Jennifer O’Connell: Breasts on child mannequins – what next?

Four-year-old children don't typically have breasts. That's a simple physiological fact, unlikely to garner any Nobel prizes for biology. Unfortunately it seems to have escaped the attention of Target, the US's second-largest discount retailer.

In the children’s section at my local outlet, tops for girls aged four and up are modelled by child-size mannequins with small, but unmistakable, breasts.

Throughout retail history, mannequins have served as a barometer of the ideal body shape of a society at any given time. In the early 20th century, mannequins were much larger than in the 1960s, while today's have Barbie-esque chests and waists. When Debenhams decided to introduce size-16 mannequins earlier this year, it was simultaneously lauded for setting realistic body standards and accused of "promoting obesity".

By that measure, the new “ideal” body shape for a prepubescent child apparently involves breasts. And yes, Target may be a US store, but the premature sexualisation of very young girls is not confined to that country. Penneys has been criticised in the past for selling padded bras and underwear bearing the legend “You’ve Scored” to seven-year-olds, while heels designed to fit girls of that age are available almost everywhere.

Nor is it just retailers; the Daily Mail regularly runs features analysing the hair, wardrobe and even bodies of famous people's preteen daughters (including, in recent days, one on actor Michelle Williams's nine-year-old daughter, whose "blonde locks", it solemnly reported, were "styled naturally").

But apparently it isn’t enough that girls of eight and nine are being groomed to become future consumers of our pornified culture or subjected – before they’ve even hit puberty – to the pressures of sexual objectification and body tyranny.

Now, the people who dictate the buying habits of 110 million US consumers appear to have decided that childhood actually ends at four.

By and large, I don’t subscribe to the notion that our daughters are in a state of crisis, but the sight of a tiny top stretched tight across a mannequin with a pair of perky little boobs makes me want to hurl a child-size glittery heel at someone.

Target responded by email to questions about the mannequins to say that they “always want to present our clothes in a fun and family-friendly way”. What’s next in the fun and family-friendly stakes? Playboy-themed nappies?

US shootings will go on and on without a deep cultural shift

Until he turned a gun on four of his best friends at his Washington state high school cafeteria just over a week ago, Jaylen Fryberg was, by all accounts, a good kid.

He was popular, good at sports and close to his family. As a member of the Tulalip tribe of Native Americans, he had a strong sense of identity and of community. In other words, he had all of the things that are supposed to make teenagers thrive.

And yet, instead of thriving, Fryberg is dead at the age of 15, taking two of his friends – Zoe Galasso and Gia Soriano, both 14 – with him. At the time of writing, he has left another 14-year-old girl, Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, and his own cousin, Andrew Fryberg, in a critical condition. Another cousin, Nate Hatch, is recovering in hospital, from where he posted a tweet: “I love you and I forgive you Jaylen, rest in peace.”

In the aftermath of the killings, observers have been parsing Jaylen Fryberg’s social media accounts for clues to his state of mind. And sure enough, they have found plenty. Since June, his Twitter account had been filled with cryptic, pain-filled messages. His last tweet before the shooting read: “It won’t last . . . It’ll never last . . . ”

In the revulsion after an event such as this, it is easy to believe someone – his parents, his teachers or his friends – should have foreseen what he was planning or at least detected his depression. But what teenager’s social media account isn’t occasionally filled with dark, lovelorn musings? What child hasn’t sometimes, in a fit of angst, said they wished they were dead? Better monitoring of teenagers’ social media habits isn’t really the answer.

According to figures just released by the FBI, someone takes out a gun in a public place and begins shooting once every three weeks. In the early 2000s, such incidents occurred once every 10 weeks.

The obvious response is tighter gun control, but that’s not the whole story either. Because nothing will change without a deep, cultural shift in a mindset that sees guns as the solution to every problem. It’s not just laws that need to be tackled but a culture that deems it appropriate for children such as Jaylen Fryberg to be given a rifle for their 15th birthdays.

Unfortunately such change is not likely to come any time soon in a society so jaded by gun violence that stories generally occupy the media for about half a day before everyone moves on until the next time.

Tragically, that next time is less than three weeks away.

Jennifer is on Twitter @jenoconnell