Some of you may say, "So what? Its just entertainment." I'll tell you why I care so much about the issue. Research tells us that young girls feel worse about their bodies after reading fashion magazines and this can be linked to the prevalence of eating disorders in young women and some young men. The hyper-(hetero)sexualization of teen idols creates limiting notions of beauty, desire, and courtship, and creates impossible ideals for teens and young adults to compete with. Sexual harassment is a by-product of this hyper-(hetero)sexualization that is a significant problem in schools. In a recent study, Gruber and Fineran (2008) reported that 52% of students had been bullied, and 35% had been sexually harassed. Gay, lesbian, bisexual youth and youth questioning their sexual orientation were much more likely to be targets for bullying (79%) and sexual harassment (71%). They concluded that although sexual harassment was less frequent than bullying it had greater impacts on girls' and GLBQ youths' health factors such as: self esteem, mental health, physical health, trauma symptoms and substance abuse. Young men have been shown to use the sexual harassment of their peers as a way to prove their masculinity by asserting dominance over their peers. This includes objectifying female peers by discussing (and rating) their faces and bodies as well as homophobically harassing male peers who "aren't as masculine as other boys." Researchers have documented how teachers often contribute to this by ignoring comments, laughing along with sexual jokes, or blaming girls for bringing it on themselves through their behaviour or the way they dress.

One way to help combat media stereotypes of hyper (hetero)sexualized men and women is to use these ads, images, music videos, and other texts as classroom resources to explore sex and gender stereotypes and to understand how advertisers use them to sell products. Teens can be very savvy consumers - they are ready to critique and question the world if we provide them with some basic skills and modeling of how to do this constructively. However, many won't learn how to critique these images without some instruction. I was working with a 6th grade class this year that watched one of the Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" videos.

This video shows how an average-looking girl was made to look like a supermodel using make-up and photo manipulation software. Some of the students' reflections on this video said things like, "this video showed how Dove can make an ugly girl pretty. I'm not sure what that has to do with soap." This honest assessment indicates that students need instructional guidance in this area.

I'm not asserting that teachers can completely remove the influence of mass media on their students. However, I am saying that with some careful planning, and well designed lessons and activities, educators can reduce the power of these (hetero)sexist cultural messages by countering them with creative activities that offer students important lifelong skills of critical thinking and media literacy. The Quebec Ministry of Education has produced a valuable document that offers developmentally appropriate and subject-specific activities that can be integrated in any classroom to help teachers work with students of all ages to learn about sex stereotypes, gender inequality, respecting gender and sexual diversity, and developing healthy dating relationships. You can download it here (choose "version anglaise"). Let's hope that Miley's life experiences and tutors can offer her as much.