Why is society sexualizing young girls? It's in the media, on the Internet, it's even in our schools. Daddy culture is exploding and sexy schoolgirl outfits are a Halloween staple. I mean, Oedipus complex should not be mainstream and dressing-up in an elementary school uniform is not cute, but disturbing. Placing children in this light is not something that we, as a society, should be striving for. However, I think that it is so mainstream now that people do not even realize that it is happening.

So much of this starts in school. Dress codes are nothing new, but what brought them on? Starting in elementary school, girls are told not to show their shoulders and that their skirts need to be fingertip length. Where does the discomfort of a child wearing a skirt come from and who is being made uncomfortable? Why is it considered inappropriate for a 7-year-old to wear a tank top or shorts? This trend continues throughout both middle school and high school and only seems to get worse the older you get.

A girl in my women in literature class she said that she was a cheerleader in an all-girls Catholic high school. The cheerleaders used to wear their uniforms on game days to show support for the team. However, this had to stop because their modest knee length skirts and long sleeved tops were making the male teachers at the school uncomfortable. However, it was not the teachers that got in trouble. It was the cheerleaders. None of the male teachers got reprimanded in any way, but the girls were shamed and embarrassed by their administration and left to feel uncomfortable and conscious of their bodies when they were in class with a male teacher.

So what happens after graduation and there is not a dress code for school. If I go to my college class wearing a mini skirt or a spaghetti strap top am I interrupting my male peers' ability to learn? Or my professor's ability to teach? How ever will they be able to do their job when my collar bones and knee caps are being a distraction?

That is only the beginning. There are so many other problems that come from the sexualization of young girls. If a girlish figure is what's considered in or trendy, what happens when girls turn into women? Women have curves. Period. It's unrealistic to expect that your thighs are going to be the same size they were when you were 10. If girls are being taught that their thighs should never exceed 17 inches around (as mentioned in Lolita), then how can we be surprised when so many girls form eating disorders and body dysmorphia in order to keep their 'girlish' or 'childlike' figure? While some women do have a naturally slender build it's completely insane to think everyone will look like that.

Sexualizing children is disgusting and girls are growing up thinking that there is something wrong with their bodies. Growing up should feel natural and people should be able to love the incredible changes that their body is going through. Whether you're a size 4 or a size 14, it should not matter. And the people who think otherwise are irrelevant. Being yourself is sexy, and the sooner we start teaching girls to love their bodies for what they are, the better.