Combating the Media’s Message to Girls

I am sitting in a rocker with a gaggle of fifth- and sixth-grade girls squirming on the rug before me. At the teachers’ request, we are talking about how women are portrayed in the media, a sore subject with anyone who is paying attention.

Researchers say that, given their age, these girls are on the cusp of their self-esteem high. Next year, or maybe the year after, they will no longer snap their fingers and pop their necks in indignation at the unfairness of life. Instead, they will acquiesce, duck their heads, and laugh--when they laugh at all--with their mouths closed. They will be adolescent girls, and their self-esteem will plunge.

I remember this age. You’re too tall/fat/skinny/short/stupid/you-name-it. You don’t fit in, and you can’t get out, so you’re stuck until your face clears, that boy calls or you get your license.

And then all those things happen, and you realize that wasn’t the answer either.

The publications I have with me aren’t the only reason for that plunge, but they don’t help. Every day, these girls see 400 to 500 images in advertisements that scream out to them from billboards, magazines, television, newspapers and the Internet. According to About-Face, a media literacy organization in California, one in 11 of those advertisements has a direct message about beauty. The rest send their messages more indirectly.

But the message is this: You’re too tall/fat/skinny/short/stupid/you-name-it, and you always will be until you buy this nail polish. Or whatever.

Granted, a few publications appeal to a girl’s brain. But mostly they appeal to her sex appeal, her budding sex appeal, which will be her stock in trade, if you believe the trades.

As I talk to them, I hold up a picture of a model whose stomach is as flat as a board. I tell them that while this particular woman might have a stomach that flat, most of us don’t, and to get a stomach like that, we have to suck in our gut. While I’m talking, I ask them to do that and hold it until I’m done. They do. It’s a physical challenge that soon becomes a contest with pretend accusations of cheating. When one girl lets out her stomach with a whoosh! I tell her to suck it up, that if she’s going to be that perfectly shaped woman, she has to have a flat stomach.

She giggles. Right, I say. For most of us, it’s impossible to breathe and have a flat stomach. If they have the choice between being in a magazine and breathing, which would they choose? One wiseacre in the back says “magazine,” but the rest of the girls say “breathe.”

I have given this talk before. A few times I found myself on the defensive as a journalist, but then there wasn’t much to defend. These girls have seen the magazines we’re discussing: Vogue, Teen People. To be fair, I also include the front page of my own newspaper for comparison.

I hold up a Teen People picture of a starlet who is dressed in a skin-tight and thin blouse, with shorts that barely cover her essentials. As the teacher points out, the headline reads that the starlet, with her physical attributes hanging out there and lit just right, wants to be taken seriously. I ask the girls what they think the picture is selling, and the little freckled girl in front of me, the one who just told me that there are no American Girl dolls that look like her, says, “Herself?”

We’re off and running. One girl says her mother once threw a magazine across the room because it had some similar nonsense, and I respond, “Pay attention to that mother,” and then the girl adds that her mother said some bad words, too, and I amend, “But don’t necessarily repeat everything you hear.”

By comparison, the newspaper’s front page has not a single picture of a woman, not one. Nor is there a face of color that matches the color of most of the girls I’m talking to. In the publications before them--chosen randomly, I promise--these girls have only bubble-headed babehood to shoot for, or nothing to shoot for at all.

I tell them this isn’t fair and that they can write to these publications to tell them so, and I show them how to find the addresses. They can tell editors that until the women in their pages are represented with respect, these girls will not subscribe. I tell them to write to the companies that buy questionable ads in these publications and tell them they’re boycotting those products until the ads are changed. I tell them to mention they have a lot of friends who feel the same way.

I’ve talked too long. The girls want snack time. I don’t know if they’ll ever write to a publication, but if they just remember to get angry, that’s a very good start.