Many years ago, I watched the then 5 year old daughter of friends playing Barbies with her father. What "Susie" played at was having Ken ask Barbie out on a date to a rock concert. That's when I realized what is probably obvious to more perceptive people, which is that boys and girls have different fantasies of adult power and control. Boys tend to play at violence and domination. Girls play at social relationships, in which the power comes from being attractive to boys while being envied by less attractive girls. Consummation has little or nothing to do with it; the longed for power and control come from being desired.

What defines tween girls is that they are pre-teen girls who are looking forward to being teenagers, and specifically to being socially active teenagers who have the power of sexual attraction. Bratz, High School Musical, the old Sweet Valley High series of paperback romances, and all the other fiction addressed to this audience is selling a more or less chaste version of this sexually based power to girls who haven't yet reached puberty. The clothes Yoffee is complaining about cater to the same fantasy of being a few years older and having all the boys on a string.

Boys look forward to killing the bad guy or scoring the winning goal, not to dating. That's why we don't hear much about tween boys as a separate category -- they're just boys. One consequence is that when middle school arrives, the girls, who have been thinking and dreaming about it since they were 8 or 9, are years ahead of the boys, who are completely clueless about their brand new desires.

Whether the difference is intrinsic or culturally determined, or in what proportions, I don't know, but it's there. George Goodman, who wrote the old "Adam Smith" stock market column, wrote 40 years ago: "Men play all kinds of games to give their lives meaning. The game women play is Men." Women have more options now than then, but playing Men is still very much one of them. The whole cultural/marketing concept of tween girls is based on looking forward to the game.

Well, no, not all pre-teen girls dream of being sexually active teenagers. Many pre-teens and young teens are not really interested in dating or sexual politics. They are interested in horses, or books, or being a ballerina, or whatever else it is that they find interesting. One girl playing Barbies does not a good generalization make. Girls develop at different rates, just as boys do, and they model the behavior they see exhibited by the adult women in their lives.

It may be that girls feel pushed to be sexually precocious and into dating much earlier than they used to be by marketing and the media, and even their parents, and that lots of them are not really ready for the role they are being encouraged to play.

Tween girls are not really a separate category, either; they are a category invented by marketers to sell stuff. When I was that age, there was no such term or really even such a concept.

I agree that tween girls are a category invented by marketers to sell stuff. The stuff they are being sold, as I wrote, is a fantasy of being desirable and desired, with the power and prestige that brings.

I also agree that not all girls of that age are equally susceptible to this appeal. But plenty of them are, which is why the category was invented and why it continues to exist. The category is real because it works to sell goods and entertainment. Who do you think is watching High School Musical II? And they're not watching because they dig Gabriella's math skills.

I also agree that girls model behavior on the adult women they see in their lives. But that includes the adult women they see in the media, where being glamorous and sexy is still the best way for a woman to be considered important. And it's not as if their mothers, aunts and big sisters don't pay a lot of attention to being physically attractive. To a 10 year old girl a 17 year old high school student is an adult woman, and her social life is a visible, easy to imagine model to emulate.

And I'm not basing my assessment on one example. That just crystallized what I'd seen before and have seen since.

I believe the point of the argument is not that all (pre-) teen girls are into sexual power trips (though I do know some who are). It's that there is very little available in the marketplace for those who aren't. The WSJ has written articles on small companies that are becoming quite successful selling clothing to the non-Lolitas out there. Unfortunately, you won't find these companies in your local mall.

My daughter loves the Barbie/Princess stuff. But she's 4. I'm hoping it'll be out of her system by the time she's 8. She's also into basketball, gymnastics and horses. I'm hoping she doesn't outgrow those - well, maybe the horses; they're expensive. What worries me is how many times some older boy will come up to her on the playground and tell her "girls can't play on that" or "girls don't do that." Fortunately, her dad is usually around to tell them to get lost. Most of her friends aren't so lucky - their dads just aren't that involved. It's sad to think that 4 year old girls are going to grow into 11 year olds who are told (by the boys on the playground and the marketers in the stores) that the only thing girls can do is put out. And some will just call it "nature."

I agree with Kit-Kat... I know that I certainly wasn't fantasizing about relationships as a pre-teen, and I was far from alone in that. I was daydreaming of horses, being a surgeon and/or medieval knight, fantasy creatures (dragons, pegasus, etc.), pretending I was Harriet The Spy by writing everything down, and similar things. At age 11-12, the last year we had a playground, the popular recess activity for the girls involved standing on the beam of an overturned soccer goalpost two at a time, and attempting to knock the opponent off.

