The Media Does Not Define Me

To me Girl’s Studies is about looking at how young girls are socialized in our patriarchal society. When reading the online article from Women, Girl’s and the Unfinished Work of Connection: A Critical Review of Popular Culture, it starts with how girls have been treated unfairly in our institutions and it continues on until adulthood. Girl’s Studies were started out of women’s concerns that the younger generation was not being taught what they needed to survive and prosper in the world they are living in. Why aren’t girls being taught the same in school as boys, and why are they not being encouraged to take classes that are traditionally dominated by males?
Popular Culture is one reason why Girl’s Studies so important. “Media commodification centers on conventional images of beautiful white, rich youthful slender frminine girls” (Driver). If you don’t fit into this category you are considered an “othered, exotic, or erased altogether from view” (Driver). What about all the other girls? The ones with different skin tones, and the tomboys that are forced to think that they need to be like that or something is wrong with them. It is so important that we change the message so that our young girls don’t feel inadequate because they cannot measure up to the role models they see on TV, in movies and as muscicians.
Anne-Marie states that being queer has made her relate and disaccociate from”mainstream media’s insensitivity.” It seems that there is a lack of good role models for girls in general, but even more so if you are queer. Anita Hill writes that girls are most influenced by schools, health care systems, organized religion, and American popular culture. I never really thought about how much we are infleunced by pop culture until I started taking classes about women. So if what are girls are learning is from these four things, then maybe it is time to change those four things! How is the question I feel keeps coming up in Women, Girl’s and the Unfinished Work of Connection: A Critical Review of Popular Culture. I feel like there are more questions brought up than answers, and maybe this is because we never looked at the younger generation to be the ones that could change things. The same reason that Third Wavers tend to dismiss the older generation of the women’s movement, I believe we have neglected looking at how to change the very things that start the process of socializing girls. I do like Harris’s statement at the end about how this struggle about girls has the ptoetial to unite us.
Imagine how confusing it must be to open up magazines in which the girls do not look, act, or think like you do? Wouldn’t you start thinking that something was wrong with you? Isn’t this the case for both quuer and non-queer girls? Non-queer girl’s could not possibly live up to the ideal beauty queens that are pertrayed in the media, and queer girls usually only get to see the exaggerated examples of other girls who are queer.