France bans children's beauty contests in bid to stop the 'hyper-sexualisation' of youngsters.

France has banned children’s beauty contests in an attempt to prevent the ‘hyper-sexualisation’ of youngsters.

A new law enacted on Tuesday night prevents anyone under the age of 16 from being judged on their physical appearance.
It follows concerns expressed all over the world, including Britain where pageants are still legal, about girls being forced to grow up too fast.
Now anyone caught organising a beauty competition for children in France faces up to two years in prison and fines equivalent of around 25,000 pounds.
The new law is part of an equality bill introduced by women’s minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, and now passed by the Paris Senate.
French senator Chantal Jouanno, author of a report called ‘Against Hyper-Sexualisation: A New Fight For Equality’ proposed an amendment to Vallaud-Belkacem’s bill, calling for the end of children’s contests.
It was passed by 196 votes to 146 against. ‘Let’s not let our daughters think from such a young age that they will be judged according to their appearance,’ said Ms Jouanno. ‘Let’s not let commercial interest impact on social interest.’

I agree, thumbs up to France Girls grow up quick enough as it is without being taught from an early age to be image conscious, applying makeup etc to look more grown-up/prettier, there is no doubt that some young girls love dressing up and playing with makeup ( I know I did ) but in lots of cases the mothers can be too overbearing about these 'contests' and are teaching their daughters that all they need to be successful in life is to look pretty, they should just let children be children.

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I would never have expected France to do this. I have actually gained respect for their people from hearing this. Kids should not be a part of exploited sexual expression. S&F

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


I completely agree. We have "Dance Moms" now, that dress up little girls like burlesque women and put them on tour. Legalized child abuse, complete with TV sponsorship and advertising.

abcnews.go.com...

Insanity. It can cost 20K annually to keep one of these girls in competition.

GOOD! I am happy to see this! This picture is from a thread I was on last year, if I recall correctly...



That isn't a doll on the left. It really is a little girl, dressed up to match the full grown woman on the right.

The one on the right, for those who don't know the film, is Julia Roberts from one of her best known roles as the Call Girl/Prostitute in "Pretty Woman".

The one on the left is how parents can turn an innocent child into what some in media have accurately come to call 'Prosti-Tots". It's obscene...and this couldn't come quickly enough for banning the near kiddie-porn quality to this. (There are sites.. sick as it is...that track, collect and display pics of the girls from these pageants and it's absolutely not to admire their skill as mini-models)

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


Allez France!!

The sooner other nations do the same, the better.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


That is absolutely horrid! What kind of parents think its okay to dress their child up as a movie prostitute!! Makes me sick! There should really be some law against that or child protection service for that.

Yes it is good that France is doing this, hopefully more nations follow suit! Especially now that 'Honeybooboo' crap is all over our TV's and will be giving more chavvy parents ideas.

right...because after the ban, young girls will have no idea that they are judged on their looks....TV, Elle and Vogue magazines, adult women's fashion shows, make-up advertisements, clothing shop windows, internet ads and sites, peer pressure at school....... good thing these other entities will also not have any influence....right?

Good find OP, and I agree with you, kids should be kids.

But the pecking order in society is become more competitive, and now it's filtering down to the Children. It's not just beauty pageants, most kids have their careers planned out for them before they turn 16.

reply to post by jimmyx


of course they will, that's the cosmetic/false/plastic/petty society we live in today unfortunately . But this ban helps, even it stops a few young girls believing that their worth is only judged on their appearance ( until they reach high school I suppose )

I saw one of those pagent shows on discovery channel (IIRC) and it really creeped me out I had no idea that people did this sort of thing. The mom was giving the 5 or 6 year old her "special drink" (redbull) to get her fired up for the runway competition.

reply to post by jimmyx


all you guys/girls celebrating increased government micromanagement, this included, are just really pathetic slave-prisoner mentality institutionalized cowing government worshiping zombies. Yay, theyre making beauty pageants illegal, yay theyre making child modeling illegal, yay theyre making talent shows illegal, yay theyre making child actors illegal, yay theyre making child musicians illegal, yay theyre making everything with children illegal...yay theyre taking my child away and pumping them full of drugs because they found something wrong with my parenting, but thats OK its all for the children, gotta protect the children....we take your guns away for the children, were bombing syria to protect the children, were pumping you full of vaccines and filling your water and food supply with chemicals to protect the children.....


