Tuesday's video, "What a Girl Wants," was just another reaffirmation that women of all ages are influenced and defined by the media (which is in turn governed by the same old patriarchal ideals we've been discussing). While the video was a bit dated (citing pre-psychotic, childless Britney Spears, tiny teenager Christina Aguliera, pre-Nick Lache/Newlyweds Jessica Simpson, etc.), it was still valuable for our discussions and readings about femininity.
Most of the girls interviewed in the 2001 documentary were between the ages of 10 and 14 (a few younger, a few older); since I was 11/12 in 2001, I found I could easily recall the music videos, movies, fashions, diet fads, commercials, etc. that influenced how girls my age felt, looked, and acted. Like the pre-teens interviewed, I thought nothing of the effects the media had on me and just went along with anything that the popular girls wore or did.
As I finished 6th grade and entered the junior/senior high school as a timid 7th grader in 2001, I quickly learned that being taken seriously as a junior-high girl meant trading in all of my comfortable Nike and Adidas t-shirts and sweatshirts and my generic, baggy jeans or wind-breaker pants (in 6th grade we called them "swishy pants") for bell-bottom jeans that glittered or had flowers in just the right places; my twin sister and I fought every week over whose turn it was to wear a pair of bell-bottoms that was suggestively laced from waist to ankle. As far as puberty and developing hips and boobs, I was a (very) late bloomer and everything happened (very) slowly. Junior high was grueling.
Thank God for twin sisters.
I remember my sister and I obsessing endlessly in front of the mirror over how "boxy" our hips were and how flat-chested we were. I really can't imagine getting through adolescence without her. While all of the popular girls in our class had magically developed in the summer between 6th and 7th grades (or else had taken to wearing padded bras), Sophie and I just...didn't. Our awkward bodies didn't stop us from begging our mom to buy us the latest American Eagle and Aeropostale clothes and sneaking off to buy them and other popular clothing if she refused (I think I bought my first thong in 7th grade because all of the popular girls in my gym class had made fun of my "granny panties" when we were changing). They wore thongs because of Sisqo's "Thong Song" music video and other advertisements that showed girls' thongs pulled up above their jeans...just like in the documentary. I didn't want to be wearing these outrageously uncomfortable underwear or shirts that advertised "hidden" sexual meanings, but I did it because it's what was popular and I saw that the girls who conformed to latest fads (prescribed by media) got the most attention.
Like some of the girls interviewed, I really don't remember being concerned with or thinking about sex at that age. I remember in 8th grade one of my friends told me that her older (9th grade) sister had given a blow job to her boyfriend. I had absolutely no idea what a blow job was, so she told me; all I remember thinking is why on earth would anyone ever put their mouth on that?! You have to swallow WHAT?! It seemed utterly disgusting and made-up to me. Of course my mom had talked to us about sex and I'd had tons of crushes and flings with boys my age who'd kissed me on the cheek, but sex seemed the least of my worries until about 9th grade when I became friends with a senior who spared no detail in telling me all about her sex life. I got a boyfriend in the middle of 9th grade and was overcome with the pressure put on couples that age and expectations that everyone had them.
Bottom-line, I was exactly like the girls in "What a Girl Wants." Even though I knew and felt how unfair it was that molding to media's looks and behaviors determined the amount of attention you got from boys (as well as your status among girls), I still conformed. It seemed impossible not to... programs and advertisements on Mtv and Vh1 forced girls my age to grow up faster... to buy and wear clothes that promoted objectification and act a certain way so that boys were intrigued and attracted and not scared or repulsed. To tell you the truth, I don't think I really stopped conforming until late in high school. Ugh! I wonder who I really was all those years.
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