"With puberty, girls face enormous cultureal pressure to split into false selves. The pressure comes from schools, magazines, music, television, advertisements, and movies. It comes from peers. girls can be true to themselves and risk abandonment by their peers, or they can reject their true selves and be socially acceptable. Most girls choose to be socially accepted and split into two selves, one that is authentic and one that is culturally scripted. In public they become who they are supposed to be.
Authenticity is an "owning" of all experience, including emotions and thoughts that are not socially acceptable. Because self-esteem is based on the acceptance of all thoughts and feeling as one's own, girls lost confidence as they "disown" themselvs. They suffer enormous losses when they stop expressing certain thoughts and feelings."
We were given this prompt and asked to give our opinion on how we feel about gender and how that affects us and this is what i thought:
Being yourself isn't something that has a room in a girl's world. Yes, I do understand that we genuinely like our clothes and that our hair styles are our own; however, I do believe that WHY we like things the way we do is something entirely not our own. Sitting right, talking appropriately, and knowing simply how to BE is what is needed. Girls will pick at eachother, at what someone is wearing, at what purse they carry, and what store their jeans came from. Don't be yourself, be who THEY want you to be. Being perfect isn't an idea it's an action for girls in high school.
Yes, I did say girls. I do understand that boys care what other boys think. But girls are raised in a war of survival, a king of the mound sort of experience. Boys don't sit at lunch and say wow..I can't believe she thought it was OK to wear those pants in public. They clearly have a social ladder much like girls do but the difference among the rungs is much smaller and much less of a big deal.
Be strong girls, wear those pants out in public if you like them! Just be aware that someone that cares is always watching...
6 comments:
You can't have said it better. I think it happens a lot at our school because we are a "rich" town. Beacuse everyone thinks that we have money, we are supposed to dress nice and act perfect. I don't think it's necessarily people who care that are going to say stuff about what your wearing, it's anyone and everyone.
Dude Jen,
that was awesomeee. just like Hannah said, I don't think you could have said it any better! McFarland is such a close knit town, everyone hears everything, and nothing ever goes on in this town. So a girls jeans that aren't from some designer place is the biggest issues we seem to have. Now I KNOW that is not the truth, that is what most people feel. Get out there and listen to the real things that are going on McFarland.
GOOD JOB JEN!
:)
Everyone judging one another by their apperance happens so often and McFarland being small just makes the situation worse since we all know everything about one another. Only a half year left until college and a new start w/ new faces :)
Wow! That sums up a lot of things about girls in general. I also feel that it happens a ton at our school. It may be because we are such a small school that everyone knows everyone and all their buiness. So if someone doesn't dress the part of what a lot of girls at our school thinks then they will be bombarded.
Hey Jenny! I completely agree with your views on this subject. And even if you don't want to be one of those girls, most of us find ourselves in that judgemental place. I think it's partly to blame on the close knit and rich community we live in but also because a lot of the time we just have nothing better than to people watch. Nice post!
Dang Jenny! That was an awesome blog! I basically don't have anything else to say, because you said it all! It's all so incredibly true, which is sad. But in McFarland, its hard to be yourself, which I have personally learned. But I really don't care if they are watching me, I would wear those ugly jeans, if I had them! Haha!
GOOD JOB!!
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