From “This Bridge Called My Back” I decided to choose the excerpt “When I Was Growing Up” by Nellie Wong because I myself found myself relating to it while reading and I know other girls do as well. I believe that this poem is important because from such a young age girls are already having judgemental ideas of how they should look compared to the stereotypical thin white girl who has straight hair and an acne free face. A quote that stood out to me was “When I was growing, I read magazines and saw movies, blonde movie stars, white skin, sensuous lips and to be elevated, to become a woman, a desirable woman, I began to wear imaginary pale skin”(Wong, Nellie). I picked this quote to represent the entire poem because it sheds light on the entire idea of the poem of her wanting to be white. Wong believed that if she looked just like the white girls that she would see on tv or at school rather than having what she called her “yellow skin” then she would feel more worthy and beautiful. This happens to so many females in my generation because we are all on social media and we see these females that have bodies that completely achievable without the help of surgery and we begin think that we must look like that to fit in and fit into the mold that society created for us when that is fact not the case. It takes so many years for women to be able to find the beauty within themselves without having to compare themselves to the next white female.
Hello Cassie, I definitely agree with the fact that many people try to fit in with on unrealistic body standard that people can’t achieve. The trends are always changing .Indeed, attributes related with whiteness which is light skin, narrow noses, blonde hair have been dominating American beauty standards. As a matter of fact, now these days young girls are already having judgmental ideas of how they should look compared to the stereotypical thin white girl who has straight hair and an acne free face. This is simply peer pressure and unnecessary emotional torture in terms of when comes to a beauty for young girls. Our society has a responsibility instead of given an ideals definition how should the young girl look like and society should educate instead how important as they growing education, self confident, kindness, compassion, enough courage to be ideals young human being where they can contribute positive impact to the society. There is no such a thing as race who looks ideal look’s long as how they think and create a positive vibe where everyone happy as a whole. Also I agree with you where you mention this is happening to so many females in your generation because social media one of the most important platform where they communicate each other and judge through it. When we see in Instagram, Facebook, WeChat how pretty they look and what their activities is .But in reality is not what it is .Indeed its true some females have really perfect body it’s doesn’t mean everyone should have it. It’s all depend on an individual situation and it’s important for young generation come to the same platform where they need to create healthy mentality which is for women to be able to find their beauty within themselves without having to compare themselves and be confident how are they look like. Perfect body look is not everything inner beauty is so important to be an individual.
Hi Cassie, I agree with your statement that the media portrays a very specific beauty standard that affects people from a young age and is unrealistic to most people. Although the media is getting better and we see more representation of different body types and cultures in the media, we are still a long way away from enough.