Unlearning the Myths That Blind Us

I first want to say that I loved Kaileen’s blog post and I am going to do an extended comment on it!  I want to talk about the ending part of Kaileen’s post.

Growing up girls always seem to have things harder than boys do.  Girls have to look and act a certain way to fit in.  But boys tend to not have to.

My First Year Seminar was based on stereotypes and gender roles that are found in our everyday lives, but we focused a lot of our attention to the ones found in fairy tales.   In that class we were having a discussion about how women should look and I talked about how media and toys have negative affects on young girls when it comes to the way that they look at themselves.  Princesses and Barbie’s have many positive affects on girls because they prove to young girls that if you can put your mind and heart and soul into something, you can achieve it.  But at the same time, they also have awful affects on them.  I agree with the rules Kaileen wrote;

1. Girls cannot do boy things

2. A girl must marry a man to be successful 

3. Boys are supposed to be seen as strong and powerful

4. Women are supposed to be perfectly dressed

5. Boys must save girls

Princesses prove that boys have to save them from trouble.  That makes girls look weak.  You also never see a Princess trying to do things that boys would do.  They are always cleaning to getting dressed up all fancy. 

            To answer Kaileen’s question; “Have we seen an imperfect looking Prince or Princess?” and the answer to that is NO!  The same goes with Barbie’s, they are always dressed so nicely and perfect.  Last year in high school in my psychology we had to do a project about how media affects young kids and I did mine about the negative affects Barbie has on girls.  Here is part of the essay I wrote;

Barbie's image has been talked about a lot.  If Barbie was a human, her body dimensions would be 38-18-34.  She would only weigh 110 pounds.  You can infer that she may not weigh a lot because she may not eat a lot.  I believe this because "Slumber Party Barbie" came with a book that gave advice saying not to eat.  If this was true, Barbie wouldn’t be able to support life.  She wouldn't even have enough body fat for her body.

Barbie's body image has played a negative role on how many girls think they look.  8 million people in the United States have a eating disorder.  10-15% of people who have a eating disorder are males. The other 85-90% are females.  It is said that 80% of females that have an eating disorder are under the age of 20.  Many women have admitted that around the ages of 4-6, they started to worry about their weight and many of them said that Barbie played a big role in having a eating disorder. 

    How far will someone go to achieve Barbie's "perfect look"?  Her hair, her makeup, and clothes.  Many girls insist on painting their faces with makeup to hide their natural beauty.  They destroy their hair from constantly dying it different colors and wreck it by straitening and curling it constantly.  Girls also feel that the place where they buy their clothes makes them popular or not, so they bug their parents to buy expensive clothes.  On the other hand, some people have no problem throwing thousands of dollars down the drain to have the “perfect look”.  Many women get plastic surgery to get that look.  5% of the plastic surgeries are being done on women under the age of 20.  On top of that some women get face lifts and have professional stylists for every day.

Those facts are awful to read but they are true.  Young girls even adults will go to the extreme to make themselves look “perfect”.  There needs to be some type of Princess or Barbie doll that would be an average girl with average body proportions!  That would leave a positive impact on young girls. 

Barbie vs. Normal Body

Real life Barbie (Valeria Lukyanova)

I just want to comment on one more thing for Kaileen’s post.  I love the videos you used to show that we need to have media show differences and that would let society know that its okay for girls to play with boy toys and vice versa but that girls can do what ever they want if they put their mind to it.  The first video is about a little girl talking about boys and girls toys and the second video shows that girls should be able to do what ever they want to even if its not something girls would normally do.