Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls

The article, “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls” by Katha Pollitt shows that even all those years of woman’s rights and trying to change how women are perceived in society, boys and girls still play with the same type of toys they used to play with years ago. Pollitt states that the feminist revolution is still unfinished and will take a longer time to complete. Boys grow up playing with action figures and sports and girls spend their time playing house or dress up.

As we grow up, we are subject to many ideas and notions from television, friends, and family. Pollitt states that kids essentially crave certain toys or certain ideas which come from watching commercials all day specifically catered to a specific gender. For example if a child happens to watch a cartoon with fighting in it, there will be commercials geared toward boys about action figures perhaps connected to the cartoon. Often there would be other young boys in the commercials holding the action figure in various poses and exclaiming, “Cool!” and making exploding noises. The commercial reinforces the fact that action figures are for boys and that becoming strong men are considered to be perhaps a small dream for young boys.

Even though we try to free ourselves from stereotypes of young boys and girls, the fact is that it sometimes it is hard to avoid encouraging a specific stereotype, whether it would because of television or ourselves. As Pollitt states, “We don’t have a choice, really about whether we should give our children messages about what it means to be male and female, they’re bombarded with them from morning till night.”

PICTURE

Picture, is just an image of something or someone in a second in time. It has no life and it doesn’t make a sound. It doesn’t feel and it doesn’t actually talk. Even thought is it nothing but a dead image it affects all of us. We live our lives looking at pictures to set what beauty is. We look in magazines to see the type of person we have to look like in order to be hot. Susan Bordo describes to us how we let this pictures influence us. Now we see a picture of a model in a magazine and we made that a model to how we should look like and how everyone else should also look like. Now the really skinny body is what is sexy. Before people would think that someone who had more meet in their body would be sexier because it would say that they have money and that they come from a higher class because they have what they need to be healthy and feed themselves. When we ride the trains we see advertisements all over telling you to but some pill because it’s going to make you skinny and people will do it because as human beings we want to be accepted and we want to look beautiful. We thing that the only way to be beautiful is by looking like the models in magazines. So in a way we are pressure to buy the products that will let us have the body that we desire not because of us but because that is what society is telling us. As time changes so will things and who knows how things are going to look later on. Maybe a stick would be the perfect model in 20 years from now. Like Bordo said that even kids have that image that being skinny is the only sexy way in the future they are going to still have in their mind and so they will pass it on to the next generation. Picture is what seems to drive us.

Why Is Thin In?

“You can’t be too rich or too thin,” has been attributed to the Duchess of Windsor and since most of us will never be rich, the media is trying to convince us the only way to be desirable is to be thin. Advertisements in magazines, television and billboards always depict thin women as being healthy, youthful and sexy by segmenting our body parts or in our entirety, wearing revealing clothes. As Ramamurthy stated “ ads always represent women as object to surveyed,” for the purpose of “representing women as both passive and objects of sexual desire.”

Susan Bordo believes that our society has become obsessed being thin when she says “our idolatry of the trim, tight body shows no signs of relinquishing its grip on our conceptions of beauty and normality.” When I read Christina Kim’s comments in “Golf for Women” (September/October 2006) magazine that to lose weight she allowed a Korean massage technique to be performed on her wasn’t pleasant. “They’d run upside-down bowls over my muscles using different amount of pressure,” in an effort to reduce body fat. Kim too believes as Bordo writes, “fat is the devil, and we are continually beating him…pummeling and purging our bodies that is why she hired a personal trainer, yoga instructor, dietitian/acupuncturist and massage therapist to whip her into shape.

You might think, well Kim is a professional athlete so what she’s doing is not so extreme but the average women is bombarded by articles like, “How They Lost 100 Lbs!,” in “People” magazine (May 21, 2007) or “How To Keep The Weight Off,” in “Real Simple” (July 2007) magazine or in the same issue an advertisement that ask “the question isn’t can this weight loss program change your life, but can you?,” for the new over the counter diet drug Alli. “Too Stressed To Lose Weight?” says the cover of “Elle’s” December 2006 issue where Susan Orenstein’s article “Fear And Loathing” has a passage that reiterates Bordo’s premises that children are quite aware that being fat is one of the worst things one could be. Orenstein writes, “my best friend in grade school had an obese aunt, and I remember how she was talked about, with rolled eyes and a condescending tone, as if she were almost willfully dysfunctional.”

We’ve all seen the infomercials for exercise tapes like Tae Bo, the before and after photographs of Billy’s followers, extolling us to join them, to buy the tape so we can become slim and therefore happy. Or maybe the sexy girl in the gold bikini in the back of the magazine giving us that come-on look, making us think if you buy and use “Rapid Slim” you can either become her or get her.

I’m not against the obese losing weight but I am tired of people who are at a healthy weight complaining that they are not thin enough. Unfortunately, many have such a distorted image of themselves they can’t see how beautiful they really are.



In respnse to Adangelo100:

I agree with Adangelo100 when he/she states that consumer’s “survey ad’s and try to become the women in those photographs regardless how they are portrayed.” It is unfortunate that many have so little confidence as to what looks good on them, that they try emulate inappropriate examples.

I disagree with Adangelo100 when he/she states that “most of the women shown in ads today are …heroin chic.” The fashion look of ‘heroin chic” has thankful come and gone with the 90’s.

I think Boder’s explanation of the popularity of heroin chic is dead on (pardon the pun) when she concludes that heroin chic is about … being beyond needing, beyond caring, beyond desire…to have given up the quest for fulfillment, to be unconcerned with the body or its needs – or its vulnerability – is much wiser than to care.

"Never Just Pictures" By Susan Bordo

Anandi Ramamurthy has helped us to understand the power details have in an advertisement. An advertisement is never just a picture or a placement of words, it is a powerful piece of work that can be a representation of a gender, race, or class. Depending on how something is presented, an ad can have enough power to somehow relate to a person. Ramamurthy has explained that ads, such as the Liz Taylor ad, often are portrayed certain ways to make a person or an object seem desirable. Due to images, such as diamonds or Liz Taylor, the ad seems very elegant, rich, and beautiful, all of which are things people desire to be. Ramamurthy assists the reader in understanding how powerful certain images can be. In “Never Just Pictures” by Susan Bordo, the reader is brought to the same conclusion on advertising, the power of an image.

At one point in time thicker, healthier, and more normal looking women were considered to have perfect bodies for advertising and in life. Now, if you were to look in a high fashion magazine at the advertisements today, you’d see extremely skinny, sickly looking women with clothing draping on them as though their bodies are hangers to what they’re trying to sell. We currently live in a world where skinny is everything, despite the fact that most woman today are not stick-thin but are curvaceous or have healthy bodies.

In “Never Just Pictures”, Susan Bordo examines the need to be skinny and gives countless examples on how advertisements are made at the expense of women because they change the way women, and people in general, view themselves. Bordo even uses examples on how infomercials and advertisements for diet pills are set out to give us the image that being fat, or anything but skinny, isn’t good. She goes on to say “Children in this culture grow up knowing that you can never be thin enough and that being fat is one of the worst things one can be.” Which proves the point that a single image in an advertisement holds so much power over people. It started off as a change in what models looked like in advertising, grew to be an image of what we should all aspire to be because it is what we all desire, and now it’s something that is almost like a world wide epidemic in cultural mentality.

Never Just Pictures by Susan Bordo

The article by Susan Bordo is a critique of how images , (in this case those of starved young girls) have come to be something that most people have begun to "idolize" and are setting a trend for the younger generation to "shape" themselves along the lines of the models potrayed in the ads, the article is also at the same time trying to tell the reader how an outlook can change over time, how something that was seen as "negative" or looked down upon at a point not too far back in time, can be seen as something "positive" or glamorous a few years down the line. The example of "heroin chic" becoming a fad goes on to show how a point of view can be changed with "cultural advancements."
The article discusses the effects of fashion and its changes on society, it seems to hint that these changes are just a representation of the overall changes in society. The article suggests that the changes go further than fashion and advertising, they have their roots somewhere deep within society. Changes such as a quest for fulfillment(or not) and compromising on health to focus on outwardly appearance which are now seen as "normal" but at one time were seen differantly.

Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls-Katha Pollit

The piece "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls" byt Katha Pollit has showed us the stereotype of the society about how boys and gilrs should act like .Pollit has reached a good point about why girls have to be meek and cleaness or boy has to be masculine and strong .This is a very common social phenomenon that we can see it happen everywhere around America.She provides many cases to discuss about why parents choose to raise their kids in different ways. The birth of the infant is categorized by their gender.Whatever makes them to be that way are our society and families.Since the begining of the time, girls are rather femininie and guys are macho.Throughout the article Pollit dicussed the differences between a boy and girl and how society portrays in a certain way, if a boy possibly would to act a tad feminine it would seem rather disturbing to the point where many questions starts to stir. Pollit also mentions, the importance of women's features by giving a comparsion of ,'' Barbie", within the article she wrote , " Yet, to reject her is to say that what Barbie represents- being sexy, thin, stylish- is unimportant, which is obviously not ture, and children know it's not true" ( Katha Pollitt), this basically means that to justify that a person's feature isn't important is without a doubt false because , " looks" are indeed important and that reason alone the children understands that aspect.

"Why Boys Don't PLay with Dolls"

The passage "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls" by Katha Pollit is mainly about society and stereotypes. Many of the issues presented in this passage relate to the various topics we have been discussing in class. People aren't just born with the connection to a certain color or even to a certain toy, it's something that we are taught by our parents and even by society. " We don't have a choice, really, about whether we should give our children messages about what it means to be male and female- they're bombarded with them from morning till night," that quotes best describes the point I was trying to make, that what we watch on television and what our parents shows us, is naturally what we are going to grow up doing. A baby girl from the time of her birth is dressed in pink, a color worldly related to with femininity and the same goes for boys with the masculine color of blue. Another important point made by Katha Pollit is that girls and boys play with completely different toys. Girls are generally seen playing with dolls and cooking sets while boys on the other hand have a toy car or even a football to play with. I also believe that society is changing somewhat. In our day and age females are now playing sports that where once seen strictly for men. The same goes for males, men are now getting more involved in activities usually seen only being done by women such as; cooking and cleaning.

This passage relates to Ramamurthy in the fact that what we see in advertisements and in commercials is what we strive to be as people. A good example that was mentioned by Katha Pollit is the Famous Barbie doll. Girls from the very young age of three years old are given the ever so popular Barbie doll to play with. Parents may not be trying to directly send their children the message Barbie carries with her, but along with Barbie comes the aspiration to one day look just like her. Women in our society desire so badly to look like the stereotypical "American ideal," in doing so you have to be beautiful, lean, and fashionable.

Never Just Pictures

As we've been discussing about Ramamurthy's excerpt in class, we've come to the conclusion that advertisements hold a lot of power in modern culture. A simple picture may induce people to do crazy things such as starving themselves. In the passage, "Never Just Pictures", the author discusses the issue of how many women and even men are succumbing to the might of the "pictures" as more fall to anorexia and the "skinny fad" which has hit America. The author even discusses how the advertisements manipulate people into believing that it's normal to be depressed as one is becoming skinnier through starvation and that beauty is supposed to look like death. 120
The advertisement has and may always be lying to the masses with its material. Many many years ago, it was the norm for women to be plump because it showed that she was of a good family and background. Men even found the body of the Statue of Liberty to be attractive at one point! But now, the very skinny body is what men desire, due to the endeavors of modern advertising.193 The author states, "So, yes, the causes of eating disorders are "deeper" than just obedience to images. But cultural images themselves are deep." (381) We may quickly glance at an image of a young girl who probably has zero percent body fat and think nothing of it but later on it will probably come up in our minds when we see more "plump" women walking about, especially if we are constantly exposed to these images. Just as the author states, images have more power than we think.

