socialisimo:

Is Facebook turning girls into strumpets? That’s the thrust of the latest moral panic to come out of the Bailey review into “sexualisation”, an ugly word which suggests that girls are passive creatures with no sexual agency of their own. The word is relatively new but anxiety about young women in public spaces is age-old. Six decades ago, rock’n’roll concerts were apparently turning nice, young ladies into wayward, serial-shagging hussies. Now, it’s social networking.

As always, the discussion is focused almost exclusively on girls, boys being free to post pictures of themselves dancing to Lady Gaga in their underpants without incurring the opprobrium of the Daily Mail.

This state-sponsored panic about the sexualisation of childhood, by which nearly everyone means girlhood, has far more to do with religious censoriousness than it might at first appear. The Mothers’ Union, whose chief executive, Reg Bailey, produced the review for the government, is neither a union nor a mothers’ group. It is an “international Christian charity”, dedicated to bringing about “a world where God’s love is shown … by supporting marriage and family life”. The group pursues this goal “through prayer” as well as “policy work”.

If the male leader of an Islamic charity were to advise the government on how girls should dress and consume popular culture, there would be uproar. Instead, the Prime Minister congratulates Bailey in an obsequious letter for voicing “an issue that concerns so many parents”. It is reassuring to know that, in this decadent modern world, there are still powerful, middle-aged men on hand to manage and censor the sexuality of young women.