Saturday, August 05, 2006

Little girls

The author of one of my favorite books once described someone as having "the cow-like face of a girl who's always told she's beautiful."

I have lots of little girls as students. And it's always sort of disturbing to see how some of their parents dress them. They dress them like little models or something. It's just weird to see a kindergartner wearing hot pants. Just the other day, one of my students was swivling her hips and shoulders, except that she doesn't have much of anything to swivel.

Also a lot of them are dressed up like dolls. I think people sometimes expect their daughters to cute and that's about it. This happens particularly when the little girls really are pretty.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

thats kind of fucked up.

-Michelle

Anonymous said...

It's the same stateside, where we sell thongs for elementary-age kids and encourage little girls to be tarted up. Yeah, and about the "pretty little girls" this is where the culture of beauty gets started and this is why women and girls (and to a lesser degree men and boys) who have been attractive all their lives are so insufferable to be around. That's why several studies have documented beautiful women becoming unhappy when they reach a certain age, vs. average/unattractive women who actually become happier when looks are not important anymore, and the inner beauty they've fostered their whole lives really gets a chance to shine.

Anonymous said...

i think thats so true, exangelena...ive noticed that sometimes in aging women.
-Michelle

Anonymous said...

wait a minute, there are real studies that show that? hook us up! i wanna see them.

Anonymous said...

As someone who co-wrote a 16 page chemistry research paper with 70+ citations, I should be ashamed of myself, but here goes ...
"'There is an interesting study of attractive versus unattractive women,' [University of Texas psychologist Stella] Garcia-Lopez says. 'In the youthful part of their life, happiness is high among attractive people. But then, as attractiveness fades, the researchers found unattractive people happier than attractive people.'
Why? 'Because the unattractive people had to develop coping skills, social skills, interpersonal abilities ... These are the things that are more stable during a lifespan. And therefore, by the time they get older, they've honed those skills.'"
Judy Bachrach, The Beauty Curse, Allure, November 2003

Anonymous said...

wow. coool. thanks!

i tried to find the study (or a similar one) in the public library databases but it wasn't there. gotta get my school library card soon!

Anonymous said...

yeah! ugly people rule, dude!

-Michelle