The movie Mean Girls takes everything we have learned this year and adds some laughter to it. It takes one girl, Cady Heron, out of her media-free life in Africa and enters her into girl world. Throughout the movie Cady learns what its like to be one of the Plastics. We also see the dynamic between girls in the movie and how they can relate to literature we have read this year.
In one of the earliest scenes of the movie, Cady and the Plastics (Regina, Gretchen and Karen) walk into Regina's room. Regina, Gretchen and Karen immediately walk to the mirror and begin criticizing themselves saying things such as "I have man shoulders", "my nail beds suck", and "my pores are huge". The three girls stare at Cady and wait for her to criticize herself. Cady, a very confused girl responds saying, "I have really bad breath in the morning" and then thinks to herself how she didn't think there was anything more than skinny or fat. This directly relates to The Beauty Myth and shows how women expect other women to think poorly of themselves. In reality, when girls think negatively of themselves, all it does it point out flaws to everyone else. If everyone could be confident with themselves, maybe everyone would start being nicer to each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWMtOxlKFRw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUFT35S7Jb4&feature=related
These two scenes in Mean Girls relate to the The Vagina Monologues. While both these scenes are clearly in this movie for the purpose of humor, it also shows how women may be scared to speak up because of what others will think about them. I guess women don't talk about certain things for the same reasons they don't like to talk about their vaginas: "I was worried about what we would think about vaginas, and even more worried about that we don't think about them" (3). Just like the girls in Mean Girls, once the women Eve Ensler began talking, they could not stop, "They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn't stop them". (5). Women can benefit from talking about things that are uncomfortable. The girls in Mean Girls opened up and found peace after talking about things that were once secrets, just as the women in The Vagina Monologues were empowered by talking about their vaginas.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Dieting Won't Kill You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RLAGxUbp-U
The youtube video above explains not only my relationship with food, but also almost exactly how all my diets end up. I know that I am not alone in this love-hate relationship with food. I know Naomi Wolf is not saying that obesity is the best way to get healthy but that "women may in fact live longer and be generally healthier if they weigh... [more] and they refrain from dieting'" (187) seems pretty unrealistic to me. If a person already had a healthy lifestyle where they eat well and exercise then they could most likely live their whole lives at a healthy weight for their body and be able to maintain it. If a person eats junk food and does not exercise, there is no way that this could possibly be more healthy than dieting. I am not a doctor or specialist in any way but I know that when I am eating well and going to the gym (aka dieting) I feel 100 times better then I do when I am living a less healthy lifestyle. Wolf then goes on to say that dieting "may indeed cause... obesity itself," which seems nearly impossible. I can only slightly agree with this statement because I know that it is when I lose weight that I can gain it back the quickest.
Rather than criticizing Naomi Wolf, I am just going to nicely disagree with her on this subject because I strongly feel that there are right and wrong ways to diet. It is extreme to think that every diet means starving yourself or excessively going to the gym. Diets such as weight watchers are safe and personal for every person who joins. Wolf sees writing down everything you eat as obsessive, but the truth of weight watchers is that when you write down your food you see how much more you could eat without one, big unhealthy meal. I don't think Wolf could disagree with having a big, healthy salad over nachos grande!
Thursday, 10 May 2012
The Sad Truth
One day I plan on having a family of my own. It will be 10+ years from now, but I hope one day it will happen. If I have a daughter I am going to be TERRIFIED. One would find that very confusing since I am a daughter and have only a sister. The truth is, every generation of girls gets more and more promiscuous. I know I would do the best I could to scare her away from anything completely out of line, but if girls continue on the same path they are on, my poor daughter will end up locked in her room with a chastity belt (half-kidding). These horrible thoughts about my daughter's future were triggered two summers ago when I was talking to my family friend Nick who was in seventh grade at the time. He told be how the cool thing for girls and boys to do is to give blow jobs on the busses on the way to Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. In seventh grade I was hoping to have a boyfriend that I could talk to somewhere else other than AIM over the computer or maybe get a kiss on the cheek. But these girls were giving blow jobs on the way to their friend's bat mitzvah?! That is NO mitzvah if I ever knew one.
The point I am trying to make is that it is evident that girls are being extremely effected by the beauty myth from an extremely young age. The behavior of these young girls reflects on what we learned from "Killing Us Softly 4". Some ads we were shown showed full mature women dressed as children or children piled on with makeup to look like a women. Clearly when young and impressionable people see these things, it make them believe it is ok to do completely inappropriate things. It is true what Kilbourne says that "ads create an environment we all swim in... a toxic cultural environment". Although I don't feel the media has effected me too much as a person, the fact that it is influencing people around me by causing eating disorders and promiscuous behavior has made a huge impact on my life. While watching TV or reading a magazine everyone should keep in mind that "ads sell more than products... They sell concepts of normalcy...The tell us who we are and who we should want to be". Hopefully years from now I can rest easy when my children open a magazine or turn on the TV. I would hate to see more generations sucked into the beauty myth.
