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.
Life as Plastic Both today and yesterday's society have created a mold that young women are expected to fit in to. Tall, tan and slender girls are often looked at as the beautiful members of society. The positive and wonderful qualities of both women and men are often overlooked because of physical appearance and image. Marge Piercy accurately portrays the unreachable standards placed on women to be beautiful from adolescence into adulthood by her use of fluctuating tone and effective symbolism in her poem “Barbie Doll”. The poem follows a young girl from her childhood to her adulthood in a third person omniscent point of view.
5/25/2011 Enc1102 “ Bonfire of the Princesses Analysis” Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of the article “Bonfire of the Princesses.” In her article, the author points out how Disney has been over marketing their princesses to girls, and how Disney’s princesses are bad role models for children. She points out that everything on Disney’s product line is there to draw your child in to the princesses. While stating these points in her article she is trying to convince readers that Disney and its marketing is bad. Ehrenreich is effective with her appeal by getting the readers emotion and making them want to side against Disney; and also by getting the reader to think about if Disney should have as much credibility as it does with people. The
Orenstein began with an anecdote expressing her frustration with the princess theme, then talked about different product lines with the princess theme. From there she jumped from criticizing mothers that fell for the princess trend to how Disney’s princess product line started and finally finishes with references to studies about change in different aspects of a girl’s life. Along with their differences in approach, there also was a major difference in effectiveness. Poniewozik’s article was much more structured going from movie to movie explaining its impact on a girl’s life and stuck to one point which came across very effective. Orenstein, on the other hand, jumped from topic to topic without much of a connection and supported her claims with very little evidence, so it failed to be effective in getting her point
Lack of self-esteem and confidence in adolescent girls has long been associated with at risk behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and unsafe sexual behaviors which lead to sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. Ashes for Beauty is a program designed to help area preteen and teenage girls build their self-esteem and have more confidence about themselves. With this program the girls can feel proud of themselves and the bright futures they have ahead of themselves without settling for less. The mission statement for Ashes for Beauty is to enable preteen and teenage girls to reach their full potential. Striving to help them improve their lives and break barriers, The Ashes for Beauty program offers mentorships, activities and
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”.
Not only is it to inform adult women but it is also young girls too. She states, “If even the heroine in a Disney ‘girls’ movie’ does not enjoy being a girl, how must the girls watching her feel about it?” (Ross 553). She also reiterates that she is aiming to analyze and inform girls later in the text. “… I am concerned about what girls may learn about this potentially explosive aspect of their characters that could so easily burst the bounds of traditional feminity” (Ross 555). These two quotes present that the audience is in fact female.
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. Mean Girls is a perfect example of how girls, want to be like the plastics. You have the Queen Bee throughout the movie and every normal girl wishing and wanting to be like her. She’s like the Barbie, everyone wish they could
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.
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