October 10th, 2009 marked the first Tween Girl Summit, and the accompanying Allykatzz Tween Summit Music Festival, gave tween girls the chance to voice their thoughts and opinions on what their age group faces.
“Tween” itself is a fairly new term, and refers to young kids in between the child and teen stage, generally, 11-13 years old, and though they are often talked about, they are rarely heard from. At the summit, they got their say.
Disney Channel star Debby Ryan hosted the summit in Washington,D.C., which according to its press release was meant to “examine the minds, motivation, and lives of these passionate, vocal girls, giving them a platform to voice their thoughts in the Nation’s Capital” in front of policymakers, celebrities, and tween experts.
If you read between the lines, there is an underlying motivation behind this: marketing. Companies are staring to understand the ever increasing market tweens present, and used the summit to pick their brains about such topics as clothes, games,video games and music. They had the opportunity to try new technologies and digital forms of entertainment, which undoubtedly offered companies a chance to advertise to the newest market.
The summit was not all product based, however. Young girls got a chance to discuss serious topics that effect their age group these days, ranging from “sexting,” bullying and body image. The overwhelming sentiment was that not all tweens are engaging in these activities, or growing up too fast, and they resent being accused of it. While we hear about over sexualized clothing, oversexualized role models and oversexualized, well, everything, the girls claim not everyone is engaging in these behaviors.
When Monica Hesse of the Washington Post asked about sexting, (texting sexual pictures and/or content to other kids), 14 year old Angelique Gaston said, “EW. That isn’t what we’re doing. The media bases everything on sexuality.”
Perhaps the girls are alright, after all. They may be growing up fast, sometimes too fast, but they are smart as well, and deserve the benefit of the doubt. But as their sparkly nail polish and giggle fits remind us, they also just wanna have fun.