The point I am trying to make is that it is evident that girls are being extremely effected by the beauty myth from an extremely young age. The behavior of these young girls reflects on what we learned from "Killing Us Softly 4". Some ads we were shown showed full mature women dressed as children or children piled on with makeup to look like a women. Clearly when young and impressionable people see these things, it make them believe it is ok to do completely inappropriate things. It is true what Kilbourne says that "ads create an environment we all swim in... a toxic cultural environment". Although I don't feel the media has effected me too much as a person, the fact that it is influencing people around me by causing eating disorders and promiscuous behavior has made a huge impact on my life. While watching TV or reading a magazine everyone should keep in mind that "ads sell more than products... They sell concepts of normalcy...The tell us who we are and who we should want to be". Hopefully years from now I can rest easy when my children open a magazine or turn on the TV. I would hate to see more generations sucked into the beauty myth.
Jealousy
My mom is not the hugging, loving, shopping-with-your-mom kind of mom. She extremely serious, and even when my sister and I are upset she's all business. Nothing makes her more mad then when my sister and I have those "I'm so fat and ugly days". She always says the same thing, "Go outside and look around. You girls are prettier than 99% of those people". Of course she's our mom and she has to say that. Now thinking about that statement, although totally harmless, I know it is part of the problem. For years women are constantly comparing themselves to other women. It is like there is a constant competition for something that is impossible to win. Is there a prize for being most beautiful? Is even the hottest guy worth constantly trying to look the best? The answer to both of these questions is obviously no. So what is with the constant jealousy ladies?!
In A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft tell on many occasions about this jealousy that girls have for each other. Wollstonecraft compares men and women and says, "but women are very differently situated with respect to each other-for they are all rivals"(121). It is amazing to me how even in the 1700s women were competitive and rivals. I am confused why this rivalry had been going on for hundreds of years. Wollstonecraft makes a valid point in bringing up how by paying so much attention to your physical self, one can forget to respect what is on the inside. She says, "Did women really respect virtue for its own sake, they would not seek for compensation in vanity, for the self-denial which they are obliged to practice to preserve their reputation, nor would they associate with men who set a reputation at defiance" (88). If women joined together rather then constantly fighting each other, not only would we have more respect for each other, we would have more respect from the men who are apparently so important to impress.
In A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft tell on many occasions about this jealousy that girls have for each other. Wollstonecraft compares men and women and says, "but women are very differently situated with respect to each other-for they are all rivals"(121). It is amazing to me how even in the 1700s women were competitive and rivals. I am confused why this rivalry had been going on for hundreds of years. Wollstonecraft makes a valid point in bringing up how by paying so much attention to your physical self, one can forget to respect what is on the inside. She says, "Did women really respect virtue for its own sake, they would not seek for compensation in vanity, for the self-denial which they are obliged to practice to preserve their reputation, nor would they associate with men who set a reputation at defiance" (88). If women joined together rather then constantly fighting each other, not only would we have more respect for each other, we would have more respect from the men who are apparently so important to impress.
Feeling Beautiful
Prom is just around the thing and there is only one thing girl have been talking about: Pre-prom diets. What is it about prom that makes girl want to look so much better than every other day? I have to admit that I am 100% guilty of the pre-prom salads and nightly gym sessions. I have to say that between my friends and I, it is rare if at least one person doesn't bring up NEEDING to eat healthy, or expressing guilt before eating something delicious. In reality, I can't think of one friend, or even one girl at ASL who has any sort of weight issue. The Beauty Myth has me constantly questioning why my friends and I always want to be thinner and prettier. It seems crazy that the source of all our insecurities could be from the media. At this point, I am convinced that we, women, are the ones keeping the beauty myth alive.
In the chapter, "Beyond The Beauty Myth", Wolf talk about ways to get past the self-concious lifestyle that most women trap themselves in. Naomi Wolf brings up several of the same questions I have about the beauty myth and where it is headed in the future. She asks, "Can we extend that idea?" (the idea of the beauty myth) "Or are women the pliable sex, innately adapted to being shaped, cut, and subjected to physical invasion?" (270). Wolf goes on asking questions related to the beauty myth and how women view themselves for nearly a page longer, which reinforces the ridiculousness of how women view themselves. She asks, "Are women beautiful or aren't we?" (271). My answer to that question is that if a women feels beautiful then she is beautiful. I hope that all women can reach a point when they really feel beautiful in their own skin, and hopefully this beauty does not come about just because of a successful diet.
