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AUGUST 2007: Our Girls Need Real Role Models
Parents Newsletter
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This month's Beacon Street Girls parents newsletter is focused on role models. As you know, our mission as a company is to provide realistic role models for preteen girls embedded in positive media that they can enthusiastically embrace.
This month, I'd like to comment on an upcoming movie release aimed at our audience, and then share with you Five Ways to be Perfectly Imperfect by our friend, Lori Deschene, a writer for SIX78th Magazine. I hope you’ll share her wonderful advice with your daughters.
The movie poster for the upcoming Bratz live-action movie, due out this week, says it all. Four girls, perfectly made-up, with hip (but tarty) wardrobes and not one ounce of excess plumpness are parading around as school outcasts—re-packaged by Hollywood to be positive role models for our daughters.
It may have been quite some time ago that I went to Junior High, but I know that these girls would never be on the outside looking in.
The Bratz brand is trying to re-invent itself. MGA Entertainment is trying to clean up its image—to make the slutty, belly-baring dolls not only acceptable for five-year olds, but actually beneficial. So, the company is using the worldwide movie release to re-position the characters and the brand—all to sell more dolls and accessories and continue its double-digit growth. (The business is worth over $4.6 billion and counting.)
How troubling that the company feels consumers can be so easily manipulated. How scary it is that an edgy, unhealthy world can suddenly become wholesome and virtuous by masquerading as family-friendly entertainment designed to empower girls.
MGA Entertainment has every right to sell its dolls and make its movie, but to use a bait and switch marketing message in order to further propel icons that are superficial, over-sexualized, and vapid is condescending and demeaning to us and our children. It insults our intelligence.
Parents—be wary. We may be older, but we are not stupid. If we take our girls to the Bratz movie, we shouldn’t pretend that we are seeing an empowering film that will encourage them to be true to themselves.
Real role models aren't perfect. They make mistakes, they get pimples and they have strengths and weaknesses just like real girls. Most of them don't have thin thighs, perfect hair, make-up artists, and perfect fashion-forward wardrobes.
This month's guest column, drawn from the pages of Six78th magazine, is called "Five Ways to Be Perfectly Imperfect" addresses this obsession with perfection that is a symptom of the role model wars.
Real role models show us how we can live our lives better. They help us aspire to greater things. They teach us and guide us and make us want to better ourselves, without making us feel inadequate.
They are women like pro soccer star Mia Hamm, whose foundation is dedicated to bone-marrow diseases and who takes her role model status seriously by encouraging young female athletes. Or Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, who created Sally Ride Science to encourage girls in math, science and technology.
Role models don't always have to be real people either—books can provide role models too. Recently a group of young girls in Pennsylvania started making blankets for children at a nearby homeless shelter. They were reading our books with their principal, learned about Maeve's Blanket Project, and decided to emulate her. (I also think the school principal, who is giving of her time and energy to host an after-school book club, is a great role model—not to mention these girls themselves! We profiled them both in one of our kids newsletters.)
Personally, I hope that we can teach our daughters the difference between authenticity and a marketing strategy. I probably won't be taking my daughters to the Bratz movie, but I have friends who will. I am fine with parents deciding what is appropriate for their own daughters to see. My only concern is that we are honest with our girls and ourselves—we need to call it like we see it, and talk to our future leaders/mothers/women about what is real, what is fantasy, and what really empowers women. Please don’t hesitate to send your comments to me at addie@btweenproductions.com and we will continue the dialogue.
Regards,
Addie
Five Ways to Be Perfectly Imperfect
By Lori DescheneJunior high brings a whole new awareness and perception about who we are, how we look, and how we measure up to the expectations of ourselves and others. It can be almost startling to watch our daughters transform from their younger, little girl selves into young women who suddenly question and focus on 'flaws.'
It can be difficult to accept oneself at any age; especially when it feels like everyone (and everything) at some point implies that you need to be better or just plain different than exactly who you are. It's a vulnerable age, and girls may not always know when they have gone from "I like who I am, and I just want to be my best" to "If I don't ace this English test, I won't eat, drink, sleep, or talk to another human being until I memorize my thesaurus." These tips (written directly to girls) can help our girls gain a sense of balance and reassurance:
- Set goals that are within your reach. It's great to be ambitious. If there weren't ambitious people in the world we wouldn't have telephones, curling irons, or pizza. But deciding you're going to feed all the starving children in the world before your freshman year in high school is like asking for disappointment. If you choose to do something right now, like serving food to homeless people on weekends, you're much more likely to make a positive change and be proud of what you've done.
- Enjoy the process as much as the end-result. Some people get so caught up in something they want, that they forget to enjoy the experience. Take the gymnast, for example, who wants to learn to do a back handspring so badly that she starts ignoring her friends so she can spend sixteen hours a day stretching, bending, and chanting, "I am one with my hamstrings." Working hard is great, but what good is accomplishing something if you stop having fun?
- If something doesn't work out, learn from it, and let it go. "How could I have forgotten my lines in the school play? I'm never doing theater again!" This type of reaction is totally normal. Instead of swearing off an activity that brings you happiness, why not ask yourself what went wrong, and then try to fix it for next time? Maybe you need to look over your lines more in the future or just learn to relax onstage. A mistake is an opportunity to work toward improvement.
- Learn to take suggestions and criticism. Have you ever had someone offer advice? Maybe when you didn’t ask for it? Most of us react by feeling defensive. "What do you mean I should study a little more? Like you're this perfect, smart, studying-machine who knows all about studying or something?" When someone offers criticism it's hard not to focus on the fact you're being criticized. Sometimes, the suggestions don't work for you, but other times they can make the difference between being okay and being your best.
- Know what you like about yourself. From big noses and arm fat, to snort-like laughs and over-active tear ducts, everyone has something they want to change. Go ahead and make the list if you want to. Just make a list of things you like as well—like the way you treat your friends, how pretty your eyes look when you get enough sleep, the way everyone comes to you for advice, because you really listen. These are things people appreciate about you, and they are the things you want them to focus on. But they'll only do it if you do it too.
Our girls need to remember that they are originals. They are one-of-a-kind individuals, and thankfully they don't have to strive to conform to anyone else's ideal. You can help guide (and remind) them not to conform to anything except the goals they have set for themselves. Not only will they feel empowered and proud as they realize their unique qualities, but they will also feel much less stressed as they grow and mature.
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