The Lolita Effect

On Monday, September 20, in conjunction with "Love Your Body Week" at Loyola University New Orleans, women's studies and mass communications scholar Dr. Gigi Durham presented a free, public lecture, "The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It." Highlighting several points discussed in her book of the same title, Durham discussed the five myths that comprise the female-plaguing phenomenon she has coined "The Lolita Effect." The five myths are, in summary, a set of media messages that offer misleading representations of female sexuality and the female body.



The lecture began with the presentation of several alarming statistics that illustrate the real life consequences caused by the five myths of "The Lolita Effect":

Women account for 90–95% of all cases of anorexia nervosa and 80% of those who struggle with bulimia nervosa. (Source: National Institute for Mental Health)

In a study of 13 Northern California schools, 35% of third grade girls (average age 8) reported wanting to lose weight while 24% reported dieting to lose weight.

The use of diet pills, powders or liquids to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight is higher among women in grades 9–12 than it is among young men of the same age group.

There has been a 600% increase in womens' death rates from lung cancer since 1950. (Source: Recent surgeon general’s report)

Smoking among girls and young women increased dramatically during the 1990s. From 1991 through 1999, smoking among high school girls increased from 27–34% percent.

Over the last 20 years, lung cancer has become the leading cause of death among women, showing a nearly 400% increase since 1989.

In pursuit of the roots of these unsettling realities, which paint a bleak picture of a population of American women suffering from issues stemming from poor body-image and a resulting, disturbing decrease in healthy, self-nurturing choices, Durham turned to the media.



“Market research indicates that children and teenagers are major media consumers. Teens, in particular, get most of their information about sex from the media. They turn to the media for information about sex far more than they do their parents, their teachers or even their peers,” said Durham.



According to Durham, recent studies have shown a direct correlation between teen consumption of media containing high levels of sexual content and teen sexual activity. Those who were exposed to sexy media were more likely to exhibit sexual behaviors, including teen pregnancy. Levels of teen pregnancy are rising, and a study done by the Center for Disease Control in 2000 showed that one in four teenage girls had a sexually transmitted disease.



“What we can see from this is that girls are not getting the information, understanding or confidence that they need to control their sexual lives and make decisions that are good for them,” said Durham. "I looked at a huge amount of media that target girls, in particular girls and children, and what I saw, over and over again, was that these certain myths of sexuality kept coming up over and over again.”