In the poem, the speaker states the girlchild has “wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” (4), showing that she already wants to alter her appearance. As children grow into young adults, they become aware of outside judgments; as the girlchild was made aware in the poem. “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:/ You have a great big nose and fat legs” (5-6). Girls are pressured into looking the way media portrays beauty. Unfortunately, outward appearances take on a more important role than other characteristics to teenage girls.
I strongly agree with the Peggy Orenstein’s article. In my opinion, we have to forget the stereotypes that had been thought for years. Is a girl predisposed to play with pretty dolls wearing pink clothes? Definitely not. By only handing a girl pink playthings for the first three years of her life, she may decide pink is her favorite color because “that’s what girls like.” In fact, researchers think that parents and other social factors lead children to prefer gender-specific toys.
Toddler’s and Tiara’s on TLC, Television Learning Channel, is a prime example of child exploitation. It primarily shows little girls, age 18 months to early teens, parading in scandalous outfits while the parents are cheering on. Is there something wrong with this picture? Thankfully, I am not the only person that is infuriated by this show. Beauty pageants originated as a marketing tool in 1921 by an Atlantic City hotel owner who wanted the city’s tourists
So why are females so bombarded with pressure to live up to what society says a woman should be like? For a very long time in American history, women were told that they should be feminine. They were told that there place in life was to be at home and raise a family and to look pretty for their husbands. Little girls were given Barbie dolls and games called Mystery Date and Miss Popularity (Peril). All of these things helped conform little girls into thinking that their role in life was to be something pretty for a man to look at.
As a reader, I connected with all three girls in some personal level because the comparisons of our lifestyles and choices. For example, page 5 through 9, when Adjoua lies and goes to Bintou with the excuse of studying and there is that one person, Albert in this case, that goes and says “I know you are sneaking out to chase boys.” Adjoua has very over-protective parents, her father especially. But I thought it was hypocritical when he accused Koffi of ‘cradle-robbing’ with a younger girl when he himself was doing the same with Bintou, his daughter’s best friend and Koffi’s daughter on pages 23 through 26. I thought Bintou envy’s Adjoua and Aya. Aya for her intelligence, with focus to bigger things and Adjoua for her protective parents who constantly worry about every day and night.
Julia was 11 years old when her grandmother made her see a therapist about a certain paper she wrote. Julia wrote a paper about how he father made her touch him and how he would touch her and have sex with her. Julia tried trashing her paper but her classmates found it and gave it to the teacher who then called Protective Service. Protective Service ordered Julia to leave her home with her two young siblings and move in with their grandmother. Julia’s mother, Lori, also moved in with her mother.
I had a toy that I loved a lot; it was a doll my great grandmother gave to me. I remember I took it to school to play with. A girl that didn’t like me came and took my doll and I started to cry. Then my sister made the girl give me back my doll. So yeah, I know how Angel
This is the start development of ego and super ego. This is around the time the child starts school and is the awakening sexual energy. The final stage is Genital Stage which starts from puberty to adult hood. During this final stage the child is no longer a child and develops a strong sexual interest in the opposite sex. This last stage is very different form the other stages Freud explains.
O'Neal has set her hair on fire by page 20, "A Paper Life" does not have an overwrought tone. It prefers understatement, as in an episode when 5-year-old Tatum fights with her mother's 15-year-old boyfriend and throws up after sneaking sips of the adults' beer. She passes out and wakes up on the bathroom floor. "But at least the floor felt cool," she points out. As some combination of Ms. O'Neal and Ms. Petrini writes, in the synthetic-sounding first person: "I loved my big, handsome daddy and thought if I stopped sucking my thumb, that would prove it.
Greenberg, B. S., Siemicki, M., Dorfman, S., Heeter, C., Lin, C., Stanley, C., & Soderman, A. (1993). Sex content in R-rated films viewed by adolescents. In B. S. Greenberg, J. D. Brown, & N. Buerkel-Rothfuss (Eds. ), Media, sex and the adolescent (pp.