A Women's Perspective on Growing Up as a Female - Coursework Example

RUNNING HEAD: A Womens’ Perspective on Growing Up as a Female A Womens’ Perspective on Growing Up as a Female Jennifer Moon Health Perspectives for Women Dr. Roberta T. Feehan Kean University Spring 2009 A Women’s Perspective on Growing Up as a Female Introduction For women in today’s society, it has been said that “life can often seem like a beauty pageant” (Norsigian, 2005, p.3). What this is suggesting is that women perceive that they are being judged by others, both men and women, as a means of exploiting their beauty or lack thereof. Additionally, there is research evidence that women, when they begin to explore their more feminine side, are put “back in her proper place as a wife, mother and consumer” by mainstream media (Colowick, 2001, p.139). This suggests that women are not given ample opportunities to explore their multi-dimensional talents and values because they are left with the perception that they must constantly conform to mainstream values about women and gender roles. Moreover, women are also believed to compare their bodies with other women when building a model of the ideal self (Trampe, Stapel and Siero, 2007). This paper explores the unique perceptions of five women, of varying ages and demographics, regarding what it means to be a woman and the role of the woman in today’s American society. The Backgrounds Subject One: 54 years – Mother of two – Domestic engineer (housewife) Subject Two: 19 years – College student – Active dating life – Boyfriend Subject Three: 25 years – Asst. Store Manager – Widow of army captain Subject Four: 29 years – Single mother of a four year old daughter – Divorced Subject Five: 71 years – Grandmother of 11 – Married for 37 years to second husband All of the research subjects maintained different economic backgrounds and family structures. It was important for this paper to identify the specific demographics in order to fully measure the research results based on responses. The Results The women interviewed were exposed to the idea that many women consider life to be similar to that of a beauty pageant and to describe their perceptions on what this meant in society. All of the women unanimously understood the basic premise of the question and offered a tremendous volume of scenarios and connections to how they feel that women are portrayed in society, with the majority of their examples taking a negative connotation. This was evident by body language and obvious facial grimaces when touching on certain subjects. Clearly, this entire segment of interview subjects believed that women were constantly being judged by others to compare to some ideal social viewpoint of beauty which was unrealistic and largely unachievable. Even Subject Five, the grandmother, believed that older women were always being depicted with “fresh faces and pearly white teeth” (Personal Interview, 2009). Subject Five’s intention was to express that television commercials such as those for denture adhesives create an unrealistic picture of today’s active grandmothers, as “bingo players and score keepers” (Personal Interview, 2009). Clearly, there is a high level of frustration for older demographics. The women were also asked, without leading responses, how they go about measuring their own attractiveness. Interestingly, the older demographics measured their attractiveness based on how their husbands responded to them while the younger group measured their attractiveness by their clothing sizes or whether their diets were working. However, in each and every case, none of the women mentioned anything about internal personality characteristics or anything about cognitive abilities or similar attributes. Clearly, women measure attractiveness based on the exterior, which also supports the research evidence which discusses life being a metaphor for a beauty pageant. None of the interview subjects seemed to consider attractiveness as an element outside of physical attributes. The subjects were also asked to consider Hillary Clinton, who one author suggests has “become a new embodiment for the female persona” (Bennett, 2008). She is also criticized, says the author, for being “cold, calculating and presumptuous” (Bennett). The subjects were asked to give their own impressions of why they might feel that Hillary Clinton has become this embodiment. The responses were mixed, with Subject One and Subject Four being the only subjects who believed this was an error on Clinton’s part for being “too aggressive” and “too transparent” (Personal Interview, 2009). Essentially, the subjects believed that Clinton was, in no measureable way, the embodiment of the female persona as they seemed to feel that Clinton reduced femininity with raw ambition. Subject Three believed it was a product of the male-dominated society. Subject Five believed it was because the media just likes to “kick people around” (Personal Interview, 2009). No substantial conclusions could be drawn from this because the responses were so widely mixed. However, there was a general consensus that Clinton is not a true representation of the female psyche. The women were further asked to consider whether they believed that whenever women begin veering toward feminism, that magazines and media “put them back in their proper places as wifes, mothers and consumers” (Colowick). There was near-consensus that this occurred regularly and that women were only respected when they are linked with career success or having a family, with essentially no in-between. Subject Three was especially adamant that feminism would never be an attainable goal, in mainstream society, because there were simply too many stereotypes against women. People seemed, according to Subject Three, to believe that being simply a wife, mother and consumer would never stretch the limits of what women can attain, which is something she attributes to high male leadership in the American hierarchy. Subject Four, additionally, believed that men were at the root of women, as a whole social group, being limited and