Jean Kilbourne > Quotes

“But many people do not fully realize that there are terrible consequences when people becoming things. Self-image is deeply affected. The self-esteem of girls plummets as they reach adolescence partly because they cannot possibly escape the message that their bodies are objects, and imperfect objects at that. Boys learn that masculinity requires a kind of ruthlessness, even brutality. Violence becomes inevitable.”
― Jean Kilbourne, Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

“Our need for social and personal change and power is often co-opted and trivialized into an adolescent and self-centered kind of rebellion.”
― Jean Kilbourne, Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

“Children growing up today are bombarded from a very early age with graphic messages about sex and sexiness in the media and popular culture.”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

“Parents have always noticed how their children’s world differs from the world of their own childhood, but what is happening now regarding sex and sexuality in the media and popular culture goes far beyond the changes that have occurred between other generations in the past. A revolution is taking place that we need to take seriously.”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

“Meghan and her husband had talked about how they wanted to be open and comfortable with Eva when talking about sex, but they had expected Eva’s first questions to be about where babies come from, not this. This was not what they had in mind!

Should Meghan actually describe oral sex? What could this possibly mean to a 7-year-old? And how would her explanation affect Eva’s understanding about sex and relationships between caring adults, both short and long term?”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

“Indeed the very worst kind of man for a women to be in an intimate relationship with, often a truly dangerous man, is the one considered most sexy and desirable in the popular culture.”
― Jean Kilbourne, Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

“It's almost as if we're told, "Okay you're not going to be traditionally feminine," which 'traditionally' meant powerless, submissive, dependent, "we'll replace you with little girls.”
― Jean Kilbourne

“We’re not alarmed that today’s children are learning about sex and sexuality. We are all sexual beings from birth, and this is to be celebrated. Children have always been curious about sex and sexuality from an early age, and it’s good for parents and schools to give them honest and age-appropriate information.

But what children are learning today isn’t normal or good for them. We are alarmed by the particular lessons that children are learning. The sexualization of childhood is having a profoundly disturbing impact on children’s understanding of gender, sexuality and relationships.”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

“Children as young as four learning to gyrate to songs in ways that might have stunned grown-ups a few decades ago. Elementary school children looking at pornography on the Internet and using words such as “rape” and “blow job.” Young teens engaging in oral sex.

Parents, grandparents and teachers around the country and beyond tell us stories like these, and about how issues related to sex and sexuality come up in unexpected and even shocking ways with children, often at very young ages.”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

“Jennifer thought it must be abnormal for such a young child to be thinking about diets, let alone wanting boys to like her for being “pretty” and “sexy.”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

“Sadly, today, instead of having the positive experiences they need for healthy development, many children are having experiences that undermine it.

Today’s cultural environment bombards children with inappropriate and harmful messages. As children struggle to understand what they see and hear, they learn lessons that can frighten and confuse them.”
― Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids