Participate in this writing exercise by finishing this sentence:

People should not buy high heels for infant girls because . . .

The company, Heelarious, thinks dressing infant girls in their first high heels "is hilarious."

I think it comes dangerously close to sexualizing infant girls and certainly it crosses the line in genderizing baby girls.

Please, don't start giving this at Baby Showers - what, really, is the mother supposed to say when she opens it? Wow, I'm sure she'll really learn to walk in these!

Read all the great reasons why parents shouldn't buy this exagerated genderization for their baby girls on Menstrual Poetry, Feministing, , Cynical-C BlogThe Tomb of the Unknown Fan Girl, sunluvr, Shoewawa, The Star.

To be perfectly candid I allowed Ainsley play high heels that she received for her 2nd birthday and would even allow her to wear them in public on occasion - for fun.

I have also purchased for her these tacky little 1" heels that she wore every day for about a year. She wore one pair out and I bought her another. We handed them down to another girl. It made her happy. People thought it was adorable.

If infant high heels are over the line, did I cross it myself with those tacky plastic 1" heels? Or is the line somewhere in between the two shoes?

My personal hope is that heelarious goes out of business for lack of consumer interest. In other words, Don't buy them.

Another instance of sexualization of infants I saw this week was on an E*Trade commercial.

The computer generated baby boy says, "What a bad girl."
I hit pause - and questioned my reality,

"Did I hear that right? Did that B-A-B-Y boy just make a P-O-R-N reference?"

Nice E*Trade. Real Classy.

What do you think? Are heelarious and E*Trade sexualizing infants and is that fine with you?

Image Sources: You Tube, heelarious, and Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me.