We recently received this e-mail from Montgomery County NOW about their efforts to encourage the Montgomery County School system to implement a media literacy component into their middle school curriculum to counter the negative, sexualized imagery of girls middle-schoolers routinely encounter. So far a curriculum has not been implemented, even though studies by the American Psychological Association show that including a component like this can counter the negative byproducts for young girls of this sexualized imagery. If you want to find out more about this issue and what you can do to fix it, click here
Dear Maryland NARAL Pro-Choice Education Fund:
Earlier this year we mailed you a summary of the American Psychological Association's study, "The Sexualization of Girls." The study laid out the extent to which our culture -- the media, fashions, advertising -- is turning our daughters into sexual beings and at ever younger and younger ages.
We of Montgomery County NOW recently asked the Montgomery County Board of Education to counter through its middle school curriculum the cultural messages that are damaging to girls. A spokesperson for the school board replied that he had distributed copies of our summary to key educational personnel -- but made no mention of any further discussion or decision. To us, that is not the same as promising to heed the APA's educational recommendations and tackle the problem of the sexualization of girls head-on.
If you share our view, we hope you will send an email to the Montgomery County Board of Education, urging it to counter the cultural messages that sexualize girls. To help you in this, we are attaching the 5-page summary, which you may wish to forward to your own membership (the full APA report is 65 pages in length; our summary is 5 pages long -- a more manageable size).
Also attached you will find a sample email sent the Montgomery County Board of Education by a local women's group. If you decide to join our effort, please email the Board at boe@mcpsmd.org (with a copy to us, please, at bravenewworld@starpower.net).
In the hope that you agree that the sexualization of girls is a serious issue, we are,
Sincerely,
Mary Bailey, Chair
Sexualization of Girls Task Force
Montgomery County NOW
National Organization for Women
Bravenewworld@starpower.net
Carole Rayburn, President
Montgomery County NOW
National Organization for Women
