About Reviving Ophelia
...on. Other girls may develop into bulimics; people who binge and purge and are obsessed with weight. Bulimics come in all shapes and sizes, many are compulsive eaters and eat at times where they feel they are emotionally unstable. A fight with a boyfriend or a parent or being rejected by a friend is enough to send a young girl into a frantic eating spree where she cannot control the amount of food in which she eats. A bulimic girl may eat until her stomach feels as though it will explode. After the eating spree a bulimic girl begins to loathe the food in which she ate and will feel guilty and upset about eating so much. She is concerned about her weight, so she will force herself to vomit up her food and is relieved when she succeeds. Bulimia can cause many esophageal problems due to stomach acids constantly being disrupted in the esophagus. Bulimia can also lead to poor teeth and poor nutrition (Pipher 174). With beauty being so important to young girls, it is no wonder that they are going to extreme means to become skinny and attractive. Girls firmly believe that by being attractive that they will be happy and it is the American ideal of beauty that has lead girls into the hands of life threatening mental disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Girls will go to any length to become the images like women in magazines and on television because they believe that it will lead to their undying happiness and successes in life and they have been encouraged through society to believe so. Pressures to be beautiful and thin has also promoted behavioral problems amongst today’s teen girls. Some girls get into trouble by rebelling against society’s pressures to be beautiful by getting body piercings and tattoos, by styling their hair punkishly and by dying it midnight blue or cupcake pink, they may wear excessive jewelry and baggy clothing. Girls who choose to rebel against society’s norm for the way a teenage girl should dress often find themselves to be ostracized by their peers. At school, a rebel can be seen as an outcast, and often times will choose other outcasted youth for companionship, since their social status at school has not allowed for them to choose friends from a popular crowd (Pipher 61). In this case, a girl who is outcasted for the way she looks, may form friendships with other outcasted teenagers; some of which who may be drug and alcohol users or may engage in sexual intercourse. Girls who are outcasted are also susceptible to emotional problems and face difficulties from being rejected by their peers; often times resulting in depression (Pipher 151). Teenagers may also earn low grades in an attempt to be noticed by her peers. If a student earns grades that are too high, they may also be outcasted for being a nerd (Pipher 64). In the meantime, parents are wondering how their sweet, fun-loving little girl has turned into someone who earns poor grades, uses drugs, or engages in premarital intercourse. Parents may begin to search for ways of controlling their troubled youth and may try grounding their teenage daughter; they may set curfews, and may make stricter rules to govern their household. Mothers feel that they can relate to their daughters because they were once teen girls themselves, but the fact of the matter is that being a teen around the year 2000 is much different than being a teen girl in the 1950's. Mother’s often times struggle to understand and to help their teen daughters, yet strive to protect them from our society (Pipher 103). “Mothers are often unprepared for how their daughters behave. Their daughters may swear at them, call them bitches or tell them to shut up. This shocks them because they never swore at their own mothers. Their daughters may be sexually active at a much younger age. They struggle with sexual issues in committed relationships, and their daughter’s casual attitudes floor them (Pipher 104).” A girl who does not consider herself to be beautiful and is not seen as being beautiful in the eyes of others may often times find herself lonely and without companions. Cindy a fourteen year old patient of Dr. Mary Pipher was a slow learner, she was shy and dressed in Kmart clothing, she had no siblings or parents to protect her, and was largely ignored by her peers. Cindy was less developed than her peers and often times watched television to keep herself company, she clearly had problems with depression (Pipher 152). Like Cindy, many girls who lack attachment to peers rely on television, magazines, and even music for companionship. This type of companionship is clearly unhelpful, since magazines and adolescent television programs are also centered around America’s ideal of beauty. Shows such as Dawson’s Creek features teenage girls who fit into the American image of beauty; they are tall, slender, beautiful, have many friends, are socially adequate, and engage in teen sex. Magazines such as Seventeen and Cosmopolitan feature ads on how to engage in sex and instruct young females on how to please men in bed. The magazines are centered around style and sex, and clearly have nothing to do with portraying women as strong, competent, or resilient. The nature of media images of women influence young girls to believe that being slim, submissive, and sexy is more enjoyable than being a strong, independent, or competent women. For depressed girls, like Cindy, who rely on television, magazines, and music for companionship, it is hard to find an escape from the pressures of being a teenage girl in the 21st century. Barely any of today’s programs that target teenage youth feature women who are average in size or are overweight, and those who do, don’t portray bigger women as having qualities that youth long for. Characters such as Roseanne in the television series Roseanne are clearly plus sized but are portrayed not as being beautiful, sexy, or submissive, but for being funny. In many episodes Rosanne wears oversized plaid shirts and lacks makeup. The same can be seen in the female characters of Yes,Dear, they are not portrayed as being beautiful or sexy, but are portrayed as being comic relief for other characters in these sitcoms. The messages sent to young girls through the media clearly add to the difficulties of teenage girls in our society today. Girls compare themselves to women in television shows and in magazines and often times are saddened that they do not share the same qualities as a slim and beautiful woman. The media is sending a message to young girls which tells them that they are nothing unless they are slim, beautiful, submissive, and sexy. Without these qualities, even the most average of girls can begin to feel inadequate and in turn develop low self-esteem. At a time where puberty is just beginning, girls are taught to be uncomfortable with their natural selves (Pipher 54).. After talking to parents of teenage girls, it seems as though most adults agree that the pressures of the media and junior high have changed their daughter’s personalities dramatically from puberty on. I talked with a coworker named Rebecca about the influences of media and junior high on her daughter, Rochelle’s personality changes since puberty. “We live in a world full of sexism,” said Rebecca,” our daughters are learning that having sex and doing drugs is cool, they care less about their family and less about school. All they seem to care about is the way they look and what boys think of them.” As I talked with Rebecca, it seemed as though she is at a loss in relation to her daughter. Rebecca described Rochelle before entering junior high. “ Rochelle loved to read books, she was a straight A student, and was constantly having slumber parties with her girlfriends, she was also a star player on her softball team.” I then asked her to describe Rochelle during junior high and she said “Rochelle just stopped caring about her grades, she stopped seeing her girlfriends and started hanging out with boys. We caught her sneaking in and out of the house so many times, once she even admitted to doing drugs. And the things she was wearing were horrendous. When Rochelle was 15, she got pregnant.” I consoled Rebecca, and agreed that it must have been difficult trying to control Rochelle, but I assured her that she did the best job that she could of raising her daughter. We then began to talk about what she did to cope with her daughter’s behavior. “First off, I started setting down rules for Rochelle. She had a curfew of 8 pm on weekdays and 9 pm on the weekends. I put her in drug counciling through the school,...