The rhetorical stance that Prager conveys is that Barbie is one of the many reason that young adolescent girls today have body image issues. The intended pathos for “Our Barbies, Ourselves” is directed to those who can relate to Prager’s feelings towards Barbie. Young and middle aged girls can understand Prager’s reasoning for her mixed feelings. Prager gives examples of how she played with Barbie when she was younger and how she felt knowing that Barbie and Ken could never become romantic. Those who have played with Barbie dolls at some length can grasp what Prager was talking about.
In Piercy’s poem, the deadly effects of the ‘Beauty Myth’ are revealed in a symbolic representation of death. The initial line of this poem is what starts to set the tone of the poem saying, “This girl child was born as usual” (1), meaning that she was born like any other normal child and had all the attributes and intelligence to go along with it. Piercy’s poem then continues to describe that, which is normal for a young girl to have dolls, mini GE stoves, land cherry lipstick. All of these things which are referenced in the poem on lines 2-4. “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: you have a great big nose and fat legs” (5-6) altering anything and everything this little girl ever knew to be true about herself.
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. Modern times are not that much better. Little girls are still given Barbie dolls and feel pressure from an adolescent age to look a certain way. This epidemic is causing girls to succumb to eating disorders, face bias when it comes to their appearance by others, and have a general low self-esteem. Stereotyping people is just as dangerous as bullying
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.
They were the stereotypical toys of the girl, and help to create the image of the stereotypical “girlchild” in the mind. This then continued into when it described how the classmate described her “great big nose and fat legs.” This helps to create the picture that she is no longer the little girlchild that was perfect in every way in the view of society. Instead, she has become different, because she has features that go against the stereotypical definition of beauty that is defined by today’s modern culture. The fact
As a teenager there will be a time where breaking the bonds of childhood, entering a world of rebellion, and being obsessed with popularity will be normal. For teenage girls, in order to acquire this popularity they need to be thin, busty, and wear revealing clothing while gossiping about peers and spending time worrying about boys and parties rather than their academics. But, where did this image of how to be a popular teenage girl come from? For decades, teen films have portrayed popular teenage girls this way and the film Mean Girls is no exception. This film not only displays how the world expects teenage girls to act, but also how difficult it is for teenage girls to resist acting this way.
*******1 *********** **** ENG-1DP 15 April 2012 Disney Princesses Serve As Bad Role Models for Young Girls Studies show that young girls who watch Disney princess movies strive to be like them as adults. However, Disney princesses set bad examples for children. They set bad examples because they have unrealistic appearances, they possess personalities that we are trying to teach children not to have, and they display improper social skills. One of the main reasons children struggle with low self-esteem is because of the media. Disney Princesses have unrealistic appearances.
Both “Barbie-Q” by Sandra Cisneros and “Sea Oak” by George Saunders share an underlying theme of poverty, however the mode upon how the characters in each individual story deal with poverty is very different. In both stories the characters manage to escape their economic status in different ways. In “Barbie-q” the two girls affected by poverty wish to have nothing more than Barbie’s to play with, a fire in the toy house enables them to get damaged babies at a very low cost. They do not attempt to get jobs or even ask their mothers for more money instead they fashion clothes out of old socks and even imagining complicated scenarios that include a doll that they don’t have “Every time the same story. Your Barbie is roommates with my Barbie, and my Barbie’s boyfriend comes over and your Barbie steals him, okay?
Since the creation of the Barbie doll in 1959 by Mattel Inc., the public has scrutinized the doll for her impractical body proportions and excessive wardrobe, accessories, and lifestyle. Perhaps Barbie is more than just a toy, she may have a prominent influence and psychological effect on the children that play with her. Barbie’s unrealistic body proportions have created a negative influence for young girls, causing them to feel self-conscious of their body image. The negative psychological effects of the Barbie doll on young girls have been recorded by psychology professors Helga Dittmar, Susan Ive, and Emma Halliwell. In their 2006 psychological experiment, Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin?
International Business Chapter 14 Oxford University Press Prof. Rakesh Mohan Joshi Case Study BARBIE FACES ISLAMIC DOLLS Barbie, so named by ideator Ruth Handler after daughter Barbara s nickname, became the world s most popular fashion doll. Handler found that young girls enjoyed playing out their dreams in adult roles when she saw her daughter Barbara playing with a paper doll and imagining it as a grown up. Most children s dolls available at that time represented infants. This gave rise to an idea of a teenage doll, Barbie. Handler co-founded Mattel, a Southern California toy company with her husband Elliot Handler, and spearheaded the introduction of the doll.