The push to be feminine in America can be suffocating. The pressure to be a certain way, to dress “right”, to adhere to the correct colors, and be innocent and sexy at the same time and at an early age can be confusing. Girls are taught that to be proper your dress has to be a certain length, your shoulders have to be covered, and you have to be innocent. However, they are bombarded in media by the idea that you have to be sexy to be noticed. These contradicting ideas can be harmful to adolescent girls as the book, The Social Psychology of Gender by Laurie A. Rudman and Peter Glick says, “This physical Change, combined with a cultural value on a more wispy (or, increasingly, a well-toned) feminine form, seems like a potent recipe for eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, which girls experience at a much higher rate than boys” (217). Even though we want girls to be healthy, we still, as a society, attribute attraction to thinness. Also, girls are told that they must act with an amount of innocence and passiveness to be accepted. The Social Psychology of Gender states that, “Girls, however, are expected to act in line with a more passive, feminine gender schema” (218). This is a concealed harm that teaches girls that they are less valuable than men. Unless we begin to teach girls that they have value beyond their bodies we will continue to harm them.
In my picture I tried to get across the pressure of idyllic innocence by using stereotypical feminine colors and images. Most of the objects in my image are pink or soft purples. The pillow with the flowers is a symbol of the overwhelming pressure of feminine innocence, the pillow is pushing the doll down slightly. The doll, Catherine, was my favorite when I was a kid. She is not a typical girl’s doll. She is bigger, not pretty in our society’s standards and her dress is blue, contrary to the other colors in the picture. She is surrounded by the pressures of feminine ideals. She looks away from the camera and is nearly off the frame. She is not the focus of the picture. The bra and underwear are symbols of sexual pressure. They are large and imposing and covering up the symbols of innocence and Catherine. Both the pressures of idyllic innocence and sexuality outweigh Catherine, she is pushed to the side. She has a small razor blade on her dress. It’s almost blends in. This is a symbol of the negative impact these pressures have on girl’s lives.
Rudman, Laurie A., Peter Glick, and Susan T. Fiske. The social psychology of gender: how power and intimacy shape gender relations. New York: The Guilford Press, 2015. Print.
2 comments:
From: Heather
I loved this photo because I feel it really represents the sexualization of young girls or even the movement of girls from childhood into pubescence. This is first stated by the doll that is modestly clothed and cute. It isn’t a sexualized doll like a Bratz doll or Barbie. It is an innocent looking doll a young girl would love to play with. Next to it, the bra and what looks to be a chemise, is thrown on top of the doll as if it is forgotten or no longer needed. The bra is also frilly and feminine, with what looks to be a push up. This is also an excellent way to show the body images that women have for themselves. Even something as simple as a push up bra to “improve” her body in subtle ways. The other thing to take into account, which was my favorite part of the photo, was the flowers on the pillow directly behind the underwear. This really felt like a sexual moment as a women’s virginity is often compared to as being pure or their “flower”. The flower could also represent that odd saying that seems to still float around even in today’s modern society that, ‘your virginity is like a delicate flower’. Even terms such as “deflowering” are pretty substantial in our society today. The symbolism of the bright, red and pink flowers may not have been intentional, but it was well placed and put my mind directly into the young sexualization of girls. The fact that the doll is still out shows that she is perhaps young herself and is already worried about things like sexualizing her body.
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