sugar and spice and totally unrealistic Ideals... that's what disney princesses are made of23/10/2019 I’m a mother of girls. Two fabulous, complicated, complex, wonderful and interesting girls. My joy at having little people to whom I can really, honestly relate as they grow is immeasurable… but this has been met by equal levels of worry about supporting their self-belief and self-esteem as I raise them in a world saturated by media that feeds them unhealthy, unkind and unsustainable messages. Much of pop culture is fabulous fun (I’ve only just begun to investigate the world of online learning communities which connect people to every kind of popular interest you could imagine!), and yet I remain skeptical of the popular messages that are fed to our girls across any number of media platforms - common themes being that the ‘prettier’ and sexier they are, the better. These messages pervade television, magazines (what are they?!), gaming and social media. I wrote recently about selfie culture and whether it’s harmful, and in the process was drawn to an article I remember reading earlier this year about the extremes of editing that some young people went to before considering their photos ‘social media ready’. The pressure on young women to look a certain way is significant - and starts early. As I went through the photos from that article using the slide feature to see the ‘before' and ‘after’ of their images, I was struck by how almost cartoonish their edited images appeared. Large eyes, small chins, lots of makeup, very… Disney. Yes, the multi-billion dollar marketing industry that is ‘Disney Princesses’ is a giant in the arena of popular culture. And not everyone is happy with the message they send. Despite getting a better rap in recent years due to the more feminist-friendly princesses to have graced our screens in Frozen (sort of), Brave and Moana, the latent popularity of old-school favourites like Cinderella and The Little Mermaid means that these hyper-feminine and stereotyped characters continue to exert significant influence. While studies have struggled to lay the blame for poor-self esteem squarely at the feet of our Disney princesses (hey, childhood is complicated and longitudinal studies which can isolate the measure of a single influence are hard to come by!), theories of gender development do suggest that one of the ways in which we learn about gender roles and society’s expectations is through modelling. Without time to go into the details of gender stereotypes here, I’m going to stick to body image. Disney has a habit of exaggerating the more feminine traits of its female characters (and masculine of its male) to give us doe-eyed, made-up, long-lashed, small-chinned, (sound familiar?) young women who incidentally always seem to get the guy in the end. The beauty-ideal is established early. And while we can't point the finger singularly at Cinderella, we do know that girls' body confidence is affected by images they see in the media, and that even though they may know that these images are unrealistic or unattainable, they still experience dissatisfaction with their own bodies by comparison. When my eldest daughter started showing interest in movies I was resolute. No Disney! Ha! Fat chance. Trying to avoid Disney is like hoping you won’t see sunlight when you step outside in the morning… it’s everywhere. And these guys are good. All three billion's worth of them. My tree-climbing, dirt-finding, fun-loving six year old has hundreds of wonderful books on her shelves, and I’ll be honest and say that a little part of me dies inside each time she chooses Cinderella as her favourite. Because it doesn’t stop there. This fabulous kid also bats her eyelashes at the camera and tells me she loves Cinderella because she’s so ‘pretty’. Ugh. “What else do you like about her?” I ask through gritted teeth with my fingers crossed behind my back… “Uhm, she has blonde hair”… “And?”… “And she’s kind”. At least we got a personality trait. But hey, here’s some good news. A study by (Coyne, Linder, Rasmussen, Nelson & Birkbeck (2016) found that while watching Disney films might reinforce gender-stereotypical behaviour in girls, it can actually work to increase more stereotypically feminine behaviour in boys and this might work towards dampening hyper-masculinity and encouraging a more androgynous self-view, and this can be beneficial for boys' development. Hooray!
In conclusion... Me to my six year old daughter: “No you can’t watch Cinderella (again)”. Also me to my four year old son: “Hey, have you seen this great movie about a princess?!”
0 Comments
I recently watched a group of teenagers at the beach spend close to two hours taking photos of themselves. The coached each other, changed positions, changed angles, and checked and re-checked the results all in their quest for the perfect selfie. Initially, I just felt sad that these kids weren’t ‘enjoying’ a beautiful day at the beach, then I started to feel anxious about the online world my children would soon be entering, and eventually, I got to thinking about selfie culture in general, and what it really means.
Are selfies simply a bit of harmless fun? Or the physical expression of an increasingly image focused society? Or are they in fact a dangerous obsession which threatens our children’s mental health? Selfie-taking is without a doubt, not only a polarising issue, but one which serves to clearly delineate the young from the old. Or does it? Are selfies an exclusive expression of youth culture, or have some older generations found themselves drawn in? Do you happily plaster pictures of yourself all over social media? Do you take the odd picture, albeit reluctantly, but secretly enjoy the level of control you have over the process? Or have you never ever flipped a phone screen and pointed it at your own face? Chances are, if you don’t belong in the first category, you’re either somewhat bemused, entirely befuddled or genuinely worried about the ‘selfie culture’ which has infiltrated our lives. So what is it about this trend which unsettles us? Is it just different from what we’re used to? Or legitimately concerning?
I wrote recently about pop culture, the evolution of language and the tensions this process sometimes produces for older generations. Similarly, do we react to selfie culture simply because it’s new, different and we don’t understand it? Just as I reacted at the beach watching the perfect selfie quest in action? And are we more confronted by young women taking charge of the expression of their public identity in this way than we are of young men?
Discussions about selfies usually find their way to questions of narcissism - after all, surely you must be utterly self-absorbed and self-promoting to engage in this type of behaviour… right? Well, despite the fact that research does suggest a correlation between taking and posting selfies and narcissism, especially in young men, it is also clear that this behaviour is not confined to the truly narcissistic. Indeed, young men and women tend to take and post selfies for a range of reasons connected to developing their own identity, connecting themselves to social groups, and seeking admiration and approval. And even though we know that the selfie trend has found its place among adults too, this behaviour definitely declines with age.
So is it even a problem then? If everyone does it? Unfortunately, research also indicates that taking and viewing selfies is not without potential pitfalls for our self esteem and general satisfaction with our lives. Specifically, viewing others’ selfies and by nature comparing ourselves to them is linked with lower self esteem and unhappiness, and these outcomes appear to be exaggerated if our desire for popularity is high. Is this because lonely people spend more time on social media? Or because social media makes us lonely? It’s not clear. The good news however is that these outcomes are actually reversed when we consider the effects of viewing ‘groupies’ which tend to make us feel happier and more included. So maybe social media isn’t the devil after all.
Enter - the sexy selfie. It’s here that the differences in the way that our girls and boys both take selfies and are viewed for their behaviour that more noticeable differences appear. We know that young women are more likely to edit their photos: altering their appearance, and cropping and filtering their images (take a look at these amazing sliding images of teens’ pre and post edited photographs). We also know that objectified images are often met with more positive responses on social media which leads to… more objectified images. Throw into that mix a healthy dose of media saturated with sexualised images and a good splash of adolescent anxiety and it’s easy to see why parents may be concerned about the impact that selfies might be having on their kids. Our girls in particular are being expected to walk a fragile line between the construction, ownership and presentation of themselves and a society which sends them contradictory messages. Validation of sexiness all around them, but not in the photos they share of themselves.
So… to selfie or not to selfie? We can agree I think that for the time being at least, selfies are here to stay. The product of an image obsessed society? Seems so. Just for the narcissists? As brilliantly self-serving as selfies can be, no, not just for them. Harmful? Definitely not all the time, but potentially, yes. So selfie at will (with a dash of perspective and a little bit of caution).
|
About meI'm a teacher, student and advocate for better education through ongoing questioning, thinking and learning.
|