Smiley says, “Both of them learned how to put makeup before kindergarten” (376). Smiley’s daughters learned to apply makeup; however the writer did not know who taught them, until she blamed to Barbie as the influence of their girls. Smiley realized that her daughters were trying new things, such as applying makeup. She did not argue with her girls; instead she let her girls to experiment with makeup or perhaps other things as they grow up. Next, Jane Smiley says that girls start to discover and develop their femininity while playing with Barbie dolls.
It all begins with a young girl being born into the world of judgment. Children believe everything they are told. If they are told they are beautiful, they will believe it until someone tells them otherwise. Young girls are impressionable by their mother’s and female counter part’s actions, such as wearing fancy clothes and putting on make-up. 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.
The poem follows a young girl from her childhood to her adulthood in a third person omniscent point of view. This young girl is a representation for all the girls who face the same unfair standards in today's society. Piercy effectively portrays how the girl changes and evolves by using a tone that evolves along with her growth. It starts in line one when Piercy says, “This girlchild was born as usual” (1). Piercy analyzes the girl from birth and uses a detached, expecting tone to portray her normality.
The Toddlers and Tiara girls go through hours of make-up, to different hairstyles, and wearing big fake wigs. They get spray tans, and even fake teeth known as flippers. The girls look so ridiculous for their age and at what a cost. These parents are spending thousands of dollars just to teach their kids that beauty is on the outside. This sort of behavior is only setting children up for body image and mental health issues later down the road.
Giovanny Sanchez May 5, 2012 Ms. Collins Barbie’s World In everyone’s childhood there is always that one special non-living figure in their personal lives, a figure we admired, something we looked up to be, like an idol. In “You Can Never Have Too Many,” Jane Smiley thanks Barbie for the effect she had on her daughter’s lives as they were growing up to be young adults; by teaching them the feminine side of woman at an early stage, which ultimately allowed their minds to have a lot more options when it really came down to figuring out who they wanted to be at an adult stage. Smiley however, does not effectively support this argument because she gives a lot of credit to Barbie for the way her daughters turn out to be but she’s forgetting
With people tormenting her about her cousins who were teen moms, or her father who made a fool of his drunken self in public, the poor girl felt like nothing more than dirt, and she wanted to be thought of as flawless and beautiful. Edith dreamed of being a celebrity, she wished to be a perfect girl, and to live in a perfect world "in which only married women had babies, and in which men and women stayed married forever." The shacks in which Eddie grew up were less than desirable, and supposedly thought of as contemptible, by people of a higher social class. When Edith moved to the boarding house, with set meal times, she was quite ashamed to think of how people living in the shacks didn't have meal times, they simply found any food they could and ate by themselves when they were hungry. The potato-chip plant that Eddie worked at
Christine says “I had to find my own way and I started out in the hole, the bastard daughter of a woman who wouldn’t even admit she was my mother and the fat sister of the prettiest boy that ever lived” (Dorris141). Christine provides insight on the way she views herself from the very beginning of being a teenager. As Christine gets older she is very promiscuous, this is her way of showing that she wants to be accepted and loved for once in her life. Christine did not take precautions on using birth control and gets pregnant with Rayona. Later on Christine gets married and just when everything seemed to be going good for her she finds out that her husband, Elgin starts cheating on her and this is when she starts hating herself and making up excuses on why he would do something like that to her.
One statistic that stuck out was that one-quarter of 14 to 17 year olds of both sexes received or sent naked pictures of themselves or someone else. Another stated that half of 3 to 6 year old girls are afraid that they are fat. Girls these ages should not be doing or worry about things like that. Hane’s also point out many other studies, examples of people’s personal experiences, and different professors. She also broke up the subjects she wanted to talk about and used subtitles to let us know what the reading would say next.
As Peggy Orenstein’s three year-old daughter entered the “princess phase,” Orenstein became increasingly frustrated. As a feminist, she worried about the negative effects the princess obsession would have on her daughter and other young girls in their futures. In “Cinderella and Princess Culture,” Orenstein sets out to discuss these effects. She discovers that although it seems as if this princess craze is creating negative gender stereotypes at an early age, maybe princess enthusiasts are really benefitting from their obsession. Orenstein has gotten accustomed to adults assuming her daughter likes pink and princesses.
Lucy decides as her friends are reaching puberty that because she will never look like them she will never be loved “in that way” (150). Sadly, Lucy longs for physical beauty because “ When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what being ugly felt like,” (177). Beauty will bring her happiness and the confidence to have relationships. Instead of seeing that she could have this through her inner beauty Lucy decides that she can start living once she has fixed her face. Until then, life is on