In the chapter, "Beyond The Beauty Myth", Wolf talk about ways to get past the self-concious lifestyle that most women trap themselves in. Naomi Wolf brings up several of the same questions I have about the beauty myth and where it is headed in the future. She asks, "Can we extend that idea?" (the idea of the beauty myth) "Or are women the pliable sex, innately adapted to being shaped, cut, and subjected to physical invasion?" (270). Wolf goes on asking questions related to the beauty myth and how women view themselves for nearly a page longer, which reinforces the ridiculousness of how women view themselves. She asks, "Are women beautiful or aren't we?" (271). My answer to that question is that if a women feels beautiful then she is beautiful. I hope that all women can reach a point when they really feel beautiful in their own skin, and hopefully this beauty does not come about just because of a successful diet.
Advertising Gone Wrong
Since the turn of the century, advertisement towards women has had always had a very clear message. Even in victorian magazines, "Glamour, he claims, was a main tool in the enlistment campaign" (62) for men to join the army. Next, in the 1950's, even after women had just finished working several jobs for their husbands while they were off at war, TV ads were almost entirely based off the the stereotype of women being they housewife. After all these years women are still being labeled in advertisements: "Women are deeply affected by what their magazines tell them" (70). The fact that this issue is only getting worse makes me want to do everything in my power to reverse the beauty myth.
Advertising is always something I have been interested in. I have always found it scary and exciting that a picture you see on TV or in a magazine can have one meaning on the surface and millions of other reasons hidden beneath it. This is also one reason that I have been on the edge about advertisement. This class has had me thinking about women, and now I have more of a goal for my future in advertising. I would love to help reverse the beauty myth by creating ads that are in favor to women. It would be amazing to see more commercials just like the Dove commercials that promote more than one type of beauty. I would also love to involve humor into my commercials and find a way to mock the ridiculous ads that are all over TV and magazines.
Advertising is always something I have been interested in. I have always found it scary and exciting that a picture you see on TV or in a magazine can have one meaning on the surface and millions of other reasons hidden beneath it. This is also one reason that I have been on the edge about advertisement. This class has had me thinking about women, and now I have more of a goal for my future in advertising. I would love to help reverse the beauty myth by creating ads that are in favor to women. It would be amazing to see more commercials just like the Dove commercials that promote more than one type of beauty. I would also love to involve humor into my commercials and find a way to mock the ridiculous ads that are all over TV and magazines.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Education
Education plays a huge role in both The Beauty Myth and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In The Beauty Myth, it is constantly reminded that women need to know about the stereotypes of women and how the media influences society. Naomi Wolf urges the importance of speaking about the beauty myth: "For any one women to outgrow the myth, she needs the support of many women" (282). This means that unless women are talking with each other about their insecurities they will not be able to overcome them. A Vindication of the Rights of Women states that women in general need to be educated in order to be seen as virtuous in society. Mary Wollstonecraft believes that "ignorance is a frail base for virtue!" (70). It is amazing to me that two books, one from the 1990s, and the other from the 1700s can be compared on the same subject. The sad part is that even virtuous and educated women are suffering from the effects of the beauty myth. The biggest difference between these two books is that The Beauty Myth separates men and women, while A Vindication of the Rights of Women wants women to be exactly like men.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women has me thinking about how little progress has been made over hundreds of years. The fact that this subject of women in society is still an argument makes me what to do as Naomi Wolf says and tell people about the issue at hand. The other night I was showing my best friend from home pictures of ads of women that were completely offensive and degrading. She was extremely interested by it and kept asking for more examples of how the media effects how women perceive themselves. By educating my friend about this subject, I am already helping to remove the beauty myth from our culture. Maybe by educating everyone, one day society could chance and women can be beautiful in their own ways.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women has me thinking about how little progress has been made over hundreds of years. The fact that this subject of women in society is still an argument makes me what to do as Naomi Wolf says and tell people about the issue at hand. The other night I was showing my best friend from home pictures of ads of women that were completely offensive and degrading. She was extremely interested by it and kept asking for more examples of how the media effects how women perceive themselves. By educating my friend about this subject, I am already helping to remove the beauty myth from our culture. Maybe by educating everyone, one day society could chance and women can be beautiful in their own ways.
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