Ever since I was a little girl, I have been taught about what a girl should and shouldn’t do, what a girl should or shouldn’t wear, and even what a girl should or shouldn’t be. And as I got older my identity has slowly conformed to these gender ideas. But, what if when I was younger I hadn’t been taught about gender and what if gender ideals wouldn’t have been pushed onto us by the media? Would I be the same person that I am today, or would I be someone completely different? I would hope that I would be the same person now, but I do not believe that that would be the case. The media enforces gender ideals and society pushes against anything that could be perceived as “different”. Society makes being “different” hard because being “different” doesn’t fit into its preconceived categories. This notion can be seen in Lois Gould’s article about an X child and also in Anastasia Higginbotham’s article about the subliminal messages that teenagers are receiving through the media.
In Lois …show more content…
My mother and father saw me as a cute and innocent little girl who was too fragile and soft to do anything fun. So when I wanted to play in the dirt with my little brother, I was scolded because it wasn’t ladylike. Instead, my mother placed me in a beauty pageant, where I had to wear dresses, makeup, and swimwear in front of judges who got to choose which of us was cutest and worthy of being crowned. Though I didn’t enjoy it, at the time, I thought that this was what girls were supposed to do. We were supposed to be cute and clean opposed to being rough and dirty. I lived most of my childhood that way, I would let my mother dress me up in dresses and play house, instead of running around or playing in the dirt with my little brother. Though as I grew older, I realized that I didn’t want to keep being so girly. Even though everything I watched on TV or read in
In Lois …show more content…
My mother and father saw me as a cute and innocent little girl who was too fragile and soft to do anything fun. So when I wanted to play in the dirt with my little brother, I was scolded because it wasn’t ladylike. Instead, my mother placed me in a beauty pageant, where I had to wear dresses, makeup, and swimwear in front of judges who got to choose which of us was cutest and worthy of being crowned. Though I didn’t enjoy it, at the time, I thought that this was what girls were supposed to do. We were supposed to be cute and clean opposed to being rough and dirty. I lived most of my childhood that way, I would let my mother dress me up in dresses and play house, instead of running around or playing in the dirt with my little brother. Though as I grew older, I realized that I didn’t want to keep being so girly. Even though everything I watched on TV or read in