Never Just Pictures by Susan Bordo

In the article, Never Just Pictures, by Susan Bordo, advertisements are discussed as what they want to portray to the society. The women showed in ads are so skinny and every woman is starving herself so that she can look as beautiful as the women in these ads. However, there is a catch; these women are not so pretty, it is more that they have the bodies that attract everyone to look at their ad, but the women themselves don’t have particularly pretty faces. This message tells society that it’s okay to be ugly as long as you’re skinny. Another example in the Bordo article is a picture that shows a woman before she lost weight, and then the after picture. The shocking fact about this ad is that the woman before is not even heavy. This shows that society will make women who are a size eight seem fat just so that they’ll be unhappy with themselves and always want to be skinner and skinner. These ads are showing that it is desirable and beautiful to look dead and that is now what women, and even young girls want to look like.
Ramamurthy discusses how advertising can make an object seem desirable. In this article, Bordo discusses how women are the desirable objects in advertising. If they appear to look good in their clothes because they are super skinny that will attract people to their advertisements and make them want to look skinny as well. Ramamurthy also discusses how advertising can really get into a persons head, possibly without them even knowing it. The advertisers use women in this sense and degrade them in the way they convince women that it’s not okay to be more than a size two. Every ad is a subliminal message to women to become skinnier whether by T.V, newspaper or article.

Richard Billington

In this article we are introduced to the other side of the spectrum of the topic we've been discussing in class. As disturbing as advertisements we've discussed tried to be through promoting their products, nothing is as striking as Billingham's photographic diary of his parents Raymond and Elizabeth. Hornby describes the vile works of Billingham to depict what the photographer is trying to convey and how the viewers may interpret the disturbing images it provides. The article comes equipped with pictures taken of Raymond and his wife Elizabeth, and they appear rather lude and disturbing. Even the calm picture of Elizabeth constructing a jigsaw puzzle seems oddly contradicting as the tones and vibe don't company the joy a jigsaw puzzle stereotypes. To compare this to Anandi Ramamurthy's theme would be to invert her idea. Ramamurthy describes advertisements that are supposed to promote something to a customer or viewer, and how positive images of social interest are usually utilized which can be false, demeaning or sexist. In this case, Hornby does just the opposite displaying Billinghams images as crude and unappealing, but real
and even tender. Hornby describes, "There is a tone to these words that could be mistaken for blankness, just as the photograph could seem blank if one couldn't be bothered to look at them hard enough, but actually this collection is much, much warmer than that: It is clearly about love."
How could a photograph be interpretted as loveable with blood and intestines as a background or people throwing cats in the air? Perhaps Billigham has no interest in showing the bright side everyone desires to drown in knowing its entirely unrealistic. It's hard to appreciate art, that you live in every day for some people therefore its easier to appreciate a Liz Taylor ad and spray on perfume that will make you as desirable as her. Richard Billinghams work is impressive and moving, but its realism is too deep in my opinion. It's no wonder, that according to Horby, "you'd rather wander off and look at something funnier, or more beautiful, or less real."
Still Billinghams approach to art is different and enticing. His use of his own family life depicts a clear image that we can appreciate through the intense realism it provides. To see a couple in love in this gruesome way is shocking, but on some level brings hope to couples who thought they had it the worst.

Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls

In class, we have been focusing on many different topics including Ramamurthy, details in advertising, as well as gender, race and class exploitation and representation. In this article by Katha Pollit entitled “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls” a point is discussed that I feel connects very well to the conversations we have having in class, as well as the articles that we have been reading about gender exploitation and representation. The specific passage reads:
“Every mother in that room had spent years becoming a person who had to be taken seriously, not least by herself. Even the most attractive, I am willing to bet, had suffered over her body’s failure to fit the impossible American ideal. Given all that, it seems crazy to transmit Barbie to the next generation. Yet to reject her is to say that what Barbie represents- being sexy, thin, stylish- is unimportant, which is obviously not true, and children know it’s not true.”(Pollit pg.398-99)
This paragraph come directly after a story was told of a girl being given a Barbie doll as a birthday present. As the recipient opened the present, the mother who purchased the doll relayed to the child’s mother that she was sorry for choosing that gift (Pollit pg398). By the conveyed message the acknowledgement of what this dolls has come to represent can easily be seen. As stated in the quoted paragraph above, Barbie is an inanimate object that encompasses “sexy, thin, and stylish.” To achieve Barbie’s figure has become a goal, thereby turning what should be a child’s toy into a feat or a challenge. The passage tells the reader that this product is still given as gifts and relayed through generations in spite of everything Barbie stands for. The last sentence of the paragraph above, demonstrates the reason of why Barbie is still around today. The sentence states: “Yet to reject her is to say that what Barbie represents- being sexy, thin, stylish- is unimportant, which is obviously not true, and children know it’s not true.” This means that everyone knows what Barbie represents but no one can deny the fact that these are the values that are seen as crucial in our everyday society. We see women as being exploited by how Barbie has come to symbolize what the ideal American girl should really look like.

