I felt that this past week’s readings, which largely centered on the artificial ideal or beauty that we have within our society, were particularly applicable to the CAP project that we selected.  Growing up during the period of time when pop stars like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson were just coming on the scene we saw their image, and the images of those trying to imitate them, literally everywhere.  For a long time you could not buy a magazine without one of these three, or others like them, being either on the cover or plastered on many of the pages throughout

 the book.  They all matched the description of the ‘ideal girl’  which Higginbotham coins in her essay “Teen Mags: How to Get a Guy, Drop 20 Pounds, and Lose Your Self- Esteem,” “white, usually blonde and invariably skinny” (Higginbotham). 

Growing up seeing these images all the time, I never once thought about what they were teaching me.  I mean of course we all hear the warning that these types of roll models are teaching young girls to be too sexy, or rather to be too sexual.  In fact my mother always encouraged me to follow Jessica Simpson’s example

 because she seemed to be the most ‘wholesome’ of the teen stars of the day; if we only knew then what we know now.  However, I never thought about the powerful dichotomy that Higginbotham points out near the end of her essay that young girls, some as young as 12 and 13 years old, are supposed to both attract all men but not to the point that ‘inappropriate’ men are drawn to them such as married men, teachers, or rapists. 

Of course we have all at some point experienced the double standard that women are supposed to be both virginal and experienced, but this phenomenon that Higginbotham points out takes this even one step further first by shifting the age group focus to a younger demographic and placing the real life implications of toeing the virginal/experienced 

line on the shoulders of these girls.  This is all too painfully apparent in the magazine article that Higginbotham relates concerning the girl who was

 tricked by her boyfriend and may have been gang raped.  When the girl was brave enough to anonymously come forward with her story, she was publicly chastised for her “scandalous” behavior.

We could talk all day about how the system is currently broken, but this will never bring about any change other than maybe changing flawed views we may have previously had on the issue.  So how do we affect real change?  One solution presented in other readings over the past weeks is that we need to create a new form of media in which other views can be aired.  However as Higginbotham’s article noted the formerly feminist magazine Sassy had been pretty much destroyed when the magazine was bought by a different company and had to succumb to a sex selling advertising empire to finance the publication.  In a world where the media is totally dependant on advertising for existence and advertising is obsessed with sex, because frankly sex sells, it seems like a far shot to think that the two could ever exist without each other.

So if putting out a new form of media is a tried and failed method, what other options do we have?  Another suggested method to bring about change has been the grassroots approach.  It seems in this situation a grassroots approach may be the way to go.  I think at a certain point every girl gets upset with what she is being shown in teen magazines and if there is an alternative presented to her she will jump at it so long as it is available.  Before coming to college I had heard of feminism, but never knew what the movement really was or what it could do for me, other than give me the right to vote and really, really long time ago.  I think if there were more general education presented to young girls in school and other youth groups they would look upon what is being presented to them in the media with a more critical eye.

~Katerina Silcox