Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us : Linda Christensen

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

Linda Christensen

“Our society’s culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream.  This indoctrination hits young children especially hard”. (pg.126)

I strongly believe that young children are affected the most by society because at this point in their lives they are trying to create and conform themselves to the ideal “image” that is portrayed to them.  This is an unfortunate thing because they don’t even know who they are as a person at this age - it is easier for them to see and conform to stereotypes that are displayed throughout media, internet, and other peers in school then to genuinely be the person they want to be.  All children have available to them are a vision of what is right and accepted, they have no room for being able to think for themselves or create an image that is different than the ordinary because at this age they just want to fit in.

“It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find out my whole self image has been formed mostly by others or underneath my worries about what I look like are years of being exposed to TV images of girls and there set roles given to them by TV and the media”.

(pg.128-129)

The media will always conform to a stereotyped image of women.  Girls and women are known to be motivated by love and romance, they are shown less independent than boys, and are stereotyped according to their image such as their weight, hair color, and style. These mixed messages from media make it difficult for girls to convert into adulthood. Most of the time girl’s confidence drops in their teen years as they begin to base their feelings of self-esteem more and more heavily on their appearance and body type, they will try anything to fit in or get close to the image of “barbie”.  I believe this is something that will never change.  It will always affect girls and women who are not as strong willed to be their own person and not care about the ideal female form.  I’ve been guilty for this at one point in my life.  As you get older you then realize what is important and what isn’t. If you cannot be yourself to find whatever it is your looking for than it is simply not worth it.  You should not feel like you have to change to be happy.

“I do not want students to believe that change can be bought at the mall, nor do I want them thinking that the pinnacle of a women’s life is an “I do” that supposedly leads them to a happily ever after.  I don’t want my female students to see their “sisters” as competition for that scarce and wonderful commodity”

(pg. 133)

Cinderella, Cinderalla.  Every young girls favorite childhood movie.  Looking back all my friends and I did were play princess dress up, talk about our princess weddings, and dream of living a happily ever after in our castles with handsome husbands and children to take care of in our own magical worlds.  Looking back its so crazy that we wanted/thought of those things at such a young age. Girls now believe in order to get all of the above their image has to resemble a princess.  How unrealistic especially for young girls moving into the awkward/unknown pre-teen stage of life.  The focus for many young girls has become their appearance and forgetting about their inner substance and many girls compete to be better than their peers….who has the nicer clothes, who is skinner…  Being exposed to these messages of perfection are harmful and negative and the only way they learn this is from television.  Will it ever change?