At what age do women start taking care of their appearance?
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Girls can begin to gain popularity with the help of "sexual appearance" as early as six years, if they have a living example before their eyes - for example, an overly concerned mother.
The kind of dolls your daughter plays with shows how much she is aware of the role of sexual appearance in social life.
Both adult women and adolescent girls tend to look charming, and it would be logical to assume that this is primarily associated with sexual attraction. It would be strange to find a desire for sexual appearance among very young children. In the junior school, erotic motives in behavior if there is (we will not forget Freud), then they are in a deeply hidden form. Nevertheless, psychologists from Knox College (USA) argue that 6-9-year-old girls already see themselves as a sexual object and tend to look appropriate. None of Nabokov, nor a fighter with pedophilia, and never dreamed of it.
The experiment of psychologists was quite simple. Little schoolgirls were shown two dolls: one dressed in fashion, but neutral, another - in a tight and open, with obvious erotic hints. The girls were asked to compare two dolls and say what kind of dolls they look like, what they would like to be like, with which they would like to play, which of the dolls would be the most popular pupil in the school. Researchers were much surprised when children chose a sexier doll: 68% said they would like to be similar to it, 72% said that it would be more popular in school than a regular doll.
Here, obviously, lies the clue of erotic preferences, which girls do not show by age: sexual appearance leads to popularity. Curious, however, the difference that was revealed when comparing the pupils of a regular school with those who go to a dance studio. Little dancers noticeably less dreamed of sexual appearance. From the ordinary point of view, this is again difficult to understand. Psychologists explain this by the fact that dance classes make girls evaluate their own body differently, use other parameters for this assessment. For dancers, "sexuality" is not the most important parameter, so in their case, the chances of sexual and non-sexual dolls more or less equalized. It is curious that among boys sexuality also does not play a big role: although the desire for popularity is not alien to them, it is realized in other ways, not through sexual appearance.
Why do small girls have a craving for sexual appearance before the awakening of attraction and the accompanying hormonal changes? In an article published in the journal Sex Roles, the authors consider several factors. We can assume that all the evil, as usual, from the TV, but it will not be so. The TV only exerts such influence together with a living example. If, in addition to the TV, the girl sees how the mother pays attention to her own sexual appearance, then the "popularity" and "sexuality" in the children's brains will be interconnected.
At the same time, the mother can suppress the influence of TV on her daughter, if she comments on what they show. The TV can play an educational role: when adults made a negative example from TV, the popularity of the sexual doll fell by 7%. Similarly, the disintegrating influence of TV was counteracted by the religiousness of the mother. But even here there is a curious nuance: if the girl did not watch TV and grew up under the care of religious adults, her desire for sexual appearance only increased. In this case, obviously, the craving for the forbidden fruit is included: it is hidden, and therefore is of particular interest.
As such early social and erotic psychic preparation influences the further development of the personality, one can only guess. Although it is hardly a knowledge of how sexuality is related to popularity, it is so necessary in six years. It can be assumed that girls, from a junior school seeking sexual popularity, will have big problems in adulthood when they have to build personal relationships.
But, perhaps, the most important conclusion, which can be done here, is this: do not demonize the TV and other mass media. TV with its "House-2" spoils the child only to the extent that you allow it. And even with the TV turned off, you have good chances to spoil your child by yourself - if you are not inclined to follow your behavior in his presence.
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