Gossip Girl

This is a little off the subject, but it still pertains to girls and media. With the internet being te main source for news and media, girls are exposed to many different portrayals of women. This article in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/opinion/04holmes.html?_r=1&emc=eta1, talks about Charlie Sheen and the way his violent relationships has not been focused on as a negative aspect in the media. It talks about how they do not focus on him or put him down for his acts of violence because the women involved were not portrayed through the media as "classy" women. A professor of mine, who knows my feminist persepective and my work for trying to put an end to domestic violence, emaioled this to me and with it asked a few questions. Because of the focus of media and girls I believe this pertains to this class. Here are the questions he asked: Some time ago, you claimed that women using their sexuality in commercial settings (Hooters was the specific focus of our conversation) were empowered. One idea in this article is that objectification and abuse follows for women engaging in these practices. Does this article change your views on Hooters, etc.? Here is my response: I think that women can use their looks just as people use muscles or brains to get ahead in today's society and I feel they are still empowered because they are controlling thier own careers. However, I think that the abusers of women engaging in these practices are feeding into the traditional way of viewing these women by objectifying them. They see women who are stereotypically "sexy" and think that is all they are and that they are not intelligent nor do they see them as smart entrepreneurs. I believe these women are smart entrepreneurs because they use their "talents" for career and monetary values, just as Bill Gates used his computer inventions and technology talent to get ahead in the technology business. Our society, throughout centuries, has seen women who use their sexuality as a career as less than human and non-deserving of the respect that a human being deserves. A few years back I did a research project on this idea set in the Jack the Ripper era in England. This idea of "sexual" women being inhuman lead to Jack the Ripper murders and society wide acceptance and even encouragement of these murders. I think this relates to society today and its treatment of Charlie Sheen and his many offense against women. As the article said, the women Sheen dates are portrayd in the media as "money hungry sluts" and therefore, are not human or deserving of respect. This touches on how the media portrays women and what these girls are exposed to. By the artiucle being written by a woman it shows how girls are using the internet to try to counteract these portrayals and make people see how the media can influence and twiat situations. I believe blogs, as well as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. all give girls a chance to express their agreement and disagreement with such portrayals and they have a way of making their views publicly known. This fits into the "Virtual High School" aspect because girls are portrayed in different ways in high school. If a girl dresses a certain way she may be deemed as a "slut" or some other insult that points towardsvthe idea that she is promiscuous. If this girl gets treated badly by a boy in school she is dating, her label and the way the gossip in school portrays her, she will not get sympathy and the new gossip will be that she deserved it. Now, with these social networks and ways of communicating online, girls can speak out and fight against portrayals and stand up for themselves.

E-Mentors?

In my last blog I talked about peer pressure girls undergo physically in junior highs and high schools across the nation and compared them to the peer pressure girls now undergo though the “Virtual High School” in social networking online. In one of the comments, someone talked about mentor programs that had older girls mentor the younger girls. For example, high school girls are paired up with junior high girls or girls in college are mentoring high school girls. I agree that this is an effective way to give girls someone to look up to and talk about things that they feel they cannot talk about with older adults like parents or teachers. There are places online that do just that. There is a website called gURL.com that serves as an online chat room for girls with questions they feel more comfortable asking in a more anonymous setting and with girls they feel they can relate to. In one of our books required for class, Instant Identity, it says “girls need safe spaces…outside of the traditional spaces where girls interact with the larger culture…They need spaces where they can know what they know and try new identities without self-censoring. Without safe spaces, girls will not be fully able to discover who they are and who they would like to become.”

This is a very good site for girls to express themselves, and they can do it anonymously if they would like. However, unlike the mentoring programs that are monitored by faculty in actual school settings, gURL.com and others like it are not monitored for things that are posted in reply to girls’ questions. I have visited gURL.com and I found some disturbing posts. While people were willing to give advice and try to help the other girls, a lot of the comments in the sexuality blog were very provocative and more sexual than helpful. I am not the person who believes girls shouldn’t have sex because it is unfeminine, but I am not sure how I feel about girls in the 7th grade reading about different sex positions or telling the girl to be proud about giving an hour long blow job. So while I commend such a place online for girls to be able to talk freely, I question whether this gURL.com is such a “safe place.”

As you can see, there are many pros and cons to “mentor” chat sites.

Peer Pressure

One of the most prevalent issues in high school was peer pressue, the pressure to fit in and look and act a certain way. Even though a lot of social interaction is now done online instead of in person, this idea of peer pressure and "fitting in" is still an issue with the girls of the younger generation. When you go on many of the different social network sites, like Facebook, you see ads all over the screen of models being perfectly thin and fitting into the media generated idea o "pretty." These girls are seeing these models and reading about new diets and exercises that all allude to this idea that to be "pretty" you must be thin with blonde hair and big breasts. So now its not just in high school that these girls are told to look this way, but it is all over their online socialization tools as well.

There is also the pressure of sex. It has been a concern for generations over the pressure a girl gets to be sexually active from being in high schools across the nation. Now, that pressure has moved into the digital world. Wen girls are IMing, there are icons they can choose from to identify themselves. The majority of these, sometimes referred to as avatars, that are gender specific have a sexual inuendo to them. A girl in my class explained her experience with these. "Glitter graphics are appealing and so were dollz because they were pretty things other girls were playing with. And you wanted an attractive profile picture or tagline so you could flirt with boys." These avatars are cartoon images of females with te typical "Barbie" body type and revealing clothing.

Tis peer pressure is but one example of today's social networking acting as a modern day high school.

VIrtual High School

Today is a new age of technology. Social neworks, blogs, chat rooms, twitters, IMing, all of these new ways of communicstion are creating a different world for today's young generation. The girls in this young generation use these mediums as ways to communicate and gossip with friends, express their sexuality, express their identity and some even use it as a means of bullying as well as a research tool. The new age of technology has created a "virtual hhigh school" with all the typical characteristics of a girls experiences in high school, only in digital form. This blog will discuss all of these ideas of a girl being in high school online. Please feel free to comment and post different ideas on this subject throughout this blog.