1. This week was the second to last little sister meeting for YWLP. We began the meeting with the usual sharing of highs and lows for the week and from there moved on to the first activity. This activity was one we had practiced at the last big sister meeting where all the sisters sat in a circle and named at least one part of their bodies that they loved and explained why. Afterward, we discussed our feelings on what was said in the circle, and then the big sisters helped their littles create a “body map” that outlined what they thought was important about the ways they used each part of their bodies. We then broke up into pairs for one-on-one time with the sisters. When we came back from that, we had the little sisters do an activity where they looked at an advertisement from a magazine featuring a female model and find one thing they did and didn’t like about it, followed by a discussion.
2. The main link I found between this week’s meeting and the material we covered for class had to do with the final activity we did. In the short film “The Story of Stuff,” there is a big emphasis on the part consumerism plays in globalization, which is the primary reason advertisements even exists. The Peterson article states, “An ideology of consumption involves relentless subjection to media images, enticements, and directives, all aimed at promoting consumption as a positive, vital, pleasurable, identity-conferring and rewarding activity” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 433). Indeed, when the younger girls were discussing their advertisements, most of them were able to name more things they found visually pleasing about the advertisements than the other way around. The reason for this seemed to be because almost all of the women featured in the advertisements appeared to be incredibly happy and represented the beauty ideal—which appealed as positives to this group of girls.
3. From a feminist perspective, I thought the first activity we did this week was one that had a definite positive impact. Women in particular are conditioned from a young age by meso- and macro-level influences to find the flaws in our bodies, and this tends to be even stronger in girls of the age group with which YWLP works. So I think that for them to be sat down and encouraged to think about what they love about themselves by a supportive group of females goes a long way.
Word Count: 415
Works Cited
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Kassie,
ReplyDeleteExcellent work!