I was with my niece the other day as she was playing on the computer and she said aloud to herself, “What kind of girl are you?”
I glanced over to see what she was looking at and it was an internet quiz designed to tell you whether you are a girly girl, sporty girl, or rocker girl and so on after a series of questions regarding your preferences in clothes, music, hobbies, etc.
On one hand I know that these quizzes are just for entertainment, but these types of things still do their part to pigeonhole young girls well into adulthood.
Women are constantly differentiated in magazines, television, and books that tell them to fall into one in a set of predetermined categories so there are no surprises about what they are. Are you a hippie chick, a fashionista, a family woman, or a bookworm? Would you rather go out on the town with friends than stay at home with a good book? Then you’re a party girl!
Some of us have become so conditioned to think this way that they’re unaware that they in turn, do this to the women around them. I know I experience this whenever I get look of surprise when I tell someone that I’ve thought about getting a tattoo. (If you’ve ever met me, I don’t “look” like the type of person who would get one. ) Or when I’m surprised that the girl I met the other day who looks like she goes on a different date every week is a woman who really wants to have a family.
The reality is that we are complex creatures who are capable of being many things. When we let go of the false images of ourselves, we learn to see our true essence and stop believing that we can only be one way.
Can we teach our young women that they can be peaceful AND wild in spirit? That she can be family oriented AND an individual? That she can be a cheerful, tree hugger who also likes to blow off steam at the shooting range?
Women, especially young ones, need others to model this way of embracing their true self to help them shed whatever personas they’ve adopted and discover who they are and further see that within everyone’s individual dynamics we are all very alike.
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