Mixed Messages
As girls we are told by our well-meaning parents and teachers that we can “be anything we want to be.” This idea runs counter to the messages given to girls by the media. Images in the media portray the following messages to girls and women: be a doctor, but be sexy, and man-crazy, be a teacher, but be irreverent, ditzy, and boy-crazy, be a lawyer, but be completely unsure of yourself, and make sure you are anorexically thin while you are at it, be a wife, but make sure you cow-tow to the needs of your husband, because he is the “leader of the family.” Talk about mixed messages. Sexiness, beauty ideals, and subservience, are all messages that girls get from media. How do we know we are supposed to hate our bodies? Time and money spent on external beauty has stunted women across our society. They lack understanding of this reality, of their being in the world because of their imposed, accepted realities. Sure, they want celebrity magazines. Its a way to dull the indescribable, unidentifiable ache they feel to be what they don’t know what they really need…..to be fully human. A bird doesn’t know she is in a cage. She can only see a bar here, a bar there. She can’t tell she is in it because she is completely encapsulated. The objectification of women (of people…it happens to men, too) is like a cage. We are completely encapsulated in it everyday, so we don’t see it for what it is. Harmful.
