Discussion. Need it in 8 hours. 2 Responses required too along with main post.

My argument about child pageants is supported by Mary Zaborskis in her journal ‘Age Drag’ that I sourced from the Women’s Studies Section of Project Muse website (Zaborskis).

She begins by an introduction to the infamous TLC program ‘Toddlers and Tiaras’ and explains their normal routine. She talks about how most of them are ‘high-glitz’ in nature and uses relevant sources to explicate her point. She claims that families admit of the large costs inherent to such pageants. She cites, “Critics claim that Toddlers & Tiaras participates in a larger cultural project to sexualize girls at a young age”. She also uses Melissa Henson’s findings to argue about the concerted effort to normalize sexualizing of children. However, it is she who asks the pertinent question about the hand/s behind sexualization—the whom should we blame question. She also points towards the gaping lack of empirical data in all of these studies. Therefore apart from taking a stance, she foregrounds the need for more research and data in the field.

Mary Zaborskis earned her PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania with a certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies in 2017. She is a Dietrich School Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh affiliated with the programs in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and Childhood Studies/Children's Literature. The journal was published by Feminist Press in 2015 and taken up by Project Muse in the same year. As the author’s area of research interests are gender, sexuality and women’s studies, there will be a deliberate feminist undertone in her writings.

Works Cited

Zaborskis, Mary. "Age Drag." WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly- The Feminist Press 12 November 2018.