Reaction to “A Girl Like Me"

After viewing “A Girl Like Me" I was quite surprised that the appearance of something as harmless as hair was such a big deal in the piece. It clearly carried more weight for these girls and the people around them in their lives than I would have thought possible. A male friend remarked to me the other day that he could never go out with anyone with a weave. He put it thusly. “I can't stand weave. If a girl has to have 5 feet of extra hair so that she can feel good about herself what does that say about her? It says she cannot accept herself for who she truly is. It also means she's not the girl for me." I would say that this video is a good example of a girl produced artifact because as viewers we can see those interviewed understand certain views of female identity have been consumed around them and they feel pressured by these views and frustrated because they understand the female identity being presented to them is not the only option for them. In fact you can argue the identity being portrayed is inauthentic. As we have read about in Jamming Girl Culture, it is extremely beneficial for girls to produce rather than consume their own ideas and notions about girlhood. Essentially we are talking about the opposite of the pink think movement. By realizing there is a problem and attempting to suss out the roots and reasons for these certain constructions taking place – by partaking in this specific dialogue these girls are attempting to jam the girlhood culture messages they are receiving. One girl in the piece said about her ancestors, "They couldn't be themselves. They had to be what everyone else told them to be. " Well, in this film these girls are pushing back against what “everyone else”is telling them to be.

What is a pretty girl?

I had already watched this video in a couple of other classes and it is just as powerful as the first time that I watched it. I find it puzzling that we as a society continue to look for solutions that we as a society continue to create. That being said let me explain what I mean. The issue of body image or self esteem is an issue that doesn’t even enter our mind until someone makes it an issue in our life. In infancy and childhood we are often told by those around us that we are adorable, precious, and cute. Once we, as girls reach our preteen years we begin to see those images of what we are supposed to look like. In the afro American and Latino/ Hispanic/ Chicano communities it is all about the hair and skin tone, in the Caucasian community it is all about maintaining a slim physique. Women of color have been taught that femininity is about have long beautiful flowing hair, Oprah Winfrey talked about wanting to have a long ponytail and Chris Rock did a documentary all about black women and their hair. Women of color also have to contend with skin tone, there is an intra cultural ideology within the black and Latino communities that light skinned people are more attractive and if you are dark skinned you have to stay out of the sun so that you won’t get any darker. In my family if you are lighter skinned then you are revered and remind of how beautiful you are. It is similar to when the girl on the video was talking about skin bleaching, there is a misconception that lighter is better, long straight hair is better, and being thin is better. We should be teaching our girls about self acceptance and that beauty doesn’t have to be painful either physically or emotionally. I believe that girls and women should be able to express themselves and alter their looks if they choose to but I don’t believe that they should change just because society expects them to. On that note, I think that the time has come for us to allow our girls to dictate who and what they look like and what they become it is no longer up to society to dictate what constitutes being a girl.     

Zines / A Girl Like Me

Despite growing up in the 1990s, I wasn’t aware of the zine phenomenon until I looked at today’s reading.  I would imagine that since then, zines have largely been replaced by social media, message boards, blogging, etc.  I wrote my second artifact analysis on a girl-created website that was active between 1996 and 1999.  I think, though, there has been an marked evolution in online spaces in the past twenty years: as the web has become more ubiquitous and less exclusive, websites have largely been replaced by social media sites with their “one size fits all” approach.  So, I think zines, much like early webpages, were more creative and DIY than sites like Facebook.  Even MySpace, which afforded users great variation in the physical appearance of their pages, has largely fallen into disfavor in the past few years.

So zines filled a distinctive niche, almost suspended chronologically between the offline and online worlds.  I thought it was interesting how the zines discussed taboo subjects like self-mutilation and sexual abuse.  Again, since the internet has become more widespread, I think these issues have become more widely discussable.  Zines don’t appear to have ever reached mainstream culture (I graduated from high school in 2002 and like I said, I never heard the word zine until this class.)  So, only a small number of girls ever really benefitted from the open forum that zines provided.  However, message boards, blogs, and social networks have given girls more opportunities to go mainstream with taboo subjects.  That being said, despite having these resources, I believe that only a certain percentage of the population (female or male) will ever chose to disclose personal information about sexual abuse or cutting online.  I think many girls and women who struggle with these issues never tell anyone (or only close friends), let alone strangers, despite their anonymity online. 

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“A Girl Like Me”

I thought this video was an important portrayal of the African American girl experience, which in many ways differs from the white experience.  A couple of years ago on our local public radio station (Columbus, Ohio), a few women were interviewed who were studying violence and its prominence in so many black girls’ lives.  I wish I remembered the names of the researchers, because it was fascinating (and heartbreaking).  I remember a story about one girl whose uncle had murdered her aunt and gone to prison.  The girl said she lived in constant fear of her uncle being released from prison and killing her, too.  This is not to say that white girls are exempt from experiencing violence in their lives, but the research shows that African American girls see it at much higher rates.  I might talk about this more in my next post, but I would be interested in looking at girls of color and the ways that their perceptions and experiences of girlhood / femininity differ.

Oh … one more thing.  I had heard and forgotten about the doll test that they briefly discussed in the video.  I am not sure how I could have forgotten, because it had a profound effect on me.

