My sister and I are waiting in the checkout line at Giant. Rows of magazines surround us. Seventeen, Teen, Elle Girl, Teen People. "Four Easy Steps to Perfect Eyebrows," "Seven Ways to Get Your Guy," "Sexy New Jeans," "Your Ultimate Bikini Body Workout." On top of her pile of eyeliners, mascara and lipsticks my sister places a Seventeen Magazine. My sister is not 17, she is 12.

Girls are taught about the need to look pretty and be attractive from an early age. Five-year-olds are given Barbie dolls with flawless makeup, perfect hair, and ridiculous figures. As girls grow up they see people like Britney Spears and the Spice Girls plastered all over the media wearing skimpy clothing and being idolized. Girls are force-fed the media’s unrealistic idea of beauty all of their lives, but middle school is when it gets bad.

Middle school is when kids are trying to figure out who they are and how their identity fits in with the rest of the world and the rest of their peers. This is when girls really begin to see their value as directly linked to their appearance. Another thing middle school is widely known for is being the time when girls’ grades begin to fall. From the scantily clad women showing off game show prizes, to giant billboards for Hooter’s, to their own peers, girls find themselves overwhelmed with the need for makeup and becoming "thin enough" rather than a need for accomplishment and satisfaction in their activities.

Television is a major purveyor of these unrealistic and damaging ideals. Yet TV and advertisements are not seen as things children need to be protected or shielded from, they are just parts of everyday life. The objectification of women has become so expected and normal that it is almost subliminal. While most parents would try to keep their children from watching news coverage of a rape or other physical violence against women, it would not even occur to them to keep the child from viewing the commercials in between. Viewing commercials containing outlandish beauty standards can be just as damaging as watching reports of physical violence against women. Even the women who take part in commercials furthering the objectification of women do not see it as a problem-- they too were brought up with these destructive values. What one learns in childhood can be hard to shake.

Girls are taught from such a young age that their value is in attracting a mate and the way one does this is not by being a good person but by possessing smooth skin, nice hair, and being slender. This is harmful, beyond the occasional eating disorder. This social mentality affects even the most accomplished of women. Generations of girls are constantly told that their looks and dress size are more important than what they might accomplish. One has to wonder what these generations could have contributed had they been taught otherwise.

Women’s World, Women’s Day, Cosmopolitan, Allure; the women’s magazines are just as bad as the teen ones, if not worse. Cooking, losing weight, designer clothes, and attracting men. The effects of middle school do not just fade away.

 

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