Raising Girls
I found this video on Stacie’s Twinkies blog and I thought that it needed to be shared. It is a sad truth that the media assaults women with images and ads blatantly insinuating that we are not good enough as we are. How does this sort of advertising effect the psyches of young and impressionable young girls? Stacie asks how we can raise self confident and self assured girls in a society that constantly tells them they are not good enough.
In case you missed the earlier Campaign for Real Beauty video which demonstrates that images of models aren’t always exactly what they seem:
How wonderful would it be if we lived in a world where people could be proud of who they are instead of who the media says they should be? If girls could grow up not feeling insufficient because they don’t have the ‘right’ weight or the ‘right’ clothes or even the ‘right’ looks? How do we raise self confident girls and successfully combat this onslaught of negative advertising?
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Thanks for sharing those, they were quite interesting.
Unfortunately, Dove who does these “wonderful” commecials also are the ones who sell skin whitening cream full of deadly mercury to women in other countries. They ahve great commercials about beautiful women not getting jobs, husbands, ect… because their skin is too dark.
If they thought they would make more money in the US telling us how ugly we were they’d be going that route instead of the “real beauty”.
Activist Mommy – It is sad and horrible that those are the commercials that they air in other countries. I was unaware of that. It is quite a bit disheartening. Do you have any links to more information on that?
I do still think the message in these videos, however, is a good one for young girls. Be who you are, not who you’re told to be.
I’m torn. I just love the sentiment and message but am ambivelent about the messenger. These are folks who make money from the same beauty products.
Gee do I need to write that post about my son calling his brother a “girl”. It all fits in to how our society views girls.
I hadn’t seen this new ad, but agree that the message is a good one (if a little sad that it’s needed at all). I found this link which gives a bit more info on the company (am a natural cynic who likes to find out for myself!)
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071003/dove_ad_071003/20071003?hub=Health
and this link which talks about the skin whitening stuff:
http://archive.coanews.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=2062
Quite an interesting – and disturbing- read!
I came by to thank you for stopping by my blog and then was just fascinated by the videos. I’d never seen either of them before. Wow.
I don’t envy people who are raising girls in this insanity.
WOW! I have three girls and WOW! Thanks for the great post. Just another thing to parent my girls on that I never think about.
these videos are one of the many reasons why i’m both terrified and thrilled at the prospect of baby #2 being a little girl. (no, i’m not pg nor are we planning anything).
This is absolutely so necessary. I may send various moms I know your way… amazing stuff.
Awesome! Thank you for posting these.
This makes me want to cry but I know it is coming. I love the concept of helping my daughter define herself before the world steps in. Thank you!