Now YOU Can Experience Buying a Girl! (Don’t Worry—It’s for Charity!)
January 28, 2011 by Catherine A. Traywick · 21 Comments
Today in totally misguided philanthropy, we have “The Girl Store,” a presumably well-intentioned girl empowerment project that—for some utterly illogical reason—masquerades as a child pornography site.
Head on over to The Girl Store and you’ll be greeted by shaky footage of a disheveled Indian girl smiling bashfully as an unknown cameraperson pans up and down her body, lingering on her little hands, before finally settling on her face. The accompanying text reads:
100% genuine girls
…young…
…innocent…
…and available.
Experience the sensation of buying a girl
….her life back.…Buy a girl before someone else does.
In case that disturbing, voyeuristic intro didn’t clearly communicate the website’s purpose, let me clarify: It sells school supplies. To whom it sells these school supplies is debatable, but let’s just give the site’s creators the benefit of the doubt and assume that they’re not trying to exclusively solicit donations from internet pedophiles. (While we’re at it, let’s also assume that the homepage—which features a number of miserable-looking little girls swaying against a white backdrop—isn’t supposed to resemble an auction block.) But that said, why does the sale of notebooks and pencils warrant the clear and deliberate eroticization of small children? Is the video suggesting that the alternative to education is sexual abuse? Is it supposed to make us—the hapless and happy-go-lucky consumer—feel complicit in that sexual exploitation? Or are we just supposed to feel creeped out? Most importantly, what the hell does this have to do with school supplies?
According to the website: everything. The Girl Store, so the website claims, is “the first e-commerce site where purchasing school supplies help girls avoid being sold into marriage or sex slavery.” That is quite a statement. Of course, no one bothers to explain how a $14 pencil case or Hannah Montana backpack (yes, it sells these actual products) somehow deters sexual predators, let alone saves them from being “sold for…terrorism.” (I, for one, would like to know whether wearing the Hannah Montana backpack is enough to stave off the villainous, or if the ridiculously overpriced pencils double as a weapon.)
Granted, educating girls—whether in the U.S., India or elsewhere—is crucial to fostering gender quality and creating economic opportunities for women across the board. But how does purchasing a handful of school supplies handily solve the rampant global problem of human trafficking or the much less visible—though similarly pervasive—sexual abuse of children within the home? It’s an outrageous and absolutely erroneous notion, and one that implicitly places the onus of personal safety on the child rather than on her family, her community, or the potential perpetrator.
A child doesn’t, after all, willfully resort to prostitution or slave labor because she is uneducated. She’s forced into it, by an impoverished and misguided family that regards her as an asset or as a burden, or by others who view her as a commodity that is always in demand. The people who would abuse and exploit her would do so without regard for whether she could read or write—and whether or not she had the luxury of doing so with overpriced implements. Financing an underprivileged girl’s education, while powerful on an individual level, does nothing to change the structural factors and systemic problems that underlie the sexual commodification of women and girls. Claiming otherwise for the purpose of hawking cheap wares—even charitable wares—is not only irresponsible but unscrupulous.
It’s apparent that the creators of this project are striving for the the edgy, viral appeal of the similarly oversimplified (but much less pernicious) “Girl Effect” marketing campaign that we all know and love (and loathe, in turns). But it’s one thing to assert, as the Girl Effect does, that buying a cow for a girl will solve community poverty, hunger and gender inequity, and quite another to peddle to a Hannah Montana backpack as the simple solution to sexual slavery (I’ll leave the obvious anti-globalization critique to someone else). The fact that this project so calculatedly exploits the sexualized images of young girls, purportedly to combat the sexual exploitation of young girls, adds insult to injury.
Cheap trick. Bad message. Questionable product.
The Girl Store opened a brick-and-mortar storefront in New York City this week, so Manhattanites may have the privilege of protecting a Third World girl’s honor for the mere cost of a latte. I wonder how many school supplies one could purchase with the cost of commercial rent in NYC?.
Photo via The Girl Store.
Y'know, aside from anything else, their wonderfully shiny website doesn't work in firefox… they really are doing well.
I think it's a good idea, actually. You're focusing on the wrong thing.
