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society's standards ruin everything and your girl is sick of it
Entry posted by dirigibleplums
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society's standards ruin everything and your girl is sick of it
hi, hpft. it's been a while, but your resident ratTM hath returned from the dead (or: twitter) to hash out some of my inner dialogue once again. today's topic: the toxic environment we've created for teenage girls. bit o' light reading for your commute, you see 
what spurred me to write about this? well, my little sister: twelve years old now and in her first year of secondary. secondary is a big change from primary school and though it's been a few years since i was there, i still remember the culture shock from year six (you know, when you were convinced you were the Coolest Person Ever since you ruled primary school and all that jazz) to diving into secondary school more or less blind just a summer later. our local one is a bit... rougher than some (although it's improved since i left) so that adds to the pressure again. as an older sister, i've tried to guide her the best i can, but there's only so much you can do, especially since i'm not at school to guide her like our big sister was with me. and as my little sister - let's call her... strawberry (get it? because i'm plums 
) - navigates her way through teenagehood, i've come to realise a lot of things i really don't like about the mindset she's being conditioned into.
number one: the pressure to be 'pretty'. sometimes strawberry will talk about friends she's made in school and she'll add in a little line like she's so pretty, you don't understand which is a fairly valid (and nice) thing to say. but then later if i compliment her, she outright refuses to believe me. if i'm going through my phone and i find a picture of her and melt over how cute she is, y'know bc she is literally my baby sister, she says i'm lying. or that i'm just saying that because i have to since she's my little sister. and i'm like ?? in what world. like. why. she flat-out refuses to accept any compliments about herself.
number two: the need to be 'skinny'. listen, i'm someone who struggles with confidence about my weight too. it was worse when i was younger, but i've learnt not to measure my worth in how much i weigh on a scale (i don't use one anymore) and i'm still learning to accept myself. i don't want strawberry to get to the stage where she has to learn how to accept herself. but she's already saying things like "when i lose weight, i'll have to..." or "does this make me look fat?" and i cannot put it into words how much i hate it. the other day, i discovered that she had started a DIET BOOK. SHE IS TWELVE AND SHE HAD A DIET BOOK. i can't put it into words how wrong that is. there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to fix up your diet so you're consuming less, say, crisps and more fruit - but monitoring what you eat?? that's exactly what i was doing when i was fourteen and literally so obsessed with my weight i felt like i couldn't sit down for fear of putting on more pounds. and no matter how many times i approach the subject with her, i can't help but feel like i'm getting nowhere.
number three: social media galore. i understand that social media is such a huge part of the world we're in and that kids have more or less always had it around. but i hate how easily it can be weaponised for cyber-bullying, especially with things like snapchat where messages can disappear in the blink of an eye. this isn't a sudden and new problem, but just being on the other side of secondary school really makes you realise how people can get swept up in all that. there's a pressure to be plastered all over social media when you're younger. to have more friends than other people, to have loads of views on your snapchat stories, to rack up likes. and the influencers on these platforms glamourise impossible aspirations, making their livings off of presenting their lives as perfect. while i think that social media has many benefits (it is, after all, how i keep in contact with everyone here), i also think it can be really damaging to someone when they're growing up. it reduces their worth to arbitrary and ultimately meaningless measures.
these are just some of the problems that i think are pretty toxic for all teenagers, not just teen girls even if they're the demographic i'm focusing on. i just really hate how society as a whole has reduced the value of women to their physical attributes, whether this is through social media or through the conditioning of people all around us. as much as i hate it, i know that strawberry is being directly influenced by the older female figures in her life: my mum, who panics once she goes over eight stones on the scale, and my sister who frequently calls herself fat despite going to the gym four times a week and averaging a size 6/8. it's the thoughtless comments of so-and-so is pretty but her sister is prettier instead of saying hey did you know suchabody was accepted into cambridge, she's doing really well with her life. it's how media seems to thrive off the male gaze, off expecting girls to smile like this and be this skinny and behave exactly like this.
it's damaging.
and for all my anger and awareness of the problem these past few years, it never really hit me how hard this bothers me until it affected someone i have an innate desire to protect. i don't want to see strawberry turn from this quirky, cheerful girl who was never too self-conscious for anything into someone who is self-conscious about everything. why should she have to go through all that? quite frankly, i'm sick and tired of society's bullshit standards. i look forward to the day they crumble.
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