The movie “Mean Girls” is a prime example of girls creating social pressures for other girls. When listening to Anthony talk about social pressures spurred on by other women, I immediately thought of this movie and how hard all of the main characters try to outdo one another in order to become the “most popular” girl on campus. Additionally, the movie makes it clear that everyone else at the school wants to be just like whoever that girl is.
Hello All! Over my past couple English classes me and my classmates have been sharing our findings on the research topics of our choosing. As you guys know I chose to focus my research on whether or not social media plays into misogyny, i.e. the social and sexual pressures on college-aged girls (check out my last post to look deeper at my findings). Anyways, one of my classmates did his on the pros and cons of co-educational education and brought up a point that I thought could be useful in my argument as well.
My classmate, Anthony, explained that one of his sources found that the social and physical pressures on girls were often worse at all girl institutions. Now this got me wondering- I think we can all agree that social media has created more pressures for females than males, however, does this pressure root from girls wanting to impress guys or merely, other girls?
It’s something I’d never really considered, but when Anthony explained that the judgement, often seen between women, was what spurred the women at all girl institutions to try a little harder, I saw his point. Males aren’t the ones posting pictures on Instagram I’m trying to compete with, females are. Even more so, all the “famous” accounts I follow, whether it be celebrities, bloggers, or fitness accounts feature pictures of women not men.
When applying my research moving forward and formulating my final argument, I am definitely going to keep Anthony’s findings in mind. While I still hold strong that females are more affected by social media, I would like to retract my assumption that these new pressures are implemented by males. This amplified thirst for popularity and fame, based on the number of likes or followers you have, is just as much spurred on by females needing to outdo one another than it is by males having overly high expectations.