The Game All Girls Love to Play!

In 1961, toymaker Transogram created a new game called “Miss Popularity.” This game was one of the most famous of its time. Quite obviously geared towards young girls, players competed to see who could win the most votes from the four judges (3 of them were male!) So how do you earn the points? Well points were awarded to the girl with the best legs, the best figure, the best voice, and the best “type.” And, the lucky girl with the most votes won the “Loving Cup!” So fitting…I mean who could love an ‘unpopular’ girl anyways, right?

Although 1961 was a long time ago, I feel like things haven’t really changed that much at all. Today, this game just represents the constant pressure society places on women to be ‘feminine.’ Unfortunately however, there is only one way our society defines feminine. A feminine woman is beautiful, gentle, nurturing and submissive to their husbands. A woman who didn’t fit into any of those categories is alienated because she is not ‘normal.’

It doesn’t make sense to me that people cannot accept all types of beauty…beauty in forms of different races, ages or body types. Why is it that men and women are so attracted and fascinated by the girl with the “nice legs” or the “best figure?” Why is it that we work so hard to fit into that image, and then feel so worthless when we realize it is a nearly impossible task to accomplish? The only reason we obsess over this ‘type’ of girl is because our society has drilled it into our head that that is what is beautiful. I think we should all be aware of the way our society brainwashes us and challenge the system so we can FINALLY make a real change.

Blame It On Disney

My friends and I have always been a fan of the original Disney movies and all of the Disney princesses. It may sound stupid and immature now, but you have to admit that almost every little girl was at least exposed to (if not infatuated by) the original six princesses… Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Ariel, Belle, and Cinderella. But, after thinking about every single one of their movies, it became pretty obvious to me that a lot of blame for “the way things work” today had to fall on these princesses.

Has it every occurred to you that in all of the Disney movies, the ONLY thing that ever saved the princesses was their artificial beauty? Let’s look at Snow White. She is condemned and killed out of jealousy of her beauty by another woman. However, she is saved in the end because the prince is captivated by her beauty. What about Sleeping Beauty? Again, she is put into an endless sleep out of jealousy by another woman, but once again is saved by her fiancé because of her beauty. What about Jasmine? Her story is a little bit different. Because she will not marry when the law told her to do so, she is enslaved by a powerful man and is rescued, once again, by a prince. Belle? She actually saves a prince, however her only quality is her beauty. Cinderella? She is saved by a prince only because of her beauty as well, not because she is a hard worker and cleans a lot. And my favorite? That would easily be Ariel. In order to lose her fishtail to be more attractive to Prince Eric, Ariel trades her voice for looks. But don’t worry, she has nothing important to say anyways and is ultimately saved by another prince.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here? In these movies, women are marginalized as the damsel in distress and the men are marginalized as the great and powerful savior! There is absolutely no gray area. It amazes me that such subtle images and concepts are basically drilled into young girls’ heads at such an early age. It’s no wonder the gender roles in America are so set in stone like they are today.

So here is the final word of Walt Disney:

To all of you young girls out there, being beautiful on the outside is the most important thing.

To all of you young boys out there, be rich, famous and handsome and you will one day own your own princess!

How To Raise A Feminist

As of right now I wouldn’t necessarily label myself as a feminist, however I know deep down that I definitely have the potential to be one. I have always been more rebellious than most girls and I was never afraid to get in your face when I had a problem. This may or may not mark me as a feminist.

I have always wondered what it takes to “make” a feminist. Is it how children are raised or perhaps are they born with certain attitudes? Is it what they were taught, or what they are not taught? I reasoned that it probably has much more to do with nurture rather than nature but, to get to the bottom of this question; I turned to Google, of course, and found two interesting articles…one written by a mother and the other written by her daughter. The mother’s article provides guidelines of how to raise a feminist, while the daughter’s article confirms that she is indeed a feminist because of how her mother AND father raised her. Here’s the link below:

http://www.feministing.com/archives/017512.html

After reading this article I found some disagreement. While the mother’s “rules” on how to raise a feminist seemed to work in her case, I believe there are many other ways that a feminist can be raised. To make it easy, let’s say that I am a feminist. The way that I was raised was ENTIRELY different than how Eliza was raised in the article. For me, I was given more of a “lack of teaching” rather than being taught all of the rules. When I was about 11, my father fell into the cycle of drug addiction. He would often come home high and angry, and would always feel the need to cause a scene. At the time, I was just beginning to come out of my shell and question the authority in my house, which made me a prime target for my father’s angry outbursts. Rather than my dad giving me “a hug and a kiss and bowl full of strawberries,” by dad gave me violence and anger. My mom, who was supposedly at one point a HUGE feminist who never let a man get in her way, was blinded by her love for my dad and never really did anything about it. Still to this day it infuriates me to think of the dominance that my dad had in our house and my mom’s willingness to submit to him. I thought that the only thing that I had ever learned from my parents was how to not live. However, maybe this was my way of learning to be a feminist.

Obviously my story and the article contrast each other greatly, but they both produced the same outcomes. So it seems that there are probably several different ways to raise a feminist. I’m very interested to hear other people’s stories of how they were “taught” how to be a feminist so please comment!