The pressure I felt to "grow up" early came not from my family or the media, but from some boys about a year later. I had no interest in make-up, flirting, or styling my hair, nor did quite a few other girls; we preferred trading Nintendo games! The boys reacted to our lack of interest with physically violent bullying (hitting, groping, pinching, kicking, etc.) and whispered threats to beat us up or rape us if they caught us alone, whenever they knew a teacher wouldn't notice. The teachers and school admin were quite aware, because angry parents were complaining about the problem and had for years. With the exception of a tiny handful of teachers, they simply claimed that we'd learn to conform sooner or later.

I think that people/society pushing the flirtatious sex-obsessed "girl" stereotype is a big part of why garbage like that happens and is tolerated. Some girls do give up a lot of themselves in order to start playing the part (reinforcing the stereotype in the process); others, like me, can't or won't and end up abused by our peers while the adults stand by watching. It's fine if a girl naturally is that way, don't get me wrong, but near-universally applying such a narrow definition of what girls are like is a bit (or a lot, depending on the girl) harmful.

(Same goes for boys, to be clear. I have a lot of male friends, all sexual orientations, that have never matched the "guy" stereotype. The result is pretty cool: we meet in a shared middleground to a large degree instead.)

Kitty - It always stuns me to hear these things - even though I and friends of mine have pulled our kids out of schools because the administration tolerates just that behavior. This gets back to several topics that have been raised on Slate recently - from bullying in general to the (some would say "alleged") harrassment of female bloggers. I'm clueless as to the cause of it - or even if it's new - but the level of tolerence is very disturbing.

One thing I noticed back in the OJ trial days, people were so worried about what violence the African American crowd would commit - but they never worried about women breaking windows. Sometimes I think we need to channel our grannies - the ones who fought and were jailed for suffrage rights. It's sad but some people need to be made afraid before they'll stop being assholes.

I'm definitely of the mind that girls' desires to be sexually powerful are culturally instilled. Indeed, it is completely logical that this would be the way young girls look for power - as you state, there are few options for young girls, and this is one of the big ones.

Jack, these sound like wise words. I hope you are right. I think, however, that you're not. I think you're missing a couple of things.

1.) The books, dolls, role playing, etc., wherein girls play at being socially powerful females are in their heads; the clothes we're putting girls into more and more is on their bodies and is for the pleasure of boys' and/or mens' heads. See that difference? It's one thing to know that girls are thinking of becoming sexually powerful - heck, kids generally have a big sexual life of their own that isn't addressed too often. It's another to put them out there into the world of sexual politics at too young an age. You should take a look at some of the advertisements for big national clothing store based in Los Angeles (I can't remember the name now, but the billboards are all over LA) that is on the edge of soft-kiddie porn. In them a man has his hands all over a girl's soft, wet, lucious mouth. It's a very sexual image.

2.) The other indicators just aren't in favor of letting this stuff go as part of the age old, "one generation always shocks the older generation," stuff. Sexual activity is happening at a very young age for a lot of children. This isn't even in "high risk" categories, but mainstream kids having sex with each other. It wasn't long ago that a girl had a lot of pressure not to be seen as a "bad girl." The pressures on kids to be sexy, and have sex is enormous. You are weird if you're virgin at 16.

No, we are eating our children.

I think this is a pretty lucid description of "girl play". But what it leaves undiscussed is whether this is absolutely natural play behavior arising out of instinctive, underlying sexuality (every human is sexual, from birth, though we like to deny it in children) OR if it is learned behavior.

<> I think at least part of the dynamic is learned. Every girl child is exposed to this kind of stereotypical behavior from parents to TV to children's books. Children see a HUGE amount of advertising that reinforces sexual stereotypes daily. Girl children quickly learn, even at toddler ages, that their only power lies in being "beautiful". What else does the whole "Disney Princess" theme relate to? A "Princess" (with all the pink crap that goes along with it) is the most beautiful and desirable of girls....she is admired by her parents and other girls, as well as by boys and men. She has the most beautiful clothes, toys, pets, etc. There is no corresponding fantasy about "Peasant Girls", about being average or ordinary.

<> <>Little girls learn very early the important of being "cute" (even over being beautiful!), and how cuteness gets you treated preferentially, gets you toys and presents, gets you forgiven for bad behavior and they translate that quickly into the "sexy" images they see constantly throughout our culture. They must grow up from cute little girls into sexy young women so they continue to get preferential treatment. The alternative is almost too unbearable to contemplate. What is the fate in our culture of women/girls who are NOT cute/sexy? What happens to girls who are fat, who are plain looking, who are loud and assertive? There are no fat Barbies, no plain looking Disney Princesses, very few movies or TV programs about women/girls who are not cute/sexy -- and when there are, the heroines usually lose weight, get makeovers, or meet Mr. Right.

<> <><>All children, boys AND girls, use play to emulate future adult behavior, based on what they have observed from the world surrounding them. We can't emmerse girls in Princess stories, passive beauty and focus on material rewards for cuteness and beauty, and then expect those girls to play junior CEO or baby neurosurgeon. We teach them to focus on beauty and relationships, and that success means catching a highly desirable male partner as soon as possible. We teach them that only beautiful girls get on TV, in ads, or movies. We teach them that homely girls or fat girls are invisible and get nothing.

<> <><><>The results are unsurprising, given how we raise girls.
<>

I am dumbfounded by the responses that seem to be in support of allowing young girls to dress up in trashy, trampy clothing. Be a parent. You know what's right and what's wrong. Children this age need boundaries. If you don't set them now, wait a few years and find out how difficult it is to try to set limits for them then. I am also perplexed that there is absolutely no mention of the real purpose young people, of either gender, are in school: to learn. They won't like it, but as a parent it is your duty to instill the value of school and learning to them. Teachers cannot do this alone. My final point in just one word: pedophilia.

jack_cerf, I agree with you. I also don't think you're condoning the sexualization of prepubescent girls by clothing designers, advertisers, or anybody else.

As a child, I yearned for the power of looking cute/beautiful/sexy. My parents tried hard to convince me the only important things were to be smart, get good grades, go to college, get a great job, become financially independent, etc. What another commenter said about girls learning from the examples of her elders is true, though. We could desexualize every cartoon character, doll, whatever, but children learn frighteningly fast what the world values.

One of my friends has two daughters. The older one, when she was two years old, said I had "good" hair. She already recognized a societal preference for long, flowing hair over extremely curly locks. One day when the younger sister was two, she reached up and squeezed my nipples, saying, "Breses." The girls' mother is flat-chested, and these children who could barely speak already knew our culture's focus on women's figures.

This friend of mine, by the way, completely lacks vanity. She invariably looks either preppy or feminine without glitz. Her children know women are valued for our looks in spite of their extremely wholesome upbringing. As jack_cerf stated, "The adult women they see in the media, where being glamorous and sexy is still the best way for a woman to be considered important," are omnipresent.

Having said all that, I have to point out it is human nature to find beauty beguiling. Little children do, too. If you doubt it, watch how kids react to attractive versus unattractive adults. Can you blame little girls for wanting to grow up to be beautiful? You don't think little boys want to grow up to be muscular and handsome?

Girls always want to look older, sexier, and more sophisticated. Dressing sexy is aspirational behavior, like the teenage boy who dresses too tough for who he really is, the mother who dresses exactly like her teenage daughter, or the middle-aged man who asks out women young enough to be his daughter. We hope everybody eventually settles into a comfortable lifestyle that suits him or herself, but we're not born knowing how to do that. At least I wasn't.

jack_cerf was so right about the role playing children do. Boys play different games than girls do. Both sexes should have the freedom to aspire to whatever they want. If that means trying on a hypermasculine or hyperfeminine persona, please DO NOT FREAK OUT. Your kid, odds are, will turn out FINE.

(Unless some mean boys are bullying your little girl because she isn't conforming to some caveman opinion of how girls should play. In which case, you should beat those boys BLOODY. Don't wait to do it, either. Males picking on females is plain wrong, and your little girl needs to know you'll protect her from violence or threats of violence without hesitation.)

One of the greatest things parents can do is to REMAIN CALM. Since I can hardly stand to watch my adult friends make mistakes in their love lives, I understand letting your kid make a mistake has to be just about the hardest thing in the world. Try it anyway. The cliche is true: we learn from our mistakes. Have the patience and strength to let us grow up. Even if it involves us wearing clothes you hate, okay?

It's stressful to deal with the tawdry offerings that dominate the tween clothing market. But it's like the situation with tv or radio: if you don't like what's offered, go somewhere else. The Slate writer did.