(why is it ok for girls to play sports? (why boys dont play with dolls)

“Why boys don’t play with dolls”, by Katha Pollitt, is very on then point for today’s day and age. Even while men can wear pink and women can run multi-million dollar industries there is still an awkwardness of how one should raise their children. Today there is a bigger acceptance of homosexuality and yet there are still a lot of things parents will stop their sons from doing as children, wearing makeup, heels, ect. Some see it as unnatural. But when a girl wants to play sports her parents are all for it because if they weren’t it would be sexist. The world seems to have a biased toward those who have been wronged in the past. Women want to be treated equally as long as that means that they are treated special. Just as long as they get that special treatment that helps them along in life. The average white male is the real one at the bottom of the food chain because he has no stepping loopholes into society. He is there as he is expected to be. Just as a man, not a woman with all of feminism backing her up. From Ramamurthy and “why boys don’t play with dolls” we learn that no matter what we think we see in the world there is always an underlying motive. Whether it is that you are a feminist and don’t want you’re your son to be only in to sports or if you are just a viewer of an advertisement that you think is harmless, there is always a deeper meaning.

Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls by Katha Pollitt

The piece "Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls" by Katha Pollitt relates very much to the topics that we discuss in class and to Ramamurthy. Pollitt’s piece basically talks about why boys don’t play with dolls and why girls do. Pollitt writes a lot about stereotypes such as boys like trucks and girls like dolls. Pollitt also talks of the mothers of children such as these, who either love Barbie or hate Barbie, and also complain about their son’s passion for sports but at the same time won’t stop him. The love Barbie or hate Barbie thing that she talks about is, the mother can’t really choose to love or hate Barbie. They don’t love Barbie because they’ve at least once in their lives suffered because they couldn’t fit that ideal American standard, which is being a Barbie. However Pollitt also gives reasons to why they can’t hate Barbie which is, if they hate Barbie its as if they were rejecting what Barbie represents, being sexy, thin, and stylish, and this they know is utterly important. Pollitt continues on to talk about boys and sports, like if the mothers find sports a manly activity. She also talks of feminists that complain of their sons eagerness for sports but, would not bother to stop them, because they think its certainly better that their son doesn’t stay at home on the weekends writing diaries, baking, or even reading. Pollitt concludes her piece by stating that its not the children or parents fault that they are so stereotypically raised, but its mainly due to the bombardment they receive from their daily lives, from the television commercials to the ads on the bus.

The connection between this and Ramamurthy’s idea’s of Gender Representations is basically that women are depicted as beautiful sexy “things.” In Pollitt’s article, it’s the Barbie doll which is the ideal image of an American woman, a plastic doll is the model for a human being to follow. Ramamurthy talks of how women are objects, and are such represented as passive and as a object of sexual desire. This particular piece relates to what we’ve discussed in class because I think we’ve established that advertisements are very influential on our society, like whatever that sexy model is wearing in that billboard is the thing to wear and etc. In this piece of writing, the author talks of how boys grew up playing with trucks and girls with dolls. The author blames the fact that children fit stereotypes such as these, on many factors such as the parents, friends, surrounding adults, and media. The constant bombardment the child faces daily of images of boys his age in toy car commercials, of girls her age in barbie commercials, their own mother using make up, and the dad watching sports every sunday from noon to evening. Though people are one factor why children fit stereotypes, the other main reason why is because of advertisements, with it's big impact on people of all ages, help to push children towards those stereotypes.

