot of my younger peers, the catcalling experience and outfit you described reminds me so much of so many of the girls I help now, it’s just so interesting going through that experience myself and in turn understanding how society normalizes the exploitation of young girls youth and how so many of us partake in it, completely unaware and how it’s such a vicious cycle that now I look at girls who are younger than me partake in it, completely unaware, just like I once was, unable to say anything to them and it breaks my heart

[dumbledoresgotstyle]

As someone who was a victim of childhood SA, as someone who had to grow up way too soon, when I had my baby 2 years ago I prayed so hard to the universe for a boy. I could not fathom exposing my child to the horrors of what I have gone through in life purely because of being born female. I did have a girl and have grown grateful to have had a girl because i will be able to look out for her in a way no adult in my life looked out for me. This essay hit me so hard. Thank you for your hard work and analysis.

[kyndramb]

OOOF! This one hit me hard. I was 10 when I first got my period. I had breasts in elementary school, and was mocked for it, and sexualized by boys and men. When my Nana took me shopping for bras, I wanted tight sport's bras to flatten as much as possible.
The amount of men who catcalled me before I even reached high school is abysmal. The men who were meant to be trust-worrhy making creepy, inappropriate comments or requests. I was forced to grow uo too soon.

[HeyItsNovalee]

7:31 this butterfly metaphor is extra poignent when you realize what happens during metamorphosis inside the cocoon. The caterpillar literally breaks down its entire body which is then reassembled in the shape of a butterfly. Girls are broken down and forcibly put back together in the shape of an "appealing" woman during adolescence. And those who dont force themselves to break down usually arent accepted

[motaku]

I really don’t appreciate the little girls being naked, since it puts them into a weird situation. But it was an amazing narrative about girlhood and how the male gaze follows us, even when we are unaware

[alize]

Grooming little girls for adult men is exactly why I resent the phase “good little girl.” Good boys are boys who take care of others, don’t break the rules, and try in school. Good girls are obedient and docile. If you tell a little girl she’s pretty and she replies with anything besides “thank you, ” then she’s a bad girl. She needs to doubt it and have YOU validate it for her to be good. I’m raising 2 girls and exclusively raising them to be strong willed, questioning, and confident. I don’t care if that makes them good or bad girls, I want them to break the mold

[arlenxander]

as someone who was brought up incredibly religious (muslim to be exact), this movie will always be near and dear to me. the permeating creepiness throughout the movie is how i felt whenever i was told to not do certain things because it was shameful or would elicit excitement from men. i wasn’t even allowed to do these things in my own house god forbid. and although i loathe the film’s use of child nudity and the voyeuristic camera angles, i did unfortunately relate to always feeling like i was being watched. like someone was enjoying what they were seeing and they were always out of sight somehow. crossing legs became some sort of sexual provocation and so did enjoying a popsicle. i think that’s why i always feared being a women or getting older because then i wouldn’t have plausible deniability anymore. i wouldn’t be innocent anymore. I would be asking for it.

[stardust.]

I don't know if this was the movie's intention or not, but I find it telling that there were no black little girls at the academy since they are often denied a girlhood all together.

[SnickerFoodle]

I cannot tell you how relieved I felt when I hit 30 and thought no one would catcall me or hit on me or touch me inappropriately anymore. And how I was subsequently heartbroken and enraged when it happened again anyway. I felt so angry at my own naivety. I was so tired of being sexually harassed and assaulted, and I thought that it didn't happen when you got "old". And I was wrong.

[emmaatkinson]

I feel like we desperately need more angry media on topics like this. Like, more metal music, more horror movies, more spec fic novels.

One thing that always frustrated me growing up as a teen, and young woman, is how much media is dedicated to the angst of men. Young men angry with their fathers, conflicted with masculinity and its expectations, men wishing to be soldiers or mad at being a soldier, angry screaming at what society wants out of them - to be a provider, despite economic hardship, to be strong, despite being human. Unassailable. But the HORROR, the unholy disgust, of having your own father pose you for your kindergarden grad at 6yo in poses similar to a magazine model just because you're in a swimsuit and knockoff paper lei - the heinousness of a first catcall! Of sudden understanding that your whole life until then, you thought you were a person, like anyone, you were a kid and going to grow up to be a librarian or astronaut or lawyer. And then the rising uncanny evil of realising that to men, even to women - you're not that. You're an object. You're consumable, and judged on a hierachy of consumability, forever. You're just a piece of candy with a short shelf life, with sometimes big ideas of herself

More angry media for girls pls

[aniruam]

The colored ribbons brought to mind the chakras for me...the root chakra, represented by red, tends to include the genitals. The girls are already defined & confined by their genitals, even as little girls. Then at the very end, they discard their violet ribbons, symbolic to me of the crown chakra, which is your awareness and intelligence. They have been groomed so long that even their way of thinking is shaped by it - they no longer think for themselves, only the way they have been taught to think....

I also think it's telling that the butterfly that got to be free, was a male butterfly.

[mxar]

I feel lika a caterpillar that failed at becoming a butterfly. I feel really uncomfortable around women who present feminity "better" than me. One one hand I feel insecure that I can't measure up to these standards of feminity, on the other hand I know that I don't want to live that way. I identify as a woman but compared to other women I feel less than and always feel like I'm trying too hard. My awareness of the effort I put into a performance that I don't like, that I fail at, is what makes me feel less than.

[Sad_Bumper_Sticker]

Your analysis is professional but this film seems creepy. Especially creeped out that they had 10 yr old girls perfom without clothes -that is always unacceptable since they are a children and as little girl cannot consent to perform without clothes.

Especially since the artistic message of the film is the oppression of patriarchy.

[Mr.Crowley]

I’m a retired professor. In my first decade of being a young professor and out of grad school I would be mistaken for an undergrad frequently (just looked younger I guess…not anymore…) by workers at my uni, random men on campus, sometimes other professors, etc — and it was insane how their demeanor would change when they realized I wasn’t a “coed” and was in fact faculty. In one of the creepiest incidents two men in their 20s (I think) started following me in their car as I walked alone on a sidewalk to my office. It was very early in the morning and there was no one around. This was in my second year. They were following me and making comments then asked loudly what my name was and if I was a student — I told them I was a professor. They looked stunned and then gunned their car away. Several female students had been harassed in the prior weeks by guys driving around like this (they were not students) and it made me sick with fear. Honestly I don’t really know why saying that I was a professor made them drive away as they didn’t have good intentions but uh…it made me realize how quickly something terrible could happen and how weird expectations (like “let’s harass some college girls but not a professor”) plays into abuse and SA.

[LokiMartin-is]

I spent a lot of my childhood running through the woods, climbing trees, hunting for bones, and pretending to be a witch in the forest. When I got home, my mother and I would argue because I got my pretty dress dirty or I skinned or bruised my knees. I remember angrily thinking that my mother wanted a pretty doll on the shelf, where I wanted to be a child and run and explore and play pretend.