Here is a picture of a girls Lego set. As you can see many of the blocks are purple and pink. Also there are many different “girl” accesories, like a hair brush, a picture of clothing, flowers etc.
Yesterday both women’s groups headed up to the Paley center to attend, Girls, Self Esteem and the Media class. The class originally was supposed to be for 30 people, but we decided to only go with the other women’s group so we could learn things that we could put in our teach in. I think that by only having 10 girls go, the class was more intimate, and all of us got lots more speaking time then we would have with 30 people.
The class itself was very interesting. We started out by just talking with Rebekah, the class’ teacher. First we spoke of the media’s perception of perfect girl. The first example Rebekah used was a Disney princess. Usually this princess is helpless and is dependent on their boyfriend/parter. Also, in the end of most of the stories the very young girls are get married. What message is that sending to all the girls watching these movies? Along with helplessness, the princess is always skinny, and on top of that, they have an unrealistically curvy figure. I found it interesting that all of the classic Disney princess’s fit these characteristics.
After, Rebekah told us some disturbing statistics about how girls feel about themselves and their body in their childhood to adulthood:
•80% of ten year old girls are scared of becoming fat
•40-70% of middle school girls dislike 2 or more things about their bodies
•81% of girls want to see natural photos of women/models in magazines
•60% of girls compare themselves to models in magazines
•30% of girls starve themselves to become skinnier
After, we watched clips from shows and advertisements. One clip that especially struck me was an episode from That So Raven, a childhood favorite of mine. The episode was about Raven winning a fashion contest, and getting to model her design on the runway. But when Raven went to go get her dress to wear in the show, she was told that her body “just wasn’t right for the runway” and if she wanted her dress to be seen, then she would have to let a “real model” wear it. While Raven was very hurt by this statement, she decides to make a stand, and not let anyone wear her dress. She also tells everyone that her body is just fine the way it is. Within the series of clips we watched, this was more of a positive message, but there were others that were both negative and gender bias. One add we watched was for a girls Lego set. When we looked close at the add we noticed that all of the Lego pieces were pink and purple. And the fact that Lego blocks for girls are made a little bigger than the one meant for boys. The rest of the clips were great and they also brought up some interesting though questions for my group and I.
Overall I think this class was a great experience and I loved going. It has definitely given me great ideas for out teach in and I look forward to going back with the membership cards Rebekah gave us.
