5-year-old model

From: Alyssa

The title of my photo is 5-year-old supermodel. The title just came to me after selecting what I thought was the best photo out of all the ones I took of the two young girls playing in makeup. I wanted to convey the subtopic of two cultures of childhood. The main points from this topic that stood out to me were the gender differences that I ignored when thinking about children and how they are raised. In the “Two Cultures of Childhood” essay one point that stood out to me was “children learn gender schemas from their social environments…” (Rudman and Glick Pg.59). One of the gender differences that I wanted to focus on was girls learn at a young age the importance of appearance and looks whereas that isn’t very important for boys. A huge aspect of where they learn this is from the classic Barbie. Stated from the “Two Cultures of Childhood” essay, “Barbie and her legion of imitators represent feminine ideals and encourage such activities as pretend shopping, grooming, and accessorizing” (Rudman and Glick Pg.61) And what better way to captivate that key point than with makeup. The things I was focused on for this picture was the symbolism and framing of the picture. Makeup represents beauty. Many people in our society believe you can only be beautiful if one you wear makeup; but not too much makeup going for a natural look, and look if your body looks a certain way. So I wanted the makeup to symbolize just that, societies view on beauty. I set the picture up in a way where my “model” was taking up majority of the frame so that the focus would be on her. In the actual photo I wanted her to be doing her own makeup because at a young age I was talked to about the importance of appearance and was “gifted” a makeup set. I probably wasn’t any older than 7 but the idea of giving a young girl a makeup set and basically telling her the way to be pretty is by makeup is ridiculous to me. In the photo you can see the little girl applying the makeup to her face but she isn’t looking at the mirror she is looking up to her mom sort of looking for approval. To me that captives that she has barely any idea of what she’s doing and in order for her to feel good about it, then she must look up to someone older and she what their reaction is. She’s also making this sort of kissy face and I asked where she learned that and she said YouTube. In today’s society a huge aspect of where they learn is though technology.  I don’t want my children to grow up in a world were boy’s certain things and learn a certain way of life where as girls learn the opposite. Everything should be neutral. 

References

Rudman, Laurie A., and Peter Glick. The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press, 2015, pp. 59–63.