I think you're reading into it more than is there. Did you check out the link to the Mahindra Foundation? Looks pretty legit to me.
WHAT they're trying to do is nice, but the WAY they're doing it is just f**ked up.
This site really gave me the heeby-jeebez…and I agree with the author, I don't see how a girl having a notebook will stop her family from marrying her off or from her getting kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. This seems to be a misguided attempt to help (though I'm glad they seem to be actually attempting to help) since the ones who really need to be educated are the parents, the community members, and those involved with the culture as a whole.
Do you think paying attention to the sale of individual school items might be a bit reductive? I mean, the point is to create a general trend in girls’ education, which could have a larger effect on gender equity.
I didn’t know about this problem. I do now! So, their website served its purpose. You wouldn’t have written this article if it wasn’t for the way they designed their campaign, so I am grateful to them designing it that way. I think your tone of this article was way too negative.
I'm absolutely disgusted by the website. The ends do not justify the means.
I agree that the concept is ill conceived, but I just wanted to note that education does play a significant role in reducing the sexual exploitation of women and girls. The Somaly Mam Foundation for example has had much success providing girls with education and skills in particular trades so that they can earn a living for themelves and their families. With education and financial means their families are less likely to sell them into marriage or prostitution and the girls themselves have some real options. A lack of education is one aspect of the 'systemic and structural problems' that you mention that drive the sexual exploitation of women and girls, and which have their roots in patriarchal power. Education plays a key role in overcoming those power structures.
$14 for 6 pencils is outrageous, especially when on the donations page it says you can sponsor a whole year of education for one girl for $40-$55. selling plastic backpacks & lunch sets also seems pretty excessive – more about turning these girls into obedient capitalist consumers perhaps? it would be interesting to know how much was spent on the design & construction of the web site.
I think you make a great point! The discourse around sex trafficking often describes women and girls as passive objects to be rescued. This website makes them appear as objects to be bought and sold. Remember Audre Lorde: "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." We need to treat people with respect, not as objects to be bought and sold, even if it is only symbolically.
Well put, I had such a strong negative reaction to that site–thanks for putting my rage into words!
agreed w/ author. thanks for posting. checked out the website and the way it was made me NOT was to contribute—or Buy a Girl, as they say.
I am totally against sexualisation of children, but I am not so sure this case is a problem. I think we have started to see sexualisation in things that are just plain innocent (which is possibly the point of this site??) I love and adore kids, and also love photography, but the does't mean there is sexual intention behind the images of the kids. They have used the same image to show just that, with different words different thoughts come to mind. And thankfully, they are trying to promote the positive. And the still images – are they not just images of the kids being supported?? I receive a photo of a child I sponsor every 2 years……is this sexual exploitation??? I think they are what they are, photos of beautiful children.
Now the legitimacy of the site is an all together different thing, are they actually helping these girls with these branded products, or have some scam going…sure that is an issue. I hope these kids do get supported and educated
utterly grimbo. stop this nonsense.
I think there is also a language barrier involved in this site. There are hints, like giving a girl "a more better life" that the creators of the website may not speak English as a first language. They may not be aware of the nuances involved in creating the satirical beginning to the website. It's like "A Modest Proposal" that didn't work.
I agree with this observation. We have to acknowledge the potential backfiring of well-intended irony.
That is unbelievable, but believe it or not, there are worse people than people forcing girls to be sex slaves for money – people using the general sentiment of disgust and rage at sex trafficking to MAKE MONEY by exploiting girls in soft pornographic promotions to guilt (or excite) consumers into donating for a program that is ultimately FAKE in the aid of fighting the cause it states.
I didn't know about this problem. I do now! So, their website served its purpose. You wouldn't have written this article if it wasn't for the way they designed their campaign, so I am grateful to them designing it that way. I think your tone of this article was way too negative.
I didn’t know about this problem. I do now! Education plays a key role in overcoming those power structures.
Aside from the above comments, I just want to point out that pencils definitely do not cost $14 in India, the country that seems to be the spotlight on the website. They cost about $.25. So aside from the cost of maintaining such a high-tech website, I wonder, where is the rest of the money going?