Saved schoolwork

---

Works Cited

Works Cited


Knonpka, Gisela. Young Girls: A Portrait of Adolescence. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall Inc., 1976.

Schrum, Kelly. “Teena Means Business”. Delinquents and Debutantes. Ed. Sherrie A.
Inness. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Kearney, Mary Celeste. “Producing Girls”. Delinquents and Debutantes. Ed. Sherry A.
Inness. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Scanlon, Jennifer. “Boys-R-Us”. Delinquents and Debutantes. Ed. Sherry A. Inness. New
York: New York University Press, 1998.

Inness, Sherry A. “Anti- Barbies”. Delinquents and Debutantes. Ed. Sherry A. Inness.
New York: New York University Press, 1998.

“Helping Girls Succeed”. The Internet Public Library. 27 Apr. 2000. The Internet Public
Library. 25 Apr 2002 .

“ Tips 4 Grownups”. GirlPower. United States Government. 25 Apr. 2002

Paper

Vanessa Doody May 1, 2002
Essay 3

Female Consumerism and the Socialization of Adolescent Girls
Women have just about always been made to believe they were worthless and expendable members of any culture. Many studies have shown this mindset obviously still is perpetuated in our culture, as there are thousands of books and publications on its effect on the self- esteem of adolescent girls. It is literally a proven fact that by the time girls reach adolescence, they show a profound lack of self- efficacy and optimism about their own futures (Helping Girls Succeed, 1) What I present to you today is not that their still is a problem but the question of why--why after hundreds of books have been written about the subject, thousands of studies done, and a myriad of after- school specials shown, does the problem still occur? And why to the dramatic and devastating effect we see mirrored daily on our female youth? I believe there is a population that still pushes the awkward and unhealthy aspects of socialization on females in this country, in both subversive and blatant ways. Consumer culture encourages the socialization of adolescent girls and adherence to the status quo in order to sell products, and this practice is having a detrimental affect on the youth of today.
In any toy store, the huge gender difference between male- and female- oriented toys directed at children over three is not only apparent, but also blatant. The boys� aisle is stocked to the ceiling with characters of human ingenuity and male heroism, in dark and �manly� colors, while the girls� aisle is bursting with fake makeup, baby dolls, and mind- numbing, brightly colored board games. It is obvious that the toy companies and corporations push gender- specific socialization and the adherence to the status quo not merely because this raises up �good� boys and girls, but because they know what sells because they decide what sells. �Each [toy] teaches a different message about how men and women should act. Their accessories reflect the different expectations for each gender: G.I. Joe touts a rifle, Barbie nothing more lethal than a curling iron. G.I. Joe lurks in the trenches, not the shopping mall.� (Inness, 171). GI Joe and Barbie, along with all the other gender- specific toys, give young children the idea that these are the only ways that people can express themselves according to their gender. Men can follow their dreams and become anything they want to, as long as it is in a manly and �American� fashion, and girls are dependant on men to fulfill their dreams and make them feel worthy. Females do not generally put on makeup or dress- up to impress themselves or other women. In fact, I am sure that most women would rather not have to go through all the effort it takes. Yet (as all girls� toys are simply to amuse and prepare them for the �real world�), the idea that is being sent to young girls by allowing them to buy fake make- up is that it is ok to not accept and embrace their own beauty, flaws and all, but to cover it up and try to live by someone else�s standard of whom they should be. Some dolls also perpetuate this perception. From the American Girls collection, produced by Pleasant Company, one can buy a hair care set for the dolls which includes a styling cape, misting bottle, doll hairbrush, 12 hair rollers, and a packet of end papers. �Girls,� according to Inness, �are already being taught that primping and excessive preoccupation with appearance are issues that require special attention.�(177).
While women are nurturing souls at heart, and specifically designed to be mothers, pushing maternity and womanly-ness at such a young age is very destructive. Young girls start fantasizing about being a mother and a wife at a very young age, having their play centered on activities that will not actually take place for ten to twenty years, instead of just being a child. Girls in our society simply grow up too fast because of the standards set for them by the consumer culture. Instead of being encouraged to grow and develop their mind, body and spirit, they are pushed to work on developing, much too early, a part of them that will not be needed for a long time, leading to a sense of unfulfillment in their everyday lives and incongruity between who they actually are and who they are being pushed to be. As stated, women are naturally nurturing and loving beings, and although this area is grown when they become mothers and wives, they do not need to practice being a mommy or a wife before the time comes.
Some dolls also have a much more destructive, and most of the time very subtle, nature to them. All have heard about Barbie dolls and how they push impossible standards as far as body image is concerned. I believe some of these �realistic� dolls even push unrealistic standards for the nature of women in society and who they should be. Take a look at the accessories that come with many of these dolls. Firstly, the way they dress. Most are in very immodest, tight, exposing get- ups that send a completely wrong message to the female youth of today. The fashions are also right in line with the times, pushing girls to think they need to be in line with everyone else in society to be valued or accepted. Their life is a constant hunt for the �perfect little sweater� or great pair of shoes, instead of a time to grow and develop their true personalities and likes and dislikes. Most of the girl and women dolls are wearing high heels, not sneakers or another shoe that they can do anything in. How can one be a fantastic athlete, or do much of anything besides be a socialite, in a pair of stiletto heels? Which brings me to my next point- the lifestyle of the dolls.
