People have to take some responsibility because we’ve got to a point where over-sexualisation of young children has gone too far... I think music is a big part of that. Women in music, very successful women, are extremely sexual and they have young fans. It is inappropriate... Rihanna has responsibility and although culture’s always changing, it’s changed too much. It needs to be dealt with. It’s reached saturation point, we owe it to our kids to protect them.
From The Mirror
I didn't blog about it at the time because I thought that Sporty had said it all, but after reading this article today, I feel the need to clarify a few things.
The author implies that the Spice Girls were socially damaging for young girls, citing their (or, rather, Posh and Ginger Spices') donning of PVC in one music video, and while he admits that Sporty was one of the more modest Spices, there's the suggestion of hypocrisy on Melanie C's part, undermining her argument completely.
I've heard a lot of negative feminist commentary on the Spice Girls, but speaking as someone who was an impressionable young girl at the time of their reign, I found them to be nothing but a positive influence. When the Spice Girls were at their height, I was 8-years-old, and I was challenging the boys in the playground to races; I was campaigning at school for the girls to get as much football time as the boys; I was proud of who I was, and proud to be a girl. And while some feminists might argue that Ginger, Posh and at times Scary were heavily sexualised (for their time, anyway), I argue this: there was always choice with the Spice Girls. That's precisely what made them such a roaring success. If you reckoned yourself to be a bit cute, there was Baby. If you were feisty, there was Scary. If you thought you were more the classy kind, there was Posh. If you wanted to be sexy, there was Ginger. And if, like me, you liked football and trainers, there was Sporty. Being a fan of the Spice Girls didn't just mean that you were a fan of their music; it meant you were a fan of yourself. You, as a girl, were represented. You were told that it was OK for you to be cute, to be feisty, to be classy, to be athletic, and it was OK to be sexy, without ever indicating that to be sexy was the only way to be successful. These were normal women, with normal bodies and admittedly quite normal vocals; they were never the unobtainable, impossibly perfect and highly saturated pictures of women that we see on TV, in film and in music videos today.
As a young girl, I enjoyed a freedom I don't think young girls get to experience today. My morning battle with my wardrobe revolved around which tracksuit went best with which trainers, and the biggest problem my hair ever encountered was whether my ponytail was high enough. Now, I see girls as young as five being sent off to school in the winter months in just a little skirt and pair of socks, and it's easier finding a bikini for a young girl than it is finding a regular swimming costume. Why do we encourage this fashion upon young girls? Why are girls slapping on makeup with such inexpertise from as young an age as 11? Why are there so many pre-teen girls posing in front of their bedroom mirror in basques and then posting these photographs on social networking sites for the entire world to see, clearly oblivious to just who might see them? There are probably a lot of reasons why, but these few reasons in particular jump to mind: because it has become mainstream; because everyone else is doing it; because successful women they admire and aspire to be like are doing it; because we are not presenting these young girls with choice anymore. Sex sells, and kids have bought it.
Then the problem continues like a vicious circle: as popstars get younger and younger, with notables such as Willow Smith and Rebecca Black making the charts and the headlines respectively, we run the risk of exposing these already heavily-influenced kids to a darker reality. Tell an ordinary school-going young teenage girl to fit in, and she will likely put on a bit of makeup (badly) and wear clothes intended for a twenty-something. Tell a young teeange popstar to fit in, and she will likely turn into Miley Cyrus. Case in point.
But it's not all doom and gloom. There are probably almost as many Spice Girl-type role models as there are Rihanna-type role models: P!nk, Jessie J, Adele, Katy B and Kelly Clarkson to name just a few. The only problem is that sometimes we choose to watch a mute, expressionless, half-naked woman grinding herself against a fully-clothed male artist before we listen to the honest lyrics of those worth watching and listening to.
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