You may have heard about the recent trend among toymakers, especially dollmakers, to create dolls that more directly reflect current popular culture and trends. In fact, this is the premise behind the successful “Bratz” line of dolls that is challenging Barbie as the “queen of dolls.” However, this trend does have its limits, as a new line of dolls has been canceled after protests that it went overboard in objectifying and sexualizing young girls:

Hasbro, Inc., famous for such innocuous toys as My Little Pony figurines, isn’t saying much. In a statement, the Rhode Island company said the older age group targeted by the recording group meant that making a doll line was “inappropriate.” . . .

“Pussycat Dolls” designed for young girls and modeled after the music group, with their risqué style and smash hit “Don’t Cha” that includes the lyrics, “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me; Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?” seems a world away from the unblemished bubble of Barbie’s Dream House. . . .

Despite the victory, child advocates say that pressures still abound in a society that is saturated by sexual imagery. “It is becoming normative, as opposed to … deviant,” says Joan Jacobs Brumberg, who teaches about the history of female adolescence at Cornell University.

As a liberal and supporter of free speech, I’m a little uneasy in general about efforts to limit individual and collective expression. On the other hand, as a parent of a seven year old girl, I agree that American culture contains way too many images that are not just unnecessary but also unhealthy for young children.

Therefore and ultimately, I support these efforts to limit the sexualization and commercialization of young girls (and boys). I believe that there are limits to freedom of expression and free market capitalism. While parents like me obviously cannot control all aspects of what our children see or hear, we can and should have a say in what kinds of messages they’re exposed to.