Alex-
After reading our next installment for this week, I think I agree with Brooke in that there is this emerging sense of gender roles and what is expected of women coming of age. The whole part about the girls wearing shoes that were "grown up" and how men were looking at them, took away their innocence. Even when they were playing jump rope, they were singing about growing into their own hips and what hips were supposed to be for. There was an objectification of these girls as there were men trying to kiss them forcibly. I wasn't sure if this was a commentary on coming of age, or coming of age in poverty. Are disadvantaged girls objectified more than girls who grow up with money? I feel as though there is a more traditional view of what roles women and men play in society and that this view is somehow shifting. I found two videos that I feel show this. The first one is a cartoon that shows the traditional view CARTOON and a news clip that shows a more modern view NEWS. This leaves me to wonder if these roles are old fashioned or if there is still a connection between poverty and these gender roles.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI mentioned the same thing in my response about the girls wearing these shoes and all the unwanted attention they got. It feels like they are being thrown into adulthood without even realizing it. I think you raise a good and important question about girls who grow up in poverty-stricken neighborhoods and those that don't. I thought about this as well and talked about her environment and how her community may be forcing her to grow up too quickly.
-Jess (Sorry I keep forgetting to put my name)
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteYou raise an interesting point that I hadn't considered before. I do think that there is a correlation to "growing up too fast" and being impoverished. It's almost as if girls who live in poverty don't think they have anything else to offer but their bodies and their "female-ness." Its sad that so many girls think that they need to wear makeup and heels and to accentuate their hips, before they even turn 13, to be worth anything!
-That was Brooke ( I forgot my name too, sorry :)
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