In this photograph, a middle-school age girl curls her hair while getting ready to go out to dinner with her family. Moments earlier, her mother was doing the same. Part of the meaning in this photo is to demonstrate the role same-sex family members and peers have in creating the behavior and lifestyle of a child. However, the more pressing message conveys the issues of the beauty standards for young girls and women alike. In this specific photo, most of the frame is blurry except for the girl’s face. This is meant to show how a person’s appearance can be the main focus of other people. Additionally, the camera was placed slightly below the subject’s face and the subject takes up a majority of the frame. This was done to show how girls and women can gain self-confidence when they put effort into improving their appearance. This desire to be attractive stems from the societal belief that the most important part of women is their body and appearance. This can create a tainted image in the mind of young girls, such as the one in the photo, and lead them to believe that they should aspire to beauty rather than education or career success.
3 comments:
This relates to the "Problem that has No Name" because this photo resembles the fact that women are taught to stay feminine and to frown upon the nontraditional roles. The focused frame of this young girl's face shows that she is already trying too hard to fit into the feminine roles of being a beautiful "mother" or "housewife" because they were taught that too much education is a marriage bar. It may or may not "scare" men off whether they want to marry a educated woman versus an uneducated woman. This stretches the "problem" with young women: housewives lost their identity. It also states that another issue is that women rarely use their "brain power" since they are so focused on looking beautiful. Not that this young girl is not using her brain power but rather she seems to have her priorities the same way women had them back in the 1950's: beauty over education, marriage over education. This young girl is conforming to the "feminine fulfillment:" to be a wife and mother. Why else would she adopt the ways of her mother's ways of being beautiful (straightening and curling hair)? This young girl has already learned one of the main points: beauty is key to a man's heart. The more this young girl conforms to the ways of these traditional roles, the quicker this young girl can lose her identity.
In this image most the focus is on the girl in the photo. The girl is centered and takes up most of the background. Most of the picture is blurred except her face. Focusing on just her face can emphasize the amount of focus society has on girls following beauty standards. Girls believe they need to change their appearance in an effort to make them more desirable in societies eyes. The girl in the photo is not looking at the camera, which could relate to the self-consciousness she feels about her own appearance. The caption to the picture talks about how the girl just saw her mom getting ready before which relates this photo to the idea of social learning theory and gender roles. The daughter has learned this behavior of fixing her hair and make up before going out because she sees people around her doing the same thing and has positive reinforcement when she follows this behavior.
In this image most of the focus is on the girl in the photo. The girl is centered and takes up most of the background. Most of the picture is blurred except her face. Focusing on just her face can emphasize the amount of focus society has on girls following beauty standards. Girls believe they need to change their appearance in an effort to make them more desirable in societies eyes. The girl in the photo is not looking at the camera, which could relate to the self-consciousness she feels about her own appearance. The caption to the picture talks about how the girl just saw her mom getting ready before which relates this photo to the idea of social learning theory and gender roles. The daughter has learned this behavior of fixing her hair and make up before going out because she sees people around her doing the same thing and has positive reinforcement when she follows this behavior.
Post a Comment