Guest Author - Vivian Nelson Melle
While my daughter was getting dressed one morning she told me she wanted to look smart instead of pretty. As a self-proclaimed feminist, my heartstrings were pulled to high heaven until an unsettling fear embedded itself in my morning routine. When do girls loose the desire to be smart? When does does the female body's appearance become more important than intelligence?
Sometimes I'll wake from a dream where I'm back in high school, but with my adult mind. I love these dreams. You see, in high school I was one of those girl-next-door types. I knew I would never be considered gorgeous. I could, however, be considered smart. That was always enough for me. As I got older I realized how my intelligence played into my self image. The better I felt about my academics, the higher my self esteem rose. My body image was directly connected to my mind.
I won't lie. There are times when I find myself being sucked into the unrealistic views of what makes us beautiful. Thinking of this problem for me is important, but figuring it out for my daughter is priority.
How do we get our young women to find their own niche? Girls who are passionate about something show a marked increase in positive self-image. So our answer comes in helping girls discover what is important to them.
Remember the 1999 American Women's Soccer Team winning the world cup? They were the blazing picture of beautiful with their sweaty stringy hair, war faces smeared with dirt, and heaving hearty Spartan-like breathing. Maya Angelou halts time itself with her beautiful words dripping like pure southern honey. Christiane Amapour of CNN throws me into a constant state of awe. She visits the places few travel and carries her calm and regal stance into the most dangerous of situations. These women are beautiful.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way heroines like Lauren Bacall and Jacqueline Onassis were replaced with Paris and Lindsey. Our young women have difficulty passing a spelling exam because the instant messenger terminology doesn't ask for as much commitment as the English language. We must offer more role models and evolve the definition of beauty.
Let's take care of ourselves and become the role models. Let's raise our girls to love themselves by first loving ourselves. let's raise them to believe that they can and will do anything that they put their mind to. We must talk about famous women in our schools. We must talk about the many important religious female figures during our spiritual meetings. We must talk about good health instead of how fat we are. We must read for enjoyment and to learn rather than allowing the television to become the leader.
It will take some work, but everybody will win. We can shape ourselves into the images our young woman follow. We must lead them in the right direction so we can then follow them the rest of the way.
For further reading on young women and body image and self esteem...
