Women and Self Esteem - Research Paper Example

? Women and Self Esteem Introduction Etymologically, the term ‘woman’ suggests an adult female human. However, at a greater paradigm, this term has wider indication from sociological and socio-psychological aspect. In human civilization, woman plays a role of a mother, as she carries the fetus in her womb; she is the symbol of power as she stands at the centre of a family being its pivot. The woman is regarded as an epitome of beauty, an impeccable mark of aesthetic in the kingdom of god’s creation. She is seen as the complimentary element of his better-half and regarded as his counter-part as well. She is mother, deity, nurse, seducer, wife and above all a human being with the entire potentials equivalent to her male gender. Yet, since ages she has been treated as a second sex, something inferior to men and as an instrument to allure and amuse men. Whereas, feminist discourse and modern poststructuralist discourse very pertinently, put stress on the fact that female body is an instrument to perceive the culture or it is used as the ‘medium of culture’. The argument lies at the locus of the social control for which women can be considered as something transcended from her biological entity. The answer to this inquisition have been satisfied by the action and lives of such great women who has transcended the barrier of limiting themselves to the domestic menial chores and symbol of sexual and biological difference to leave a long lasting impression in the history through their work and exercise of grey matter to the fullest length. The argument of Chris Weedon can be treated as the premise of the discussion going to be further captivated in this essay that will deal with women of self esteem and potential. Weedon argued, ‘patriarchal power rests on the social meanings given to biological sexual difference’ (Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995). The body is trained and shaped to bear the mark of age-old historical phenomena of ‘selfhood, desire, masculinity and femininity’. But if this is the only parameter for the judgment potential within a human being then, the women like Mother Teresa, Eva Paron, Joan of Arc, Indira Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi or the historical epitome of power, administration and dominance of Queen of Sheba, Queen Elizabeth or Isis would not have been mentioned time and again for being the power centre and successful rulers form various quarters of history. Women and Self Esteem Body of women has been the only significant element since history. From art, literature and in present day’s glitch of visual art and media the body of women has been her only entity. She is somehow always been tried to be limited within the coinage of ‘fairer sex’. In the illuminating article on the feminist psychology, “Mirror Images: Effects of the Standard of Beauty on the Self-and Body Esteem of Women Exhibiting Levels of Bulimic Symptoms” by Lori M. Irving suggested an astonishing study where the thinner models reported a lower rate of self confidence compared to the oversized model. Irving came to a very tight-lipped conclusion that in the present days, media definitely plays a pivotal role in shaping the self-esteem of a woman no matter how much they are exposed to various eating disorders. At this point, the paradigm study of two sisters is the exuberant attempt in prose by Jennifer Weiner in her novel, “In Her Shoes” (Irving, 1990). In the novel, the audience come across thirty years old Rose Feller, a very powerful attorney and secretly passionate to romance and that of romantic novels. She is about to join an exercise class to come in to shape in order to look good. Illusioned about her beautiful looks, she constantly dreams of a man who will sweep her by her feet, fall head over heels in love with her at the same time, she dreams of screwing up her younger sister. Rose’s younger sister is twenty eight years old Maggie, who is exceedingly beautiful though her big-screen stardom career did not prosper. She as well has her own set of dreams where she dreams for a career of glamour and success and a regimen of skin care for her elder sister. Through the course of the novel, these women discover that their apparent idea of thinking that they only share same sized foot and a biological coding called DNA is wrong. Apparently placed at the two ends of a spectrum in life, the sisters share many things which are similar in them, “Rose might have left herself into a fat load-a big sister in more ways than one- but at least their feet were still the same size”. These lines do not only imply that Rose and Maggie have same sized foot but at a greater realm, it connotes that all women have same soul inside and how much disparity that women might have in their appearance and nature, they suffer from the same sense of insecurity and at the same time, they have immense potential to grow and come out of that disillusioned protective cocoon of masculine support and patriarchal dependence. In this regard, the example of the lady who emerged as an incarnation of the word love, care and compassion in modern world looms large in the mind. Mother Teresa, a single lady whose mission was to heal every poor, underprivileged, orphan, sick and needy. This lean and thin woman clad herself into a blue bordered sari all her life and at the time of her death she was having more than 610 missions spread across the globe in 123 countries under the banner of “Missionaries of Charity”. Her self-esteem and power to win every heart through love and care is an example to the world fighting for the narrow fragmented reasons. She received Noble Prize for Peace in the year 1979. But that is not the highest accreditation to her achievements. She showed immense power to organize and heal. She stood by the side of every needy, sick and destitute that could have been possible. She is power, glory, love and care personified. With her love and care for all she effaced the boundaries between the countries and emerged as a ‘Mother’ of the entire universe (Vatican, n.d.). It is very necessary for women to come out of the stereotypes and to abstain themselves from these typical and archetypal gender roles by which women will be able to discover and re-discover their true identity in the society. A very illuminating and self-contained study in this regard captivated in the article, “Ratings of self and peers on sex role attributes and their relation to self-esteem and conceptions of masculinity and femininity” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that for both the sexes “femininity” on the female-valued self-items and masculinity on the male-valued self-items were co-related on a positive scale and both had a significant relation with the self-esteem. And this inference was drawn from a very well-researched experiment where 248 male students and 282 female students studying in college were rendered a Personal Attribute Questionnaire which consisted of 55 bipolar attributes drawn from the Sex Role Stereotype Questionnaire. Under this evaluation the comparison of typical male and female college students were rated. The self-ratings were being distributed into male-valued and female-valued specific sex-items. The result was very astonishing indicating that expectation on sex-role does not distract or alter the concept of self (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975). The greatest example of woman in the modern world proving her higher level of self-esteem and confidence by breaking the stereotypes of the gender –role assigned upon female members of the society was Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the first and the only female Prime Minister in India. In the oriental societies, attitude towards women are generally more conservative. They are more comfortably placed within the domestic chores and her role is limited within the precincts of her household where her success lies more in being a competent home-maker and caring mother. Mrs. Indira Gandhi paved the way for a new generation women in India by transforming herself in the trajectory of politics from, “Goongi Guria” i.e. ‘a dumb-doll’ to the first-class diplomat who made the place of India into world politics and shaped the destiny of the nation by walking on the quasi-socialist policies that revolves round industrial development of an agricultural country. She not only administered the country breaking the stereotype role a woman is assigned in Indian society, but far from that she successfully managed India’s internal issues and gave the nation, a new entity in the global paradigm (Rath, 1985). The ending of the novel “In Her Shoes” is a remarkable example which throws light on the rediscovery of oneself and one’s self confidence. The three women in the novel, Ella Hirsch, Rose and Maggie Fuller learn that they are mentally stronger than they thought themselves to be. In loving each other and falling back on the old relations, they understood that the family bindings which they were missing all these years were worth preserving and their self-discovery was the most remarkable aspect of the entire story. Weiner, the natural story teller allows the women in the story to find their selves without taking much extra effort. It suggests that every woman has certain potential within them which are always out of the conventionalities of the societies imposed on them. Women should try to come out of that pre-conceived notion and stereotypes imposed on them by the society in general and patriarchy in particular to discover and comprehend the immense potentialities within them. Self-confidence is not a prior attribute in human. Irrespective of any gender, human being gain self-confidence with the growing years. In this regard, environment and education play extensive roles. It is suggested at times that the approach of women towards education or academics is with lower self-confidence than men. But the article, ‘Self-Confidence in Women’s Education: A Feminist Critique” by Davis, Fran and Steiger, Alrene is a must-read critique which acts as an eye-opener to the people preoccupied with the notion that men have certain high degree of interest towards academics compared to women. Also men have higher level of self-confidence than women. The interest of women in scientific field and the increased number of women receiving secondary education is definitely a threat to the past sex biased research methodologies and inferences. Women are gradually showing more self-confidence with the growth of awareness and education among them, on a world-wide basis. And this is a clear indication that since age women have been subverted and deprived of education which eventually have succumbed their self-confidence and mental maturity. This can be even seen as the politics of the patriarchal society to suppress the voice of women from a feminist paradigm (Davis & Steiger, 1993). As discussed earlier in this essay as well, the media plays a very definite and concrete role in building the self-esteem and confidence of women. At the same time, it might hurt the development procedure as well. Therefore, the media, specially the TV commercials have definitely a far-reaching influence on the psychology of women that agitate and trigger their self-confidence building process. The article, “Influence of television commercials on women’s self-confidence and independent judgment” shows a very crucial and illuminating result. It indicates that the women who are exposed to the non-stereotypic TV commercials display a very positive and a behavioral change that is long lasting. The contrast is drawn with the women who were exposed to the commercials which were conceived same with the only difference of the stereotype role. Therefore, it is pertinent that media in general and commercials in particular iterate the self-confidence and boost the independence of judgment in women. Hence, as a part of social responsibility, media ought to maintain parity where the confidence of women section will not be disturbed (Jennings-Walstedt, Geis, & Brown, 1980). Conclusion Since ages women have been treated as the inferior sex. Deprived of proper education and opportunity, women have become inferior to men falling prey to the power politics of patriarchy. Physical inferiority is not the only parameter to judge the ability of any person. Therefore, the potentials of women walking at the same pace in myriad walks of life along with men should not be undermined. The contributions of women in science, medicine, literature, academics, politics and entertainment industry are immense. With growing self-esteem and self-confidence in women, they are sharing simultaneous space with men in workplace and household. Women are complimentary to men but they should not be treated inferior to them at any level. The greatest gift of almighty that a woman is, she should be revered, loved and cared. References Davis, F., & Steiger, A. (1993). Self-confidence in women’s education: a feminist critique. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED372999.pdf Irving, L. M. (1990). Mirror images: effects of the standard of beauty on the self- and body-esteem of women exhibiting varying levels of bulimic symptoms. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 9 (2), pp. 230-242. Jennings-Walstedt, J. Geis, F. L., & Brown, V. (1980). Influence of television commercials on women's self-confidence and independent judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38 (2), pp. 203-210. Kitzinger, C., & Wilkinson, S. (1995). Feminism and discourse: Psychological perspectives. USA: SAGE. Rath, N. (1985). ‘Garibi Hatao’: Can IRDP do it? Economic and Political Weekly XX (6), pp. 238. Spence, J. T. Helmreich, R., & Stapp, J. (1975). Ratings of self and peers on sex role attributes and their relation to self-esteem and conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32 (1), pp. 29-39. Vatican. (n.d.). Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Retrieved from http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20031019_madre-teresa_en.html Read More