Girls Today...Dreams and Difficulties
Girls Studies is much more complex than its’ simple title suggests, and most likely means something different to each person. When we hear the term “girls studies”, you might automatically stop and picture your life as a young girl, or someone very similar to you; same race, culture, economic status and family background, and assume studies are done on people just like that. However, in order to make this topic worth while, studies must be done on more than the “average girl”. We have to look outside our typical “box” on this one to see and accept the differences that every young girl faces today.
The introductory readings helped to narrow in on defining girl studies (not that this will ever be a narrow subject), but it helps us to see where researchers have been in the past and what they continue to believe in and study for the future. Hopefully from this we will have a better understanding of the different and often difficult struggles girls face today from not only our perspective here in the United States, but also from around the world.
It is so much fun to be a girl!… But why does it have to be so hard sometimes? Girls today have to deal with a lot of pressure at a young age. It seems like all too often girls must sacrifice what they want for themselves in order to make other people happy; whether that may be parents, friends, or what they see the media portraying as the role of a girl. Girls need to have independence and their own ideas of what they want to become, not what others want them to be. They are bombarded with ideas and images of what they should look like and how they should act. The two Dove clips we watched in class are a great example. The young girl on her way to school, and then showing several images in about 20 seconds of all the pressures she will face. Then, the next one with the woman without her makeup on, showing how they turn her into a billboard supermodel. No wonder our ideas of reality and displays of femininity are so distorted. Hopefully with this class we can learn more about all of these topics, while recognizing both the struggles and fun parts of being a girl.
The introductory readings helped to narrow in on defining girl studies (not that this will ever be a narrow subject), but it helps us to see where researchers have been in the past and what they continue to believe in and study for the future. Hopefully from this we will have a better understanding of the different and often difficult struggles girls face today from not only our perspective here in the United States, but also from around the world.
It is so much fun to be a girl!… But why does it have to be so hard sometimes? Girls today have to deal with a lot of pressure at a young age. It seems like all too often girls must sacrifice what they want for themselves in order to make other people happy; whether that may be parents, friends, or what they see the media portraying as the role of a girl. Girls need to have independence and their own ideas of what they want to become, not what others want them to be. They are bombarded with ideas and images of what they should look like and how they should act. The two Dove clips we watched in class are a great example. The young girl on her way to school, and then showing several images in about 20 seconds of all the pressures she will face. Then, the next one with the woman without her makeup on, showing how they turn her into a billboard supermodel. No wonder our ideas of reality and displays of femininity are so distorted. Hopefully with this class we can learn more about all of these topics, while recognizing both the struggles and fun parts of being a girl.
Comments
I really excited to learn more about what other girls go though, so I have a more complex idea of what girlhood is.