'Never Just Pictures'

The article 'Never Just Pictures' by Susan Bordo is about how women of all ages and even men are influenced by infomercials on television and advertisements in magazines to look a particular way, which is very thin and trim. Bordo talks about how fat is the 'devil' and many of us are constantly trying to lose weight in places such as our stomachs. She mentions how there are many tabloids everywhere advertising 'miracle' diet pills and videos with celebrities telling their weight loss stories using these products. Bordo tells us that ten and eleven years were asked to choose from drawings of children who were fat and children who were physically handicaps and they choose the kids with facial disfigurements and missing hands. She says that this idea of how we should look comes from fashion designers and models. There are now even ads with very thin-annorexic looking men as well. Many women in ads look very dead, messed-up, and wasted. Bordo is saying that things such as death, depression, doing drugs, and having an eating disorder has become glamorous. These ads are saying it's okay to have an ugly face, as long as you have a 'hot' body.

The connection between Bordo and Ramamurthy is the representation of gender. Ramamurthy states "The fragmentation of the body-particularly women's bodies-is a feature of recent commercial photography." (614) When many look at an ad with a female, we usually look at her body instead of her face or the background. Bordo is stating that advertisements influence many women to want to diet and look like these models seen in these ads. Ramamurthy says that "...women are represented as objects to be surveyed." (613) Women are seen as objects in these ads. Ramamurthy even says that we used to seeing 'cut-up-ness' in womens bodies. If many of us see a plus size model in an ad, we will probably look at her and

criticize her because she is overweight or obese. Not only is there a connection with gender, but with a connection of race and class. Bordo states "Some feminists complained that I had not sufficiently attended to racial and ethnic difference and was assuming the white, middle-class experience as the norm. Since then it has been widely acknowledged among medical professionals that the incidence of eating and body-image problems among African American, Hispanic, and Native American women has been grossly underestimated and is on the increase." (380) She's also saying that we often assume that white, middle-class men and women usually have eating disorders and we don't see that it has also been a problem among other races and classes as well.

Why boys dont play with dolls

The article why Boys Dont play with dolls by Katha Pollitt has do do with alot of things we learned in class. Pollitt talks about how even the best looking mothers try very hard to look like the american ideal women. Barbie is what the sterotypical american women wants to look like. Barbie represents being sexy,thin and stylish. Pollitt is saying that barbie is still popular so women could base their looks off of. The main point of this article is to show that their is a sterotype as to what boys and girls should be like. Boys are suppose to play sports, play with action figures, and be a big sports fan. Girls are suppose to like barbies bake cook and clean. Pollitt talks about how if a mom sees their kids writing up in their diaries reading and baking then they are considered to be antisocial,lonely or gay. She talks about how 3 year olds think doctors are males and females are nurses even though their own mom is a doctor. The reason why the kid thinks this is because society dipicts men and women that way. In most cases if their is an ad about police,fireman or army personal they show men. If their is and ad about cleaning and cooking products they show a women. This is a gender representation.
We discussed in class how it can be the companies fault for all these sterotypes. People are not born knowing these things, they pick it up from their parents and the rest of society. Ramamurthy discusses how women are dipected to be beutiful. She also says that their are gender representaions, which we can see from the article why boys dont play with dolls. If a person does something diffrent then what the society deems normal they are then looked down upon.

Ramamurthy and "Never Just Pictures" by Susan Bordo have overlapping ideas. This article sates that advertising is what is making woman want to be skinny. Women see pictures in advertisements of gorgeous thin woman, and that is what they want to be. Products are now being advertised using overly thin women. In Ramamurthys writing, he says that products are not only sold because of the product, but because of the overall idea that is being sold with the product. Susan Bordo wrote that "Children in this culture grow up knowing that you can never be thin enough and that being fat is one of the worst things one can be." (page 379) Children grow up with a certain image of what a woman should look like. That image is being advertised in every advertisement that would be read or looked at.