Lost Girls

A couple of decades ago women around the world started to fight for equal rights, not only when it came to voting, but also as equally skilled thinkers and workers.

They fought hard and they are still fighting, for some countries still do not recognize women as an equal part of society.

Despite the struggles many women have been through, there is a prevailing and developing phenomenon, which leads young women to degrade themselves. The beginning of this self degradation in history seems unclear, but ever since popular culture expanded at began to idolize pop-stars and seemingly perfect people, this degradation began to take place in larger levels.

It begins with little admirations here and there for the newest celebrities in Hollywood. Girls will admire their beauty which mostly seems too perfect to be true, then they start to imitate what they are wearing and start buying the expensive designer clothes the celebrity wear. Many times it becomes an obsession for the teenager or young adult to look and act like their chosen celebrity, so they start consulting plastic surgeons on how to look more like their desired idol. The popular television channel MTV produces shows such as “I want to look like…” which follow teens and young adults on their way to looking like their idol, taking drastic steps, such as operating their faces and bodies, or “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” which follows wealthy 15-year-olds preparing for their extravagant birthday. The latter does not seem to affect the youth, yet if it is watched it shows and teaches teens to have all those luxurious items and wants that the celebrities have.

On the path of becoming like the chosen celebrity, teen girls not only splurge on outfits and accessories, they also try to party and behave like the celebrity. Trying to imitate something does not necessarily mean that these girls are “stupid girls,” but when they stoop down their intelligence for instance when they try to appeal to a guy, then they are stupid girls, because the obsession of imitating someone else restricts someone from being their true selves.

Other forms of degradation of modern day women are not only being obsessed with their idols, but also being used by men willingly. Karrine Steffans, author of "Confessions of a Video Vixen" appeared as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show and shared with the audience her experience of being humiliated and exploited in her past career as a music video dancer. The dancers are often doused in alcohol, verbally degraded and treated as objects. When Karrine decided to leave the music industry, she found herself homeless and friendless. “My so-called famous wealthy friends that just loved me so much wouldn't lend a hand, because I was no longer the "good time girl",” she says. Unfortunately, many young women are admiring the dancers in videos, shaking their behinds and creating sexier dance steps. "When you step onto that set, you sign over your rights as a human. You sign over your body to them. They grease you up, strip you down, sling you against a car and you are rented," Karrine Steffans says. It is not only the dancers promoting female exploitation, but also the female artist themselves, such as Christina Milian, a popular rhythm and blues singer who with her song entitled “Dip it Low,” not only exposes herself barely dressed in her video, but the lyrics of the song give instructions on how you should act before and during intercourse. Here, it just seems like a promotion strategy, when it also affects the young women watching it, wanting to imitate such behavior.

One great argument of the young women today might be that it is their choice to imitate celebrities or admire dancers scantily clad on television, shaking their body most often inappropriately. Well the fact is, it is indeed their own choice, yet it is a choice influenced by society and other women as well. In the book “The Beauty Myth,” feminist scholar Naomi Wolf argues that there is one obstacle in the struggle for equality that women have yet to clear-the myth of female beauty. She exposes today's unrealistic standards of female beauty as a destructive form of social control and a reaction against women's increasing status in business and politics. The book also explores the phenomenon of the violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women's advancement. Images such as a perfect body, perfect skin and hair, and a perfect face with the right proportions, are the ones counteracting feminism. It is not only those outer values, but included are also ways of behavior like the purposefully “stupidity,” explained earlier. Another obstacle towards equality is the female chauvinism that emerged. This is being talked about in the book by Ariel Levy “Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.” The female chauvinist pig is the new kind of empowered woman who wears a play boy bunny as talisman, and practices casual sex as if it is a sport, they think by doing that they are being brave or funny, but in the end the joke is on them when they are being turned into sex objects. “We are living in a culture that is obsessed with consumerism. We think we can buy anything. We can reduce sexuality to something that can be bought and sold like polyester underpants and implants," Ariel Levy explains.

This female chauvinism has gone already so far that even girls call themselves “bitch” or “slut,” or other vulgar words, just for the fun of it, not realizing how degrading such a greeting is. In fact young women do not strive to be the most accomplished in a profession anymore, they instead strive to be the “hottest,” ”sexiest,” or most desired girl. This ideal expands from the originally American context to the rest of the world where women try to be something they should not be. Tyra Banks, who was a former model, said that girls come in different shapes and sizes and instead of trying to mold them into something they are not, we should celebrate their femininity and celebrate the sisterhood in which every woman should support and help each other instead of putting each other down.

Another example can be taken out of the Philippine local context, where young women are more worried about their skin complexion and their body weight than their studies or profession. Here, female chauvinism is very predominant. Everywhere you go you will hear comments by other females that you should loose weight or dress yourself up, or beautify your visage. Although the forms of chauvinism here in the Philippines have not gotten as extreme as in the USA, it will continuously grow and the attitude of being a “stupid girl” will proliferate into the farthest corners of the Philippines, because it is imbibed in the Filipino attitude that if you are attractive and sexy, then many doors will open up for you, which is a another misconception of the youth. Yet even here the urge to be attractive and to be accepted by peers seems more convincing than being true to yourself. Also resulting from female chauvinism, young women are often taught by each other that if you are not "this" and "that" then you are not perfect. But the reality is; nobody is perfect.