missing out on opportunities. When it comes to how women are portrayed by media, there was clearly a noticeable hostility toward men in this group, with four of the five respondents bringing the male persona into the discussion. Perhaps this is because women are looking for a scapegoat for their lack of successes or because they truly believe that men are behind the social stigmas and stereotypes which prevent them from reaching their fullest potential as women. The interview subjects were also asked to offer their largest challenges ever experienced in their own lifetimes. The results were widely-mixed and many of the scenarios and examples offered were products of their financial backgrounds. For instance, one respondent mentioned a challenge being a problem with her husband and herself arguing over a boat purchase and did not see much further than her socio-economic background when describing personal challenges. She saw the struggle between man and woman as the basis of how she views life challenges rather than issues of self-reflection, emotional and cognitive growth, or other frustrations which women must consider during their lifetimes. However, this respondent, Subject Three, may simply harbor hostilities or animosities against men because of her husband’s abrupt death while in service which left her with a large volume of responsibilities and financial challenges. Still in regards to challenges, Subject Five identified her largest challenge as being physical mobility issues which still did not answer the question regarding the role of women when facing challenges. There was beginning to be a pattern in responses where women considered tangible relationship issues and physical issues to be a woman’s plight with little to no consideration by any of the subjects in terms of identifying with the self. Does this mean that American women have lost the ability to look into themselves and find their better person? The evidence would seem to point in this direction as common themes regarding how these women view themselves would point to more superficial in nature. This assessment was reinforced by responses when the women were asked what would be one, specific thing they would change for women as a whole if they had the authority. Each of the responses were unique, however there was another recurring theme of superficial responses. For example, Subject One said that she would make bathrooms self-cleaning so that women did not have to sit in filth in dirty restaurant bathrooms and similar like. Subject Two mentioned that she would offer better education so women could get better salaries. Without identifying all of the responses, there was no indication of wanting to change cultural values, to help women identify with their inner selves, nor any mention of communication or similar social activities. What is most interesting to these results is that the aforementioned superficial mentality existed, in varying degrees, within each group. Prior to the interview, the subjects were read one paragraph of the class’ main text to give them a feel for the theme of the interview and the exploration of women. However, the subjects were clearly not thinking of broader women’s health issues when offering responses. Even though these interview sessions were not rushed, the women consistently chose the superficial for response. Finally, the interview subjects were not given the stereotypical traits which often describe women including being family-friendly, open, good communicators, and team players (Everbach, 2006). These features came from an ethnographic study in the workplace inquiring as to what characteristics were most typically feminine. Instead, the women were asked to identify which characteristics they deemed as actually-feminine. Subject One and Subject Five believed that femininity meant “friendliness” and “warmth” (Personal Interview, 2009). Subject Two believed it was “being able to cry” and “having breasts” (Personal Interview, 2009), however this could be a product of her lack of experience stemming from being only 19 years old as her responses took a more biological theme. Conclusion Without giving specific responses from the rest of the group, there were widely different beliefs on what it meant to be feminine, with absolutely none of the group mentioning any of the characteristics as identified by the study proposed by Everbach. Being family-friendly would seem to be the stereotypical view of the woman as the wife, mother and consumer which might suggest that there is a large divide between how the woman views herself and how society, as a whole, views her. Being a good communicator would seem to describe any demographic, male or female, perhaps maybe there is a generalized, widely-accepted stereotype that women simply have the ability to communicate better than men. Perhaps this is why men do not openly discuss their problems or frustrations because they believe they must behave in a certain fashion as the masculine counterpart. This was brought up and analyzed in this fashion because there seems to be a great deal of misconceptions between genders and gender role identification in society which has so blurred the concepts of masculine and feminine that a new model should be created. References Bennett, Jessica. (2008). “Am I Betraying the Sisterhood?”. Newsweek, 17 Mar, 151(11). Colowick, Susan M. (2001). “The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media”. Library Journal, 126(20), 139. Retrieved April 7, 2009 from ABI/INFORM Global database. Everbach, Tracy. (2006). “The culture of a women-led newspaper: An ethnographic study of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune”. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(3), 477-493. Norsigian, Judy. (2005). Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era, 3. Personal Interview. (2009). Subjects 1-5. April 9-10. Trampe, D., Stapel, D. and Siero, F. (2007). “On Models and Vases: Body Dissatisfaction and Proneness to Social Comparison Effects”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 106. Read More