Star Spangled Girl

From: Katie

   For this assignment, I chose to look back on my own childhood. The focus and centerpiece of this photo was myself, around the time that I was 6 or 7 years old. It perfectly illustrates the way that girls are taught to act and look as women during childhood, and uses subtle cues to display such. When I’d shown the picture to my mother she told me it was one of her favorites, claiming I look “sassy”. This is understandable considering my eyes are directed straight at the camera, which in turn portrays confidence. The cause of this was most likely because I was told to do so, but the added confidence or “sassiness” may be credited from the pose I displayed.

   The pose that I had chosen at the time this photo was taken is very unnatural and is often depicted as a way to accentuate a woman’s most “valuable assets”, with my hip sticking out and my chest puffed to create an illusion of breasts.  Of course at the time, I may have chosen it because I saw it in a magazine or on television. This is a viable conclusion, as the media causes self-objectification through “chronically portraying women as sex objects” (McKinley, pg. 243). As one of the most influential factors in a child’s life in the 90’s and early 2000’s, those portrayed in magazines and television serve as a role-model for girls to look up to or attempt to replicate. The result is early self-objectification and sexualization in younger women that has only increased in 2016, creating pressure through impossible ideals that may lead to body shaming, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety.