Preview

Is Pink Think Alive?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
573 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Is Pink Think Alive?
Lynn Peril’s concept, “pink think” is a concept in which society has come up with a set of ideas and attitudes about what constitutes “proper” female behavior. For example, once upon a time, young girls were supposed to wear conservative dresses, and get boyfriends in hopes of those very boyfriends becoming their husbands and fathering their children so that they may become what was perceived as successful, a mother and housewife. These ideas and concepts were fit to the times that Peril mentions in her essay. Today, I believe that these stereotypes have indeed changed, and do not exist in our world today how they used to. However, naturally, new concepts and ideas have manifested in today’s world for young women in America.
Today, there are new stereotypes for young women that are very much alive, and unfortunately they’ve gotten more drastic and cause grief in many of their lives. Once, the idea of how girls were supposed to behave was beneficial to them in some ways, which is assumed to be the reason they were created in the first place. Today, the toxic concepts are that of those that the media has poisoned young women with. Due to popular celebrity idols, young women are led to believe that in order to fit in, and be “popular”, they must dress scantily, hold the sexual attention of the young males that surround them, and party with the “popular” crowd. Models today encourage young women to be unreasonably skinny, encouraging behaviors such as eating disorders, drugs, and unhealthy diet rituals. Celebrity female music artists encourage young women to carry sex appeal, attracting unwanted attention from men young and old that may cause them more problems in their already complicated transitions. And now, even certain television shows encourage young woman to become pregnant at a young age when they are not ready for it because the idea is glamorized by making it to the “big screen”.
In the schools these young women attend, many other factors also contribute to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Thus, in an attempt to further promote equal opportunity between men and women, a second wave of feminism emerged between 1968 and the 1980’s, which can be best characterized by women’s refusal to acclimate to society’s rigid belief of what an ideal woman should be or act like (Mancia, Class, 12/2). This problem is perfectly illustrated in the Feminine Mystique, written by Betty Friedan, in which Friedan discussed the unhappiness of many young women in the 1950’s and early 1960’s despite many of them being married and having children, living the life a woman is “supposed” to have. Furthermore, Friedan complained of young women who were being taught that “truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights” (Friedan, p. 271). Instead, they were being taught that it was a woman’s “job” to essentially be a housewife (i.e. stay home, clean the house, make food for her family, take care of the kids, etc...) (Friedan, p. 273). However, Friedan largely opposed this view and believed that it embodied the false prototypical stereotype about women. Rather, Friedan believed that a truly feminine woman would do just the exact opposite and does aim for a career, higher education, and political rights in the same way that a man would (Mancia, Class,…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Media has a big influence on society and the way media provides this information shapes what is the norm. The young women of today spend most of their free time on the Internet. Young women see what the media produces as the norm and convert it into their own lives. Therefore, mainstream media negatively influences women. According to this documentary, 53% of thirteen-year-old girls are displeased with their bodies. This can lead to eating disorders, cutting, or self harm. Women have a difficult time dealing with confidence when they are not allowed by society to feel powerful or influential in their own…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Elline Lipkin Summary

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A vast majority of adolescent girls face pressures to meet society’s expectations of how their body should look. These young women are exposed to the negative stereotypes from a very young age. In an effort to achieve these beauty standards, the girls have a tendency to suffer serious consequences while trying to maintain society’s idea of beauty. Over time, these standards have been altered but has not left cultural consciousness. Overall, Lipkin provides irrefutable examples of the detrimental toll these standards have on the way people live their lives, especially young…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tough Guise Gender

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The media has allowed others to expect that all women must have a perfect body. Young girls are seeing these messages and trying to mold themselves into these bodies. After this assignment, I was able to reflect how the media’s portrayal affects women’s self-esteem. We strive for unreachable expectations that aren’t real. They cause harm to a young girl’s self-image. I was also able to realize that ads and popular songs objectify women in a disgusting manner. It is upsetting to realize how many young girls listen and see these types of ads and songs. It is horrible that so many people are actually taking these fake images into consideration and striving for that type of body. By watching these films and applying them to real life examples, it has allowed me to understand that these issues are greater than we…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Today’s cultural standards play a major role in how people see us, especially in young female teens. Two women, authors Pamela Abbott and Francesca Sapsford wrote, “Clothing the Young Female Body” and argue that the fashion industry and the media are imperative to how a young female chooses their clothes. Abbott and Sapsford Begin their argument by first giving reader’s examples of where young teens are influenced, they state that advertisements and media paint pictures in teens mind on how they should dress and look like. Throughout the article they provide readers quotes from experts and give us an even bigger insight on how teen females…

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Growing up and still to this day I am told how to uphold an image, a reputation, the same as Lynn Peril wrote about in her essay “Pink Think”. Femininity suggests that women and girls will never be looked at as someone who will ever reach an expectation of anything higher than being the wife at home raising a family and loving their husband. Being seen as that gentle, soft, delicate, nurturing being as Peril notes, pink think is a set of ideas and attitudes about what constitutes proper female behavior. She opposes this narrow view of women from the beginning stating how she felt from the moment she knew what was happening. “I formed an early aversion to all things pink and girly.”…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Girls as young as nine are roaming the internet finding pictures and videos of female living unrealistic lives and bodies. According to Polce, Barbara, etc. “Media's messages regarding what to wear, or more invasively, what to weigh and how to sculpt muscles, may relate to adolescent worries about physical appearance and self-evaluations. Additional empirical investigation of the association between contemporary media influences and self-esteem is needed, with attention given to age and gender patterns” (Polce-Lynch, Mary, Barbara J. Myers, Wendy Kliewer and Christopher Kilmartin. 2001) demonstrating that Media can affect young women in more ways than just one. It tells them to be up to date with all the latest styles, brands, and…

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gail Collins argues, “The Feminine Mystique is a very specific cry of rage about the way intelligent, well-educated women were kept out of the mainstream of American professional life and regarded as little more than a set of reproductive organs in heels” (1). At a time when women were at their academic peak with the highest college attendance and graduation rates, one would assume that women would confidently take on more important roles in the workforce, especially following the Rosie the Riveter campaign that empowered female workers during World War II; however, women took on more domestic roles in higher percentages, forgetting the progress in women’s rights their mothers and grandmothers worked so hard to achieve. Louis Menand explains, “When Friedan was writing her book, the issue of gender equality was barely on the public’s radar screen. On the contrary: it was almost taken for granted that the proper goal for intelligent women was marriage” (2). A large contributor to this decision is the false sense of accomplishment women were promised in return for their spousal duties. Critic Catherine Judd explains, “Friedan notes that suburban housewives have been told by the media, by the medical community, and by educators that they…

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Black Men Stereotypes

    • 1625 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In reality TV and media, most women are portrayed at this and to even more extremes. The effects it has on women, especially young girls, as they grow up and feel as if they have to look and act like the women in the media, is an obvious issue. “As we progress through school, these attitudes are reinforced by our classmates and peers” (PsychAlive). This further exaggerates the fact that young children are getting this stereotype in their mind. The reality TV show America’s Next Top Model is basically a competition to determine which woman is the prettiest to be the next ‘top model’. There really is not a more obvious stereotype out there. When young girls or even young adults are watching these shows and seeing all these women dressing up and acting the way they are, they feel less of themselves when they are not the same. It is not only offensive to all the women that are not models, it is unfair that women tend to compare themselves to the models. This causes a serious sadness in women when they believe their appearance is not enough. Yet, women are not the only gender affected by stereotypes. An unfair stereotype towards men are the fact that all men are supposed to be extremely muscular or fit. A majority of magazine covers “often contain images of what the media defines as masculine” (“Unexpected Social Pressures”). Men reading these magazines have the same effect as women…

    • 1625 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In today’s world, when you look around, you see many different types of people. We live in a world of very diverse sets of people. From Adam and Eve, to the ancient Mayans, to the 1900’s, up until now cultural practices have always formed boundary between men and women, from the way they were raised and taught, even which occupation to choose from. Feminine roles have traditionally been associated with apathy, nurturing, estrogen and subordination. Before the child is born, girls are subjected to gender stereotypes; they are given clothing, décor, an accessories that are pink, which is the color that not only society but our culture assigned to the female gender. Even at a young age, girls are given dolls and the gender roles were set. Women have always been viewed as the ones who take care of the children, tend to the cooking and the cleaning and anything else that has to do with the house or the children upbringing. Ogtrop states “In 1976, when I was twelve, fully two-thirds of all American households that consisted of married couples with children had one parent staying home full-time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. My mother was one of those…

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    African American Women

    • 1314 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Young woman face numerous obstacles and confusion about their body image in everyday life. A lot of teenage female’s views of their body relates to what is displayed in music videos. Music videos are made partly to promote fashion, the music itself, and uphold trends. However, they tend to focus mainly the physical appearances of young people. These trends promote the ideal to be as thin and flawless as possible. This ultimately reinforces eating disorders in young females.…

    • 1314 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pink’s “Stupid Girls” is about the way the media portrays women and how that portrayal influences the behavior of women in society. Pink conveys this message through the use of her lyrics and the historical context from the song. When Pink says, “Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back”, she seems to be saying that the media sends women the message that the way women in the media communicate with men is the way they should be doing it as well. Women in the media often use their looks to get the attention of men and that is why so many women end up getting plastic surgery; they want to enhance the way they look because they think that looks is all that is important. At one point of the song Pink states, “What happened to the dreams of a girl president? She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent.” This shows that women are only viewed as sex symbols and not as serious, determined individuals. By saying this she is pointing out how women in media are only used for the way they look. This gives little girls watching the media the idea that women are only good for their looks. It makes them form their goals around looking pretty; whereas, if they had an image of a strong women running for president then they would want to be something more than someone beautiful. Pink released this song in 2006; in the years leading up to 2006 there were many instances in which the media made women to be seen as jokes. For instance, in 2005 Carl’s Jr. released an ad with Paris Hilton that showed her in a bikini on top of a nice car eating a burger. This further assessed the idea that women were seen as sex symbols. Then there are the incidents in which both Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian came out with sex tapes. This is an example of the negative idea in which Pink was referring to; if little girls see that these women found success or fame in making a sex tape, then they figure that the way to be successful is to use their body not their minds. Pink used all these types…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    rhetorical essay

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The theory of Pink Think is a set of ideas and attitudes about what constitutes proper female behavior. It was very popular from the 1940s to the 1970s. The theory of Pink think is the main argument of this essay. The cultural mindset of Pink think touched every female. The women read about it in articles, teens learned about it in their home economics textbooks, and little girls learned the feminine behaviors in games such as Miss. Popularity. With all the aspects of a woman’s life having some type of Pink think, it is no wonder women felt the need to fit into this mold. Pink think also told women that femininity was the only way to get and marry a…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The woman’s role in life was too much of a burden to take on, but it was told to be the true American way of living. The idea of a women maintaining her appearance, attitude, and personality through the guidelines of pink think was a thought brainwashed into women that they were doing their part in society. Since early childhood women were expected to already fill these shoes of what is to be said “true womanhood” and Lynn Peril explains that since birth there were already guidelines on how to raise your baby girl. She states, “Start your baby, especially if it is a girl, on a lifelong beauty and grooming program” (Peril 28). The idea of this was the illustration of true womanhood of how the ideal woman should and would become. The title put upon femininity that women needed to fulfill was unrealistic and untrue. The whole concept of being a women was basically not to live for yourself, but for others approval over you. There seem to be no freedom for true womanhood, but there were strict rules on how a female should look, date, behave, and so much more in order to perform true femininity in society. Consumerism during this modernity after the war was influenced by the advertisements that indoctrinated Americans as a society. These advertisements showing the perfect woman with the luscious hair, wonderful relationship, and happy life incited a stronger femininity culture than ever…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social Comparison Theory

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The effects of media on body perception are substantial during adolescence; recently there has been a universal increase in the extent of eating disorders, particularly among females (Eyal & Te’eni-Harari, 2013). The effect that media has on body image is particularly evident in adolescence as the development of personal identity, increasing peer pressure desire for uniqueness all occur (Eyal & Te’eni-Harari, 2013). Adolescence is also a time of growth and change of body shape and mas and puberty and hormones (Steinberg & Morris, 2001), which unquestionably contributes to the impact that social media and body comparison can play on female youths body image perceptions (Polce- Lynch et al. 2001). This is reinforced through approximately 50% of adolescent girls and young women being dissatisfied with their bodies as a consequence of the images on social media (Bearman, Presnell & Martinez, 2006). Currently the desire to look “perfect” and be “thin” is so dominant among adolescent girls that it can be described as a “normative discontent” within society (Rodin, Silberstein & Striegel-Moore, 1985; Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006). This discontent can greatly impact on the social inclusion of young women and can result in withdrawing themselves from their everyday lives. The impact of this form…

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics