Durham rightly points out that sexualized images of girls (she mentions not only Cyrus and Watson, but the generally tender age of runway models and the popularity of films featuring child prostitutes) contribute to predatory marketing practices, sex trafficking, and an image of children as "sexually available." She writes that "young girls are increasingly posed as sexual objects of the adult gaze, while numerous clothing ads feature women dressed as little girls, sucking on lollipops, kneeling, crouching or lying in positions of subordination," with the result that grown-ups "interpret girls' bodies as sexually available." And not just available, but doll-like and without agency: "girls are reduced to one-dimensional, wholly limited figurines." She's particularly smart when she describes how Lolita-esque depictions of girls turn childhood sexuality into a kind of caricature meant to please adult men. She writes,

[A]s a culture, we have few ways to represent or acknowledge children's sexuality, and we seem incapable of dealing with it outside the realm of sexual commodification and commerce. Sexual curiosity and even some experimentation are ordinary features of childhood. Realistic, strong, and non-exploitative representations of girls' sexuality would be a progressive social step, but images of girls posed and styled as objects of the erotic adult gaze can't be.

Those who protest against sexy images of girls sometimes argue that people under 18 are innocent and asexual, but as Durham points out, this isn't always the case. Sexuality exists in (some) kids and teens — but that shouldn't make them objects of titillation for adults.

Nor should it make them sex symbols. Durham quotes sociologist Wendy Chapkis, writing, "the western ideal of female beauty [...] is defined by "eternal youth."" This is bad for girls, who have better things to do with their youth than embody an ideal of beauty. But it's also bad for adult women, who may no longer have the "naturally small, supple and nothing if not youthful" bodies that Chapkis describes as the ideal.

I'm far from the first to complain that the sexualization of very young girls devalues the women they will grow up to be. Durham hints at this with her complaint about the the "multibillion-dollar sales of anti-aging cosmetics, creams and plastic surgery," and she may explore it further in her book The Lolita Effect, of which the Guardian piece is an excerpt. But the problem deserves continued attention not just because it harms older women, but because it pits older and younger women against each other.

It's obvious that culture plays a role in which bodies are considered attractive. Media apologists tend to argue that sexualized images of girls and very young women are just feeding a biological male desire for healthy, fertile bodies on which to sire children. But anyone who thinks that sexual desire is nothing but the drive for reproduction has never been on the Internet, and what we see in magazines, movies, and TV shows helps determine what we think of as attractive and acceptable. It also determines how we interact with each other.

Anyone who's seen The First Wives' Club (not something I necessarily recommend) knows that the perceived higher sexual value of younger women can make older women angry. Perhaps more disturbing and insidious is the fact that by placing young girls at the top of the sexual totem pole, contemporary Western culture gives the most "power" (and whether being considered sexually attracted by men is actually power is another long, long debate) to people least able to think critically about it. Is it any wonder that girls and young women, told they are hotter and better than their older counterparts, sometimes fail to identify with women older than them? Or that they sometimes respond to America's social and sexual ageism by vowing never to get old (I doubt I was the only teen with a beautiful friend who said she was going to commit suicide at 40)? When we fetishize youth, we cut young women off from the older women who could mentor and help them, by implying that these women no longer matter. And we send young women the message that they, too, will soon cease to exist, and there's nothing they can do about it.

Plenty of girls and women admirably transcend these messages — seeking out older allies, advocating against ageism, and proclaiming both their sexuality and their worth outside sexuality throughout their lives. But they have to leap over multiple boundaries in order to do so. One way to remove some of these boundaries would be to let children be children — sexual, perhaps, but not objects of adult sexual desire. And not commodities in a value system they're not yet equipped to understand.

Lost Youth: Turning Young Girls Into Sex Symbols [Guardian]

Dickerson's post is titled "Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30," and I have lived (thus far) to the ripe old age of 31 a state in which I can apparently be trusted to be sufficiently committed to the cause, respectful to my elders and disinclined to pole dance, post drunken pictures of myself on Facebook or blog about my sex life.

Ms. Dickerson feels that all the criticism of her piece stems from the fact that young feminists are insufficiently humble and do too little to honor their elders. She knows this, of course, because when she was younger, she spent her time mocking one of her older, slightly-disabled co-workers.

He'd recently been forced off active duty due to a weird heart glitch unlikely to flare up, and he was miserable about being forced out of uniform. I, on the other hand, was a total gym rat and fashion plate with an unlimited military future. I worked out so, I had to have my uniform sleeves tailored for my sculpted, Michelle-kiss-my-heinie arms. I monitored everything that went into my body and everything that went into anybody's body around me. I subscribed to magazines like Muscle and Fitness and would have competed in bodybuilding competitions had I not been too busy going to school at night to get ahead. Jim, with his Homer Simpson gut and comb over, got winded just using the copier. One day, he came in wincing and limping. He'd actually hurt himself stretching before one of his infrequent attempts to exercise. I laughed and laughed. Thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and only realized in retrospect that he was not sharing the joke.

According to Ms. Dickerson, any critique of her piece, in which she painted all young feminists with the broad brush of uninformed skankhood, is exactly like mocking a middle-aged man with a heart condition. She wishes she could apologize to Jim - since deceased - the way that those who dared critique her will someday apologize for having the hubris to be offended at the suggestion that all young feminists are doing is "pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives." Yes, we'll be apologizing.

All of that to say this to the young feminists so offended by this elder's critique: One day, you'll have your own Jim story to tell. One day, when you've lived through more of this bitch called life, but without all that youth and vigor, you'll hear yourself saying something like, "These young women today just don't get it. Not like we did." When you've made hideous mistakes you know were because you talked the feminist talk but didn't walk the feminist walk. When that day comes, if I haven't keeled over at my desk, please have the grace to call me up so we can laugh together at youth's callow overconfidence and refusal to listen with respect, if not agreement.

To translate: she still doesn't believe that today's young feminists are doing anything worthwhile.

And she's got some other advice, too:

But wait! I started it, right? I was disrespectful first, no? Grow up, girlies.

I find it more than a little annoying that Dickerson is demanding our utter respect and adherence, but has no intention of addressing us mythical pole-dancing, sex-blogging, hard-drinking young feminists with even a modicum of it.

Ms. Dickerson then launches into a list of all the famous African-American writers she read before writing her book The End of Blackness as a way of justifying her position:

I've earned my bitchiness and I've earned the right to be taken seriously.

You don't "earn" bitchiness of this sort, and you don't "earn" the right to be taken seriously by being bitchy. Dickerson certainly has the right to criticize young feminists, but if her goal is to be taken seriously by them, shoving herself into a conversation, insulting everyone else participating in it, and belittling everyone as "girlies" and "chicks" isn't the way to earn or maintain anyone's respect. The writers on this site — as well as many of the other blogs out there — aren't exactly running around defending virginity-auctions or Girls Gone Wild, as she suggests.

Your generation just seems so complacent, la la la there are no abortion providers in most of the country but I'll just go auction off my virginity and flash my thong with pride. I'll excel from kindergarten through Harvard Law, then mommy track myself for a man who is not my equal. Then I'll breastfeed for eight years, not because I want to but because I'm a bad mommy if I don't.

Dickerson complains that critiques of her smack of "ageism" even as she belittles an entire generation of women — many of whom don't identify as feminist — and their choices to get educated and yet try to find a work-life balance that involves time spent with their children. (God forbid some women choose to take advantage of the choices feminism and flex time have offered them.) And, for a piece entitled "Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30," it is bizarre, to say the least, to accuse young feminists of breastfeeding their hypothetical children for 8 years out of mommy-guilt, which would seem to me to be more of an affliction of women of my advanced age that Dickerson's hypothetical virginity-auctioning, thong-flashing, pole-dancing, hard-drinking under-30 sex bloggers.

Dickerson says she's simply scared that we'll make all the mistakes of her generation; that we'll live with too much hubris and too little humility, criticizing people with something to say without ever taking the time to research them or their positions on issues. (She really does live in an irony-free zone!)

Unfair, but from love. You don't hear me criticizing the Jews or our missile defense policy. I care about the groups I belong (or belonged) to: the working class, blacks, women, and the military.

So, you know, have a little respect and a hell of a lot more humility.

For my part, I find it difficult to love without knowledge. And by painting young feminists with one small brush as over-sexed, over-exposed, unintellectual feminist charlatans, Ms. Dickerson has proved that she lacks some basic knowledge — so I'm hard pressed to buy her argument of love.

Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30 [MotherJones]

Earlier: Blogger Annoyed By Drunk, Pole-Dancing, Workaholic Women Writers

• A group of eight female teens in Minnesota were charged on Monday with spitting at and groping the elderly residents at the nursing home where they worked at part time. • A new study claims that women's marital satisfaction increases as they get older and when their children leave home. • Guna Harangen, Norway's oldest woman, died on November 25. She was 109. • A former Swedish businessman is currently on trial in the UK for allegedly molesting a female passenger while she had an "orgy dream" during a transatlantic flight last year.• Two young men in Texas were sentenced to up to seven years in prison today for videotaping and coaxing a toddler to smoke pot. • Eleven Chinese girls died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday after they lit a fire in school to keep warm. • In a recent survey, Girl Guides, the English version of the Girl Scouts, said they want to clamp down on peer pressure to have sex and end airbrushing of models in fashion magazines. • BabyCenter.com is now offering text message alerts to let women know when they are ovulating. • On Friday, police in Naples, Florida stopped a 12-year-old girl from allegedly committing suicide while on a webcam website.• Heart attacks are both the No. 1 killers of men and women, but heart attacks and symptoms of an attack can look different to each sex. • A group of mothers, who were enjoying a night on the town with their daughters, were barred entry to a bar in Leeds, England because they were over the age of 35. • Eighty local men from Barre, Massachusetts posed nude for a calendar to raise funds for the Woods Memorial Library. • A new study says that almost 1 in 5 young American adults have a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life. • A new study in England has found that women from poorer areas are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than women from wealthier regions. •

[Image via Getty Images.]

And it's not just nurses: One 77-year-old woman interviewed claims that when she goes to restaurants with a younger friend, the server will ignore her and only speak to the younger person. Isn't it strange that we treat people of a certain age as either demented or invisible?

In the Times, Ellen Kirschman, a 68-year-old police psychologist in California, says she hates when people call her "young lady," because she finds it "mocking and disingenuous." She says: "As I get older, I don’t want to be recognized for my age. I want to be recognized for my accomplishments, for my wisdom."

In many cultures, respecting your elders is the norm; we're living in a society that trumpets 50 as the new 30 and prizes youth and "anti-aging" above all. But humans are living longer, and that means growing older. We'd better learn how to speak to our elders, since soon, we'll be in their shoes — whippersnappers become old folks one day, if they're lucky.

In ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Dear,’ a Hurt for the Elderly [NY Times]