Seventeen has
been a very influential magazine for young women for years (since 1944), so why is
it that it only talks about guys, getting a nice butt and not having frizzy
hair? Oh, and what not to eat. Seventeen reinforces the idea of
independence, self sufficiency and girl power. This puts a real
strain on me, growing up girls shouldn't think that their value is measured by
how many guys they can get, their kissing techniques and how great their bangs
look. I would rather see more important issues that girls today face, such as;
abuse, eating disorders, sexuality addiction, bullying and mental
health. I would rather see Seventeen tell a girl not to do drugs because it is hazardous to her health rather than because it will make her teeth yellow or give her acne. Seventeen used to really hit those issues...
but now it's all about making your legs look longer and how to make your eyes
pop. What happen to the section about girls' lives? Making it seem that a
girl's biggest problem is being "fat" and "ugly" just
puts the worth of women a little lower. And guess what? That's not cool. Young
women do way more than twirl their hair and find fun new ways to kiss boys. I
even noticed that their are no hair tips if you have short hair and very few
make up tips for varying skin complexions. Seventeen caters to young, preppy, happy, go
lucky, skinny, easy-to-fix, middle class Caucasian girls. What about the rest
of the population? The girls that don't have long, easy to manage hair or the
girls who suffer real day to day problems that can not be fixed in the span of
a glossy page.
So, have we really moved past the skirt-only wearing forties? Or
are we right where we started, measuring a girl by how pretty she is and how
hot her boyfriend is. Thoughts?
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