Helping Young Girls Fight For The Right To Be Ordinary
22August

Helping Young Girls Fight For The Right To Be Ordinary

Written by Craig Rogers, Posted on , in Section Essential Reads

It's a commonly held belief that we should strive for excellence in every endeavor that we undertake. Nowhere is this more glaringly obvious than in the expectations we place on today's young women and girls. It's understandably confusing to be a young girl these days (as if the transformations of adolescence aren't confusing enough), because society expects girls to fulfill so many different roles, for so many different people.

There is no worse sin that a young girl can commit to be 'ugly'. To many, a so-called homely appearance can consign a young girl to a fate seemingly worse than death. It means that the girl will likely spend her life ignored, alone, or worse, ready to receive a makeover from some perky, affable pretty girl or group of girls who would use this girl as a project. And yet, boys and men are not held to anywhere close to the same standard.

Male appearance may be characterized in extreme cases, such as if a man is extremely obese, has extreme acne scars, or is in some way disfigured. But in general, boys are simply not held to the same standard as men. Men are allowed to appear utterly 'normal'. To look 'normal' or 'average' is just to lack some of the exceptional features of some more conventionally attractive men. Men can make up for their appearance with skills, a sense of humor, a great personality or other talents and attributes.

Women get no such second chances. In fact, the world is becoming even less tolerant of normal women. It used to be that being beautiful was enough to get a woman by in society's eyes (as though one totally-out-of-one's-hands characteristic could ever allow a woman to lead a happy and fulfilling life). Now, young girls are told that in addition to being beautiful, they must also be geniuses, ready to lean in to every challenge, to 'compete' with men in terms of accomplishments, income and overall societal contribution.

As we know, being evolved and enlightened modern human beings, women are capable of doing all of these things and a thousand more. But, of course, for women it's not so simple. Because in addition to being talented, successful, witty, charming and extraordinarily pretty, women are also expected to be mothers. And not just mothers, but great mothers, of children who will undoubtedly achieve success themselves in the not distant future.

Parents of teen girls are the first line of defense when it comes to defining how young girls should define success. Helping form positive values from a young age, and developing a healthy sense of skepticism about portrayals of women in the media can go a long way.

How An Obsession With Princesses is Instructive of the Expectations We Place On Young Girls

Our society's fixation with princesses goes a long way to describe the collective values and concerns we have for women (and by extension, teen girls). When Kate Middleton married into the Royal Family last year, an unprecedented media wave covered every single second and addressed every possible question anyone could wonder. But more than anything, what the media wanted was for the young princess to become pregnant. When she was pregnant, there was jubilation, not just in the tabloids, but in otherwise respectable newspapers and magazines.

The second she gave birth to the baby, the headlines made a remarkable shift, and the message was clear: When WIll Fat Princess Lose Baby Body?

It's not enough to be a princess. It's not enough to be a mother. You have to also be slimmed and toned, as near to perfect as is possible.

So what kind of effect do these messages have on young girls?

Is it any surprise that we are seeing eating disorders rise at an exponential rate (and have seen one every decade since the 1930s)? Worse, eating disorders have risen sharply in children under 12. The message is clear, and it's infection impressionable mindsets at younger and even more distressing ages.

Is it any wonder that self-mutilating behavior is an increasingly common way to cope?

How about the fact that teen drug use is on the rise?

If you think that there's no correlation between these things, then you simply aren't looking hard enough.

The mass media is a mirror, and we all stare into it. Every episode of the Bachelor is a reminder of how lonely young women should feel if they haven't found 'the one'. Every episode of Gossip Girl is a reminder of how young girls should look and act. Even Disney shows encourage a body-image-centric conception of what young girls should look like, and if it doesn't add up, well, how will you ever become famous? Who could possibly want to make a reality show about someone so... average?

And that's just it. We have changed our values in such a way that normal is no longer good enough. Normal has become abnormal, worthy only of our disdain, a failed state. For girls, that is.

Because just think of all of the images of men that you see on television, in business and in your daily life. There are a million unremarkable men, whose value is never questioned because they're doing what we have come to expect from men. There's nothing wrong with their ordinariness. They're just living their lives. But they don't have the same existential angst (or if they do, it's a different kind of angst, resulting from a different set of problems), that results from having to conform to an increasingly rigid standard of successful womanhood.

Girls, a television program on HBO produced by Lena Dunham, may be thematically inappropriate for young viewers, but it delivers a decidedly mixed message, with its portrayal of a young Brooklynite in her early twenties as she struggles to find her place in a world that has complicated expectations of young women. She looks like many girls that we see every day, and yet her appearance has been ridiculed online because she does not look like the television starlets that we are accustomed to seeing. Her portrayal of obsessive compulsive disorder was met with accusations that she is 'weird' despite the fact that medical professionals praised the accuracy of the depiction.

Young girls do not deserve the pain we inflict upon them by asking them to measure themselves to impossible achievements. We are only setting them up for crushing disappointments. Excellence is a worthy goal, especially if it's something that has personal meaning to a girl. However, across the board excellence in all areas of life is simply unrealistic.

It's time that we took a look at society's values and figure out how we can change them so that we don't trap young girls in a cycle of their own self-perceived failure.

We want to build young girls into strong women. Doing that means giving them a solid foundation of confidence and trust in themselves. We need to help young girls understand that goals are accomplished one at a time. That whether you want to be a stay at home mom or an executive, or anyone of the billion possibilities in between those two disparate goals, your success is defined by your level of happiness. But in order to feel satisfied, we have to help young girls understand the virtues of being 'normal'.

 

Trinity Teen Solutions can help young girls struggling with poor values, which can affect them in a number of life-disrupting ways. Teen girls are increasingly at-risk for struggles with addiction, eating disorders and other ways of acting out. If you want to find an environment where safe, positive changes can happen, call 1-855-631-4424.