Our society needs to stop making these assumptions that all girls want to keep up with their appearance. For many girls, that is mostly never the case. Most of these females want people to look far beyond their appearance and focus on their abilities, goals, aspirations and personality. Looks are not forever, but a character sure is. In today’s society, women are not viewed as equal in comparison to their male counterparts. Our society is quick to assume that women will never be able to hold those capabilities and traits that men have, simply because of the fact that the traditional role of a woman is to be; a caretaker, birth giver, fragile and conservative. In many cases, women are held back from experiencing even the slightest amount of freedom or liberty, because those two factors are generally only granted to men. Women have had to face living up to beauty standards always and the standards are only getting more unrealistic. I know this well because I’ve experienced it. All throughout middle school and high school, girls were judged constantly on a daily basis on their looks.Beauty is another huge factor in the gender socialization that women experience. Mainstream media makes sure to remind our women that there is a certain image that they must keep up with in order to be considered beautiful.It is not surprising why so many of our younger female generations are so eager to grow up so quickly. They do so in order to conform to society’s expectations of who they should be, how they should act and look like. These girls rather look and be the part than have to deal with the social anxieties and stigmas that come with not being beautiful. In her text, Dona Eder tells us that males will always hold the upper hand in the society that we live in. Not only do men grow up to become great leaders but, they end up making a lot of the decisions in a woman’s life that a woman should be able to do by herself. This just goes off to show that our society thinks that women are not capable of taking care of themselves so, instead a man should do it for her. Also, men tend to have a strong say in the way they think a woman should look or not. Girls grow up thinking that looks are everything and no one will love them unless they’re beautiful regardless of if they’re beautiful on the inside. Even though I have a good sense of humor, have a caring heart, and have ambitions, they meant nothing in terms of looks. Eder says, “These experiences send girls a strong message that what they do and who they are is less important than how they look.” (Henslin 179) It’s literally the way we are raised, and the influence of media and society. It’s harsh and difficult for girls to be confident and love themselves and it is what eventually leads to self-harm and the development of eating disorders like Anorexia, Bulimia, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, etc. Girls are made to think they should be skinny and end up starving themselves to look like the pretty and popular girl at school. This is a horrible effect of the beauty standards constructed by society and it is unhealthy for our young girls to be raised with this mindset.(which this also happens to male but is more common for a female)
Females are the strongest and the most under rated. So much is done with women and with help from them which many males don’t see or don’t assume and this is sad. And it male that make women like this see someone pretty and they jump at it, see a girl rise and they jump and pull back. Why is this society?
Socially Loco 