Grrls Studies important?
To the best of my knowledge Girls Studies is a field that focuses on the psychological and social aspects of life as a pre-teen/teen girl. I would have to say that my understanding of issues involved in Girls Studies is rather good considering I did grow up a female within the US and have first hand experience of getting my first period, talking to my friends about sex/crushes, dealing with body image issues. That is to say that I am sure my experience does not exclude other peoples experience from being relevant or true. As a psychology major who had to take Developmental Psychology and therefore understand that what we learn as a child and the situations we are put into, shape our adult selves. Therefore I think an understanding of Girls Studies is crucial to understanding the “Women’s Studies” perspective.
It was not that long ago that I graduated from High School and the memories of how much time I spent focusing on popular culture is beyond scary. When I was going through High School Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie just started The Simple Life. My best friend and I loved them, no maybe it was more of an obsessive type of emotion. We tried to emulate them and even went as them for Halloween. My reason for the “personal reflection” is to show why I think Girls Studies is needed and how popular culture needs to be adapted to queer girls. Now in my 20’s I do identify as queer, but in my youth due to much church attending and the fact that admitting anything other than heterosexuality is social suicide I did not tell a soul. As some of the quotes suggest in Queer Girls, some young women are already resisting notions represented in popular culture. Most of the young girls identified themselves in a variety of ways. Susan Driver states “many statements purposefully defy binary gender coding, mixing and confounding normative terminology.” (42)
I definitely think there are similarities in how popular culture affects queer and non-queer girls but I feel those similarities are just as common as the ones between a white feminists and a POC feminist. Meaning I think there still needs to be studies that focus on life experiences of both queer and non queer girls. If you look at the front page of the website for this week(fbomb.com) it talks about the VH1 show Tool Academy, within the blog it asks why women keep these guys around hoping that one day they will realize the pain they are causing. This show promotes not only a very masculine representation for men, but also tells women that they just need to be patient and wait for him to “come around”. However does this show affect queer girls the same way? I doubt it, in fact how many dating shows appeal to queer girls?
a. estrada
It was not that long ago that I graduated from High School and the memories of how much time I spent focusing on popular culture is beyond scary. When I was going through High School Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie just started The Simple Life. My best friend and I loved them, no maybe it was more of an obsessive type of emotion. We tried to emulate them and even went as them for Halloween. My reason for the “personal reflection” is to show why I think Girls Studies is needed and how popular culture needs to be adapted to queer girls. Now in my 20’s I do identify as queer, but in my youth due to much church attending and the fact that admitting anything other than heterosexuality is social suicide I did not tell a soul. As some of the quotes suggest in Queer Girls, some young women are already resisting notions represented in popular culture. Most of the young girls identified themselves in a variety of ways. Susan Driver states “many statements purposefully defy binary gender coding, mixing and confounding normative terminology.” (42)
I definitely think there are similarities in how popular culture affects queer and non-queer girls but I feel those similarities are just as common as the ones between a white feminists and a POC feminist. Meaning I think there still needs to be studies that focus on life experiences of both queer and non queer girls. If you look at the front page of the website for this week(fbomb.com) it talks about the VH1 show Tool Academy, within the blog it asks why women keep these guys around hoping that one day they will realize the pain they are causing. This show promotes not only a very masculine representation for men, but also tells women that they just need to be patient and wait for him to “come around”. However does this show affect queer girls the same way? I doubt it, in fact how many dating shows appeal to queer girls?
a. estrada
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