Things we are not supposed to talk about-a study in resistance

So happy to read this article. Gilligan’s research intrigues me and at the same time it is also  disturbing in that she describes the difficulties girls have on a relational level.  Therefore, I am glad that Schilt took a stand to study the content of zines for clues to how girls feel outside of the laboratory setting. Her quote from Green and Taormino is wonderful, “[s]ometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you” (236). Schiltz also differentiates how adults construct problems versus girls actual experiences.   One of the studies I have run across shows how  “silencing” girls’ voices is powerful. In a particular school setting, Thorne studied children in their natural setting and found that adults condone boys’ risk-taking behavior and turn the other cheek when they break rules, thus encouraging boys to transgress the norms. However, girls are strictly made to obey the rules. I think this explains a little about how girls are made to feel inadequate early on, thus the confidence gap. Resisting such stereotypic behavior is crucial for one’s confidence. Using zines for possible location of girlhood is a great idea given the difficulty of understanding self. I agree that using this kind of method for research gives insight as to what girls are feeling without any residual researcher effect. Interpreting girls meaning in the zines gives us another way to look at how a person truly feels about an incident.  It can give insight as to how a girl might want to resist cultural meanings or stereotypes. Yes, I do think that a girl can be made to feel inadequate by certain things that are said by adults if the adult adheres to normative views on how, and what, gendered behavior should be.

The video is a strong medium of resistance. Just the fact that these girls are expressing their knowledge of how our culture defines good and bad is a strong message by these girls. I believe it is resistance because they are refusing to close the conversation on the idea of privilege. This is a huge step because sometimes we are taught not to talk about such things or to deny that difference exists.

These girls are telling their audience that that no one should be telling “us what we should be.” They go on to say that “we just take it because we don’t know where we came from.”  The message from this video,  that one lives in silence because there is no knowledge of one’s past, must be listened to.. These girls are telling the world that they do have knowledge and they should embrace it and the rest of those who try to tell them otherwise are wrong.  This is a conversation that needs to continue. They are continuing the conversation that   no one wants to believe is covertly out there. 

Texas Girls Use Fake Facebook Page to Bully Classmate

Just came across this today.  Might interest some of you:

http://jezebel.com/5930380/texas-girls-may-still-be-in-detention-after-using-fake-facebook-page-to-bully-classmate

Sisterhood

The short film "A Girl Like Me" by Kiri Davis breaks taboos by giving voice to young black women's feelings about being black. Instead of puberty resulting in "many girls leaving adolescence with no voice with which to articulate their thoughts and beliefs," Davis uses film to speak out and reach a large audience (Schilt). The issues she raises of skin, hair, asses, are part of the female concern with appearance and identity. I think one reason boys pass through adolescence with more confidence and girls emerge with less self-esteem is due to the bodily changes women go through. If identity is appearance, young women are suddenly transformed by puberty into aliens in a male dominated world that doesn't value their way of communicating. Black women as historically the other other may struggle even more than white women with their identity.

I am going to enter realms where I have no expertise, but here I go. bell hooks alludes to black women being subjugated by white men in "Holding My Sister's Hand."  While white women are objectified, and in a sense then considered valuable for consensual sexual relations,  black women's historical sexual relations with white men were through force and coercion. Therefore subjugation is further from the power center then objectification.  hooks states that freedom came to be seen as black men having sexual access to white women's bodies.  This further left black women's identities outside the norm.  Sexual fears and competition estranged black and white women in the feminist movement. Although this may seem to have little to do with the film, I think some of the issues being raised carry over from these traditional roles.

When the children are asked which doll they like and which doll is good, their choice is based on generations of lived experience, and, sadly, they choose the white doll.  As one Girlhood Remixed participant responded to the child in the film who chose the black doll as bad, "That's you. Don't you know what you're doing?" It would be easy for me to say the parents of those children need to counter society's messages. Remember the girl in the film whose mother didn't like her hair natural because she looked African? Instead of holding black mothers responsible for all the messages their daughters are receiving, the reality is that society fermented these issues and we need to keep working on solving them. This will be accomplished though dialogue and active choices about defining beauty.  bell hooks cals for a "woman space where we can value difference and complexity" (110).  I applaud Davis for bringing her voice and her sisters' to the conversation.

Proposal

Morphing Male

 There is a lack of understanding of how males and females are using digital technologies to construct their identities in positive or negative, expressive ways.  Definitions and conceptions of sexuality have not changed with the use of computers.  Technology is supposed to encourage girls to contribute ideas and feel comfortable with their ideas, and even provide agency to a more equal playing field with male age-mates.  However, girls’ identities are underdeveloped in reference to technology due to male-controlled barriers, and sexuality and gender construction via digital technologies in a supposedly de-sexualized cyberspace that is disillusioned and saturated with masculine attributes.  Girls still feel inferior to boys, so to create equal identities, girls assimilate male characteristics.  This may be in the form of aggressive images, writings, pictures, and or politically charged slogans signifying a representation of the girl who demonstrates it.  Girlhood is further complicated by girls who construct their identities by dis-empowering their own gender, and wrongfully feeling empowered by morphing male.