wow...the level of retarded logic and wilted reasoning ability is stunning....but hey, you guys enjoy your nanny state, you asked for it after all.


i would fully expect the ultimate conclusion of this kind of draconian control to be CONSISTENT in its exercise of policy making by not allowing advertising directed towards children in ANY fashion, because thats manipulation/indoctrination/victimization/expoitation of children too right? Oh wait, no, its only if it has any connotation of sexuality that it should be illegal because we absolutely MUST render children completely sexless androgenous beings and deny them anything that could be remotely construed as objectification based on appearance. This must also mean that when they go to the beach they must be fully covered like the muslim married women are because we cant have any perverts at the beach checking out girls that might not be of age.

This really could go on and on....you see, because once you start down the road of imbecilic thinking there is simply no end to how absurd it can get.....and as far as im concerned, if youre doing to do that, why stop now? Take it all the way baby!

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


I don't thinkBeauty Contests have a very large impact on the greater population....

I think the more practical and effective mediums to target would be television and film, as these forms have greater accessibility to a much larger segment of the population. Of course, this is all predicated on the notion you "want" to censor stuff like this.

When was the last time you watched a beauty contest. Additionally, how much of the population of France actually watches them? I am under the impression it would be less then 1% of the population, which is insignificant when influencing sexualized trends.

Ofcourse, the entire population could watch these contests and my argument could be irrelevant

Bravo!!!
Finally some one grew some common sense.

Good for them.

A number of years ago, I had a friend who was involved in the "Little girl beauty pageant" thing, and after she asked me to vote for her daughter in some online poll, I did a little digging, and there is this very weird sub-culture of people (all women, so far as I could tell,) who turn their daughters into dolls for these contests. It's deeply disturbing, if you ask me.

Believe it or not, these are "real" little girls:



More here: Creepiest “Professionally” Retouched Photos of Children!

I can't imagine what damage this sort of thing does to these kids, but it's gotta be considerable.

Phew, we can still sexualize 16 year olds.

A new law enacted on Tuesday night prevents anyone under the age of 16 from being judged on their physical appearance.

That's a relief. Good thing too because everyone knows 16 year olds are totally confident in their bodies and abilities and would never experience any emotional or psychological issues to being judged and sexualized.

reply to post by MDDoxs

It would curtail stupid parent who through involving their kids in this type of contest are teaching them shallow values like:" if you're not the most beutiful you're a loser" looks are more important than anything else" etc.That effed-up mentality.

I totally agree with the drive behind this law, I can't believe people actually do this to their children, nor can I believe people actually watch that trash.

Although I think change needs to come, once again, from the people. Stop acting like kids that need to be told what to do, act like adults that do the right thing because it's right, not because it's the law. I'm against laws that dictate things like this, but the French have a right to govern their nation as they see fit.

I do find a bit of a double standard though. What about young men in sports? Isn't that teaching young men that they are judged by their strength or physical ability? Why is being judged by your beauty any worse than being judged for your physical ability, much of which is genetic just like beauty? Personally I don't think it is, I don't think either are necessarily bad, it's the execution of it. Beauty contents for young girls? Sure, but why not make it so they award the "cutest" or whatever, instead of awarding young girls for looking like sluts? It's all in the execution of it.

Lady_Tuatha
reply to post by jimmyx

 

of course they will, that's the cosmetic/false/plastic/petty society we live in today unfortunately . But this ban helps, even it stops a few young girls believing that their worth is only judged on their appearance ( until they reach high school I suppose )

look, I agree with this ban...I too, think it is disgusting. i'm just trying to point out that this type of "appearance worship" is all around us and has been for millenia....the face make-up used by women in ancient roman times, and other ancient elites (both men and women) use of make-up, seductive clothing, etc....illustrates how embedded this is.

reply to post by adjensen

World War Z is the only thing I find creepier than those pics.Jesus.That could haunt one's nightmares forever.

reply to post by James1982


I can see your point about double standards, but I think it is the sexualization of these kids where the creep factor comes in.

A young girl who get awards for swimming competitions is different than one who gets awards for swimsuit competitions. It is the sexuality that is the fundamental difference, IMHO.