Although I was not previously unaware of the misrepresentation of women in the media, I was still shocked to learn some of the facts states in
Miss Representation. Self-objectification is a national pandemic encouraged in young girls by the objectification of women in the media. In my opinion, the injustices were most evident with women in power. Instead of focusing on the positions of women, the media is always concerned with the physical appearance or womanly faults of the lady in the limelight. The media bias portrays men and women completely different; if a male politician cries, he is sensitive, but if a woman politician cries, she is weak and unfit to be a leader. This bias restricts women from gaining significant positions in government—only 17% of Congress are women, and there have only been 34 female governors, in comparison with close to 3000 male governors.
Mount has positively influence my understanding of gender and identity because it not only bolsters women empowerment, but also allowed me to find myself in an environment without boys. Mount has encouraged me to value what's inside more than what's outside, and I'm grateful for the emphasis on education. However, I also feel that the all-girls environment has sheltered me. I've grown accustomed to an environment that boosts up young women, which differs from how society and the media treats young women. While Mount has prepared me for handling myself in the future, I do not know how prepared I will be to handle not only how men view me, but also how other girls view themselves.
I work as a bus person and a waitress, and the people I work with are mostly women. Therefore, in my current employment, I have not experienced the impact of gender. However, as a young woman pursuing engineering, a male-dominated career, I sometimes worry about how my gender will influence my role in the workplace in the future. I do not know if the work environment will be welcoming or hostile to women engineers, and I worry that I will have to prove myself more than my male counterparts.
My family was very close with the family that lived across the street, who had two boys and one girl. Although we played dress-up together, we also played LEGOs and video games. For a long time, there were only three cousins on my mom's side of the family—my sister, my cousin Matt, and I. We spent a lot of time together, and because he was outnumbered, Matt played "girly" games with us. As there were only two girls, I was both "daddy's girl" and the son he never had. We played sports together, and I went to the Irish Center to watch games with him on the weekends. My dad once taught me this trick—a weird way to put your shirt on if it was inside out. When my mom saw me do it, she told me that was how boys put their shirts on, but I continued to do it because I was a tomboy and I didn't understand why there had to be different ways for boys and girls to do something.
Because Mount places critical importance on the education of women, I have come to value my education and my intelligence above all else. I have become more comfortable with my successes and less concerned with how men will view me if I am smarter than them. I have realized that I do not have to conform to stereotypical characteristics of femininity to be a woman. I have horrible dining etiquette, I've worn makeup less than 10 times in my life, I rarely wear jewelry, I eat like a teenage boy, and I wear my converse with almost all of my nice outfits. In an environment without the presence of boys, I have become more comfortable with myself, and this will continue into my future.
