Something that has been bothering me for a few months is who are the model figures for our youg girls and future women.
I am a woman. I am in age to have children but haven't gone there yet although I am now considering it as I have met a partner that makes me not only happy but also represents the father I would want to be a mother with. We haven't started the production, we are still practicing, but I would be happy and he would be too if we were to get into serious work in a year or so.
Although I am not the mother of someone I am already someone's stepmom. And I take my role seriously. And in mother tradition I have started to worry. Isn't this the job after all?
I look at this little girl already so clever and so gorgeous and I make comparisons with what I know: not more and not less than me or what I remember of me. And I see her as a very much more confident and happy person than I was by 20. She is only 2! I feel that all the lessons we have had through observing our own parents together with the knowledge we all got in the past years through learning of opening up, getting closer to our feelings and understanding about how crucial it is to be encouraging free expression, has been making us parents who feel better and more secure about the task. It is still a difficult one and we all know that the worse is to come. Still I believe that we enjoy the task more than our parents did and that we take it with more delight and true interest.
I am not saying though that we are better parents than ours were. I just think that they had more pressure and less preparation and also more time to spend with them...
I set the plot and told you that I have a stepdaughter. As much as I enjoy every second with her, the worries have started eating me.
I am looking at how she will grow up and turn into a teenager and a woman. all this anyway is tricky independently of when and where you were born. Surel we all agree.
What I worry about most is who or what is going to be leading her in life. I look around and struggle to find role models for little girls or teenagers. Who is out there is and is setting the plot for her? Who is out there that offers an aspirational way of life?
I can think of Dora the exporer and thank god for her she is a strong feminine figure billigual and happy go lucky who finds resources to go through life with the help of her backpack and friends. I like Dora and my stepdaughter too. But hey this is going to last for a few years, maybe til she is 4 but what will happen then? Dora is not going to entertain for much longer if she even does it til she is 4. so what who is taking the lead?
I have no idea.
I remember being a post child. Not that being a child had been easy for me. But still after that what is there? I cannot find anythng out there that would be showing her the lead...
Recently I have watched Kidulthood. That was the worse I could ever see probably in this perspective. Youg girls with no self estime, very deluded about life, their opportunities and ready to give it all for either a chewing gum or drugs. Girls who think they got the power over men but only through the cheap sale of their bodies. It made me sick.
I have been a teen ager too and I know thta it is the age during which you discover your power over men. I have used it and abused it for probably to many years but still the whole thing for me was to tast and check reactions but not to give anyone whatever they would ask for. Is Kidulthood a fair portrait of our society? I am not sure. Still it made me very sad.
The OCDE has a way to calculate the rate of development of any country based on different and varied indicators. One of them is the price of the Big Mac is the specific country, another the number of tv per household. One siginficant indicator is the level of education of women. This indicator is quite strong in determioning the development of a country. It is easy to understand why: women are usually the primary input for children. If they are aware of basic rules of hygiene they will ensure the longevity of the life of their children. But they are also mostly responsible of education and pass on values through generations.
The Uk is considered a developed country. It boasts culture and reafirms it with pride. Though rates of teenage suicide as well as teenage pregnacy are higher than ever. TV shows us multiple examples every day of celebrities who achieved this status by showing their feminine attributes (glamour girls supposedly the job most teenagers regard), and marrying males with money security. Jordan is the successful business woman and the WAGs are the most achieved result of a lifetime. What happened to us?
When I was growing up all the girl power was still managing its way up but I was already encouraged to look at life in no different way than my fellow male school students. I was told that even if it might be a bit more difficult I could do whatever boys could. Women were getting into boardrooms and some were even ruling countries. I was not set such a challenge but just told that I could aim at what I wanted. There was no mistake though: I would have to give as much work as the boys if not more but I was allowed where my grandmother would never have thought about and where my mother could only dream of.
I never dreamt of showing my tits in the page 3. All the contrary: this would have been a shame. I never even imagined that I would marry a rich man and therefore earn my token for not make my own money. Never. I was raised by someone who knew all about it and wished me better than having to ask a man for money to buy a pair of socks.
allright the WAGS might not beg and they are actually buying really cute shoes. Good for them if it make them happy and fulfilled. Nothing wrong with it but I would not want to be in their situation. What if the hubby decides he has enough with you and shuts down the flow of cash. What if after a life of luxury and orange tan you are sent to the under the bridge life. What if you have already showed your tits by then and there is nothing left for you to sort yourself out?
As much as I beleive that these women make a choice and should be respected for it I am worried that they are the only models offered nowadays to the growing generation. I am scared that too many girls see fame and no self respect as the way to go. For me it is worse than the time your parents were choosing your husband for you and you would have to be his slave for as long as he would live. I hate the idea that any woman would have limited choices in life at any point of their life.
I wonder how our little girls will be facing the world and hope they will find some kind of inspiration to do so brilliantly. Women are our future, let's not forget about it. Let's make sure they get in the best possible situation in life.
What do you think?
DominicGee
I think that YOU are going to be your daughter's role model, no matter what, so you have to make sure you can teach her who else is worthy of emulating.
I'm afraid Kidulthood IS an accurate reflection of urban teenage life, for many, not all. I've known girls like that.
I think that feminism has been hi-jacked by unscrupulous males in the media. Rather than give women equal status in society, which is all they asked for, they fooled them into thinking that 'liberation' meant being a slag rather than realizing their true importance and potential. The way I see it, the problem in the 1950s was that women did not have a choice in the lifestyle, but they were certainly respected. In the majority of cases, the person a woman first had sex with she would marry. For men, this meant that if they wanted to have sex, they prettymuch had to decide whether or not they wanted to marry that woman or not. Feminism created a greater choice for women, but it was soon turned into something that gave men exactly what they wanted. Now, far from having to respect, care for and make promises to a woman in order to get what you want, all a man has to do is buy her a drink, if that. And women who do this (Sex and the City et al) are shown to be free, liberated and savvy. But really the men are getting what they've always wanted but at a much cheaper price. The reason Paris Hilton and Jordan are given much more media time is because these are the women that these unscrupulous media types want women to be - stupid, promiscuous but rich enough to take care of themselves.
Maybe I'm a prude, maybe I'm completely wrong, but to me, slapping half naked women and bimbos all over the TV and magazie shelves does not signal a victory of feminism, but a victory of men's unchecked desire.