Let�s face it; there are hardly any dolls, or toys in general, in which not having everything you want is acceptable. As Miriam Formanek- Brunnel states, in this country many dolls �promote self-fulfillment through... very earnest materialism� (169). Barbie has a myriad of beauty parlors, beach houses and expensive cars, not to mention the copious amount of shoes, clothing and accessories that can easily fill up any little girls� toy box. Little Tykes families, generally more modest than their peers in their amount of belongings, have everything they need and more. Even seemingly neutral dolls, such as the American Girls collection, push specific ideas of class and materialism. Although these dolls portrait a much more wholesome and realistic picture of childhood, and life in general, all the American Girls have an extraordinary amount of personal belongings that come with each individual, as well as a myriad of other accessories that you can purchase for each. Some accessories include more neutral, even encouraging, items such as computers and books, yet still push the same social politics as their counterparts-- the idea that being upper- middle to upper class and materialist are the only ways to truly be fulfilled in this society; that the more you have, the happier you will be. There is also no mention of money anywhere in the �lives� of these dolls-- none of them hold a job, and hardly any �live� with their parents. So where do they get the money to buy everything that they have? Seeing their dolls with so much, without knowing where their possessions come from, encourages girls to believe that one can get everything they want and not have to work for it, which leaves them with a very distorted world- view and a basically impossible standard to live up to. This mindset is also unfair to the poor, lower-, and middle- class (almost the whole populace of the U.S.) females who play with these toys that give them the distorted self- image that since they don�t have money, they are worse off or �worthless� members of society.
Another tool of the toy aisle and consumer culture to socialize girls affectively into women is gender- specific board games. Since the sixties, there has been a seeming explosion of gender-specific games, which are especially dangerous because they are subtler in their message than dolls or other toys. They are mostly directed at pre-teen and adolescent girls during a time in their life where their concept of self is nominal, their insecurities high, and they can be molded into anything society tells them they should be. Also, during adolescence, the cognitive development that takes place within girls can encourage them to look at gender roles in a flexible way, but unfortunately, these molds and social constraints encourage them to limit their views of gender in a conformist and predictable way, which for girls includes the idea that they should get and keep a boyfriend to be considered successful (Scanlon, 186). Most of these games, like �Heart Throb,� and �Dream Date� perpetuate the idea that girls need males to feel fulfilled, and that they men are worth anything it takes to get them. Some games, such as �Meet Me at the Mall� directly encourage materialism and consumerism, as the object of the game is to out-buy one�s opponent using their credit card. �Sweet Valley High: Can you Find a Boyfriend in Time for the Big Date?� is the most debase of them all, for it perpetuates the ideals that girls need boys and that material things will make you happy, as well as pushing strict adherence to the status quo and social queues.
Most, if not all of these games encourage the idea that the most important life accomplishment of young women is to acquire a male companion at any cost. In one game, �Girl Talk�a Game of Truth or Dare,� the goal is to collect fortune cards in the categories �Marriage,� �Career,� �Family,� and �Special Moments.� A few cards read, �You will marry ____�s boyfriend,� and �After three weeks on your first job as a ______, you will meet the man you will eventually marry.� In another, rewardable behavior includes girls stealing other girls� boyfriends and fighting over boys (189). Matrimony is presented to girls in a very unhealthy way-- not that marriage is a natural progression in a relationship between those deeply in love and committed to each other, but that it is another thing they should �do,� and men are just another thing to acquire for social status and material or physical satisfaction. These games also set up unhealthy and superficial competition between girls for the sake of this acquiring of male attention. They are pitted against each other, warned to �watch out for thieving girlfriends� and rewarded for fighting with each other over guys.
There have been tremendous amounts of research done on the topic of girls, intelligence, and popular areas of study of females. It has been proven that there are much less women in intellectually challenging areas of study, such as in math- and science- related fields, than men. This can possibly be attributed to the unfounded stereotype that females just do not have as high a mental capacity as males. After constantly being told that one, especially an adolescent girl trying to find who she really is, is less worthy or important than someone else, they will not only start to believe, but also to live this ideal. Female- oriented board games have been proven by researchers to be less intellectually challenging and at al lower skill level than many boys� games (193). In their playtime, even, young females are constantly being encouraged to live up to someone else�s biased standard for who they should be, which is less intelligent and more superficial. Even the characters in the games continuously reinforce these ideals. In �Girl Talk: Date Line,� the unpopular girl, Gert, loves Latin and Algebra and dislikes rock music and gym class. The popular girls, Tina and Stacie, love such things as pizza, make-up, shopping and talking on the phone, but dislike book reports, computers, and report cards (190). Being popular is attributed to being superficial and shallow, and taking interest in highly non- academic, stereotypically teenage- girl activities. Wearing make-up and engaging in consumerist activities made Tina and Stacie highly appealing to the male community, while Gert, with all her intelligence and culture, sat at home on Saturday nights with Julius Caeser.
This constant reinforcement that material goods are all that can make one feel like a true person and worthwhile member of society leads young females to believe that everything in life is transient and that nothing that they do matters because it is expendable and disposable, leaving these girls with a consuming emptiness that is manifested in other destructive ways, such as promiscuity and drug use. The unfortunate and lost girls in this country are lead to believe, with all the media images they are bombarded with and the toys they play with, that it is not only ok to feel this emptiness, but this feeling is encouraged, because it will lead to the perpetual need of more �things� to help them feel happy, increasing the consumerist tendencies of the girls and the size of the pay checks for the CEOs of the companies that produce these things. Interestingly enough, one of the companies that produce these games and toys, Hasbro, doesn�t even have women on their board of directors (185) but must, one would assume, go on predetermined stereotypes of what being a girl is all about, since there isn�t actually anyone on the board that has been a girl. Consumer culture and all its attributes, as has been shown, has a severely detrimental affect on the young girls that buy and play with the materials produced based on biases and stereotypes of exactly whom women should be. There absolutely needs to be a re-evaluation of who females should be individually, based on each female themselves and the talents and gifts they possess, not skewed blanket stereotypes and predetermined gender and societal roles.