While some people think it’s entertaining and fun, it can really dampen the contestants’ self-confidence by choosing which one is the prettiest or the best talented. Continual entrance in beauty pageants can affect children’s self confidence by teaching young girls to look like adults, making girls focus on their outward appearance, and pressuring the girls to fulfill their parents’ wishes. Better parental education about the detrimental impacts of beauty pageants would help to avoid these problems. This article will show that people who enter their children into pageants and who coordinate them are wrong to think it promotes self-confidence and helps girls come out of their shell due to the forced maturity, the focus on appearance and the parental pressure. Christine Sherman, a beauty pageant mother, says “I think pageants are terrific because kids get a positive attitude toward themselves\".
Because the girl in the poem does not fit the standard set forth, she is laughed at by her peers and devalued for her lack of classic beauty. She had many positive qualities "possessed strong arms and back" (8), "test intelligent"(7) and "abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity"(9). But, because of her larger nose and fat legs, the negative self-image pushed her to self-mutilation and suicide. The message is blunt, traditional beauty standards are harmful, and the women and girls who do not live up to them lack worth in society’s eyes. In the first stanza, the "girlchild"(1) is born.
All over the world, girls often go through a "princess phase", made up with anything pink and pretty. When it happened to Peggy Orenstein's daughter, the writer decided to examine the phenomenon. She found that the “girlie-girl” culture was less innocent than it might seem, and can have negative consequences for girls' psychological, social and physical development. From a very young age, girls learn to define themselves from the outside in, and a lot of researches suggest that our culture’s emphasis on physical beauty is the root of problems such as negative body image, depression, eating disorders and high-risk sexual behavior. I strongly agree with the Peggy Orenstein’s article.
Peggy says that the girlie girl culture we are living in is increasing issues like eating disorders, body weight issues and unsafe sexual behaviour. The author says “According to the American Psychological Association, the girlie-girl culture’s emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness can increase girls’ vulnerability to the pitfalls that most concern parents: depression, eating disorders, distorted body image, risky sexual behavior." (Orenstein, 6). Society expects females to beautiful and always strive to stay thin, therefore Peggy is going against those stereotypical views and saying that those unreasonable expectations are resulting in self-conscious girls with eating disorders, unsafe sexual practice and depression. Further on in the book, Peggy discusses how the emphasis on girl’s beauty from the culture that we live in is greatly inspired by Disney princesses promoting the idea that girls should be “the fairest of them all”.
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.
She glances up at me, and I briefly shift my glare into a weak smile. I envy this woman, but I am not alone. Many other women envy her too. Many women, just like me, are unhappy with their less than perfect bodies. In her essay, Barbie’s Body May be Perfect but Critics Remind Us It’s Plastic, Angela Cain analyzes how Barbie and other media icons affects women’s self image in our society.
Even though to me her bright smile and charming sense of hilarity makes her the most beautiful person in the world, she thinks of herself ugly if she does not look like the people on tv. I can imagine all these young beautiful girls in the world who compare to individuals that takes a team of about 20 people to make them look glamorous and fancy with the help of Photoshop. With superficial images shown in tv and magazines young girls like my sister will never accept the person they are and to learn to love themselves, which sometimes leads to other self-destructions like drugs and alcohol. As many children still struggle with issues they also deal with drug and alcohol abuse. Again if a girl has been watching tv all day and sees a pretty “skinny” girl in the new cigarette advertise-ment her too will say “hey, if I smoke and can be skinny too” then their goes TV advertising
Most women these days would do anything to look pretty and attract the opposite sex. This story gives us the importance of body image to women and they get judged about it. Amber the “finger throated sickness one”. She gets teased because of her anorexic appearance. This is a mental illness common to the young woman.
The theme of the story is to show how Barbie dolls are negatively influencing young girls and the drastic change they had on young girl’s observations of relationships, self-image, and childhood innocence. At a young age, these girls are creating stories of infidelity and aggression that mimic how relationships are viewed through the media. “Every time the same story. Your Barbie is roommates with my Barbie, and my Barbie’s boyfriend comes over and you steal him okay?” (Cisneros, pg 576) This is giving girls a distorted insight of what occurs in normal relationships. These stories, the young girls create using theses dolls, make it seem okay if these types of unhealthy relationships occur.
Reegan Martell English 1110 Dr. Adams 12/08/2011 Argument Analysis: “Our Barbies, Ourselves” Since its debut in 1959, a molded plastic doll named Barbie has become an icon. Barbie became the icon that functioned as both an outlet for girls' dreams and an ever-changing reflection of American society. Emily Prager is one of the many young girls that grew up as having Barbie as one of their favorite toys. Emily Prager is a columnist with the New York Times and in her spare time she has published many books such as World War ll Resistance Stories; A Book of Humor, “Official I hate Videogames Handbook”, and many others. In this article Prager questions how Barbie had an effect on her life as a child growing up and how she viewed Barbie as well.