The hair, the make up, the fake tans, the nails, the frilly socks and pooffy dresses. These are some of the items that mothers are willing to put on their children to win money and prizes, But child beauty pagents also affect the children, and not in good ways. A study shows that 250,000 children compete in beauty pagents every year and more than half are under the age of 12. Of all these children that compete in these pagents, around half of the girls who compete are unhappy about their size and have or wanted to go on a diet. These statistics show that child beauty pagents are harming children, but why else should they be banned?
Feminist say that Barbie is the cause of worldwide eating disorders, low self-esteem and false perception of beauty. Girls see Barbie as a role model they set out to be like her, but researchers have recently found that her body is so disproportionate. Barbie measurements would be 38-18-34, her head would be the same size as her waist, her breast would be too large for her to walk up straight and she would be too thin to menstruate. What girl wants to grow up to be like that? Barbie’s weight is set at 110 pounds and 6ft tall but not all girls know that except when in 1965 Mattel came out with a “slumber party Barbie” that came with a bathroom scale permanently set at 110 pounds, a book called “how to lose weight” and inside it said “don’t eat”.
Isakson is proving Motz that he is wrong that Barbie’s do not harm young girls mind. In Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha they are criticizing women that are in the military. In an apology Motz stated that “Barbie dolls encourage young girls to be conformists focus in“leisure activity, personal appearance, popularity, and the consumption of materials” (1). What this means is that young girls should not be wasting their time playing with dolls, instead they have to be at home doing superficial things such as cleaning, cooking, and washing cloth. Motz also implies that we are influenced by Barbie’s looks.
Ruth worked with her husband to create the doll known around the world as “the single most successful doll ever produced” (NY Times, 2013, pp 1 line 1-2) in response to seeing her daughter putting her paper dolls into situations that are more adult than childlike. The introduction of Barbie was a flop with investors, as the doll was a radical change from what was on the market at the time. The public’s opinion of the doll, however, has much warmer. By the 1960s, Mattel was struggling to keep up with the demand for Barbie and within 10 years, the public had purchased $500,000,000 worth of Barbie dolls (Dolls4play, 2013). Barbie struck a chord with the children of the soldiers returning home from World War II.
Nora Helmer, in Henrick Ibsen’s A Doll House seems like a naïve character that doesn’t have knowledge of the outside world and the importance of life. She sounds like a happy person that hasn’t gone through hardship, and doesn’t know how to make the right choices for herself. When she starts to realize that life shouldn’t be like this, we see that she isn’t as happy as she seems. Ibsen uses her husband Torvald Helmer to criticize Nora Helmer’s choices. Ibsen has an intelligent way of criticizing the choices Nora makes by using Torvald to insult her decisions.
Young girls tried with all of their might to be just like Barbie, to be perfect. In 1973 when Marge Piercy wrote this poem, she was conveying a message to her readers that no matter how hard we try, perfection is not something we achieve in our lifetimes, only in death. At the time this poem was written, Barbie had already been out for nearly twenty years. “Millions of children throughout the world, mostly girls, owned and played with one or more Barbie dolls, while some older people collected them (and some still do)” (Sherrow 1). Many of these women and young girls were trying to emulate her look at the time, which considering her measurements of 39-18-33, was virtually impossible.
Is Life as Plastic Really Fantastic? Wondering what is the most likely to be on every little girls Christmas list this year? Well, the answer is the 50 year old bombshell named Barbie. Barbie is the blonde haired beauty with 25 different cars, and multiple different careers. Despite her being one of the first toys to portray woman at a feminist angle, she's not a great role model in every aspect.
Dove Real Beauty Nikki Henderson MKT/421 February 11, 2013 Instructor: Phillip Spivey Dove Real Beauty Envision a world where beauty is a basis of self-confidence and optimism instead of apprehension and disquiet. So many women are fixated on their appearance and almost all of them have something they dislike about their body. Whether that dissatisfaction is with a chubby tummy, crow's feet, acne scars, hair that is too curly or not curly enough, or even a spot of cellulite, often times the imperfection, or perceived imperfection, is blown way out of proportion (Fox, 1997). The imaginary faults are time and again overstated in their own minds and are repeatedly perpetuated by the media (Fox, 1997). Friends and family may see someone that is perfectly normal, beautiful even, but as far that individual woman is concerned, the image of beauty the world proliferates has become restrictive and unachievable (Fox, 1997).
Those opposed to Child Beauty Pageants state they are overly sexualized. Documentarian Jane Treays has called pageants “bizarre contests in which children are painted and pompadour to look like mini-hookers.” Critics also say that pageants instill questionable values in children. Child psychologist Elizabeth Dybell states that “primping for pageants is not dress-up pretending to go to work like Mommy does or vacuum the house like Mommy does. It’s a very sexualized, sensual model of someone
.” (Ibsen. I. 387) First, the fact that Nora almost had to ask permission to hold her own child shows that she doesn’t quite view herself suitable to be a mother. Second, she refers to her child as her “little doll baby.” This makes the children seem almost like toys or props to Nora; they aren’t real, they’re just play-things. To reiterate this notion of toys, she also says, “.