We began today’s class by dissecting the phrase “like a girl” and the
term’s negative connotations. As many already know, the term is commonly used
as an insult to convey physical shortcomings (even though most of the girls I
know can and will knock out anyone who has the audacity to use that term around
them…). From there, the topic of discussion
gradually switched to “Gender Boxes”, which is more-or-less representative of
society’s preconceived notions of how someone should act, how they should look,
and who they should be simply based
on their gender. Failure to comply with
this ideology often results in being rejected from more “traditional” company
and unfortunately; a lot of these concepts are contradictive of one another
(i.e. the ideal women is skinny AND curvy). This creates a nearly impossible
set of standards for anyone to meet, which in turn leads to ever increasing
levels of body dysmorphia within adolescents.
The media constantly bombards young girls (and boys) with images
designed to reinforce their otherwise non-existent desires to meet arbitrary
beauty standards. This form of media
(think shows like ANTM, where a woman’s worth is based purely on her physical
features) tends to portray women as objects and oftentimes it gets to a point
where they begin to see themselves as objects too. As levels of objectification increases, political
value and self-empowerment decreases until symbolic annihilation comes into
effect (a term coined by George Gerbner that can be defined as “the absence of a
particular group in the media”, which in turn may lead to entire populations
simply being forgotten). It seems
like the only way to correct this backwards mindset would be to completely
“reboot” our culture by teaching the younger generations that it’s okay to be yourself.
"You have to change everything about yourself, without leaving any signs of alteration"
-Julia Horwitz (My roommate and classmate)
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