As a woman, and more importantly, as an older sister, I often find myself examining the environment young girls of today are growing up in, and feeling the teeth of worry gnawing at my gut. My younger sister is 10 years old, nearing puberty, but not quite emerged from childhood. [break]
I know that she is at an age where her eyes and mind are like a sponge–absorbing all of the media, advertisements, and opinions around her. But while I know that she cannot help but be influenced by the cascade of information and viewpoints around her, I hope that she does not internalize it completely and allow it to shape the kind of woman she becomes.
Media places such an emphasis on physical beauty, sexuality, and on the maternal, gentle side of women. Mothers and fathers can emphasize feminist ideals to their young daughters, but at a certain age, their voices have less of an impact than the chatter of classmates or the glowing influence of the television screen. It’s true that we need kind women, we need good mothers, but ultimately what we need most is strong women—especially when one takes into account the scope and prevalence of physical and sexual abuse of women.
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Yet instead of focusing on intelligent and resilient women, TV shows geared toward young girls often portray them as perfectly stylized and proportioned wind-up dolls, concerned with hair, make-up, and most of all–boys. To be successful according to these narratives is to be attractive to the opposite sex. To be “nerdy” or intellectually focused is something to be overcome, not embraced. This not only reflects but also influences all too much the attitudes within the preteen and teenage groups who are watching. In advertisements, it is always the women talking about household cleaning products, cookware, and child-care items—because no male actor could properly explain the advantages of lemon scented dish soap? Don’t men have sons and daughters whom they must buy diapers for? If one were to believe the billboards and magazines, you’d think the male sex was incapable of handling a baby’s soiled diaper.
When walking through the toy aisle with my little brother and sister, I see too many boxes with little boys with toy cars and briefcases, and little girls with pots and pans in a play kitchen. The aisles in many toy stores are divided between the genders by more than just a color scheme—pink and sparkly for girls, and black and blue for boys. There is also a contrast in the purpose of many of the toys, with a focus on action and education for young men, or toys that encourage them to practice various careers—guns and badges for future policemen, plastic tool kits to for the future architect, and small electronics for the future engineers of today. But judging by the selection of playthings my sister chooses from, her only career options fall under the category of princess, cook, mother, or hairdresser.
Direct sexism is still a problem—there is no question—but my young sister has been taught to recognize and fight gender bias of the obvious type. It is the indirect messages that concern me. Those things that seem to hint or whisper out of the mouths of the media that she as a girl is capable of only certain things—these are the things that I worry about. She can only consider what she sees, but probably never considers what she does not see on television.
She sees beauty and ideal body shape, motherhood and dainty feminine, fear of spiders. She does not see determination and passion amidst a life that could be dirty, or messy, or tough. She may never choose to wander into the “boys” section of a toy store, and so may never even know that there are other options. Even if she did, she would say “those are for boys, I can’t play with them without my friends making fun of me,” and she would be right about the stigma of her peers. They too would have learned a set concept of what is “normal” for a girl to play with, and would not understand her interests if she deviated.
That fear of being different from the apparent standard is another challenge that I know she will face if she comes to believe what she is told is “normal” is how things actually are, or how they should be. She does not see men with baby carriers, or hear her friends say they want to be high powered company executives—they want to be ballerinas, or vets, or beautiful actresses and rock stars. It is because of all of the things my little sister does not hear about that I worry for her, and the other older sisters of our generation should worry as well.
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