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Teenage Girls and Boys The both videos, Reviving Ophelia and Raising Cain, are based on the premise that the upbringing of adolescent boys and girls in post-modern society represents a big challenge for parents and educators. As such, these documentaries represent certain educational value, since they contain many fresh ideas. However, it appears that makers of videos strive to push their political agenda, which happened to be neo-Liberalism. In its turn, this significantly undermines the validity of conclusions that authors come up with, at the end of each documentary. The main idea of both videos is that the classic concept of elementary education, as such that is designed to help young people to successfully undergo the process of embracing their gender identity, often results in social alienation, on the part of teenagers.
In short, this is because girls are expected to be girls and boys are expected to be boys. According to the authors, the enforcement of feminine and masculine values, as essential part of educational process in public schools, is socially inappropriate in times when citizens are supposed to be preoccupied with celebration of diversity and when traditional concepts of society are often being referred to as intolerant and even fascist. For example, Raising Cain suggests that many boys do not have what it takes to become a macho men when they grow; therefore, forcing them to adopt a masculine values as their own is cruel. Authors endorse the idea that American popular culture prevents boys from exploring their existential identity and causes them be ashamed of their emotional sensitivity as something girly. As result, boys learn to hide their true feelings about the surrounding reality, which in its turn, creates preconditions for them not to be able to enjoy relations with representatives of opposite gender, to the full extent of this word.
In other words boys need to be taught how to be more feminine. This reveals authors of the video as such who not understand the very essence of healthy relationship between genders. It is because modern men become increasingly feminized that they often are being unable to fulfill their social and biological duties, as members of society. As history teaches us - every time when differences between sexes become less distinctive, society's integrity is being undermined.
For example, nowadays, it became quite normal for male office workers in Western countries to have manicure on their fingernails. However, not many people realize that there is direct link between this and the fact that boys in public schools are often being taught to suppress their masculinity, in order to appease the hawks of political correctness, who today define the principles, upon which the process of education in public schools must be based. The makers of the video do not recognize a simple fact that the reason why there seems to be many problems, in regards to adolescents upbringing, is that Western societies become increasingly marginalized. In its turn, this rather has to do with designing of social policies, on the part of government, then with schoolchildren being taught to admire Barbie and G. I. Joe, respectively.
Yes, it is cruel to require from a boy who can hardly do even a one push-up, because of his asthma, to live up to the ideal of real man. However, it is even crueler to suggest that there is nothing wrong with the fact that, according to sociological surveys, fifty percent of boys in American public schools are grossly overweight. The same can be said about Reviving Ophelia this documentary is meant to instill viewers with the thought that society is often being cruel towards teenage girls, while requiring them to do their utmost, in order to appear physically attractive. In her book Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, which laid the ideological ground for the video with the same name, author Mary Pipher suggests that many teenage girls are being intentionally deprived of their psychological adequateness by American popular culture: When they (girls) reach adolescence, our culture gives them strong messages that they are to become more feminine.
They receive rigorous training to fit the female role, to give up the masculine parts of themselves and shrink their souls down to petite size (Pipher, p. 39). We can say that video promotes the idea that young girls should not be concerned about anything else, but making their lives emotionally comfortable. Apparently, the makers of the video forget that it is only the matter of time, before girls will grow up into women. In their turn, women have a well-defined social function, which enables the existence of civilization, as we know it giving birth to children. In order for woman to get pregnant, she needs to engage in sex with a man. However, in order for a man to get sexually aroused, he must be able to associate his sex partner with female virtues.
Therefore, we cannot discuss girls instinctive desire to look attractive as something that is being artificially imposed upon them. At the same time, it is hard to disagree with the documentary, when it suggests that the contemporary ideals of feminine beauty pose danger to the health of teenage girls. It is not a secret that the majority of top fashion models look as if they were just being released from Auschwitz. It is also not a secret that most of skinny women require a Cesarean section to be preformed on them, in order to be able to give birth to a child. This is the reason why Renaissance ideals of female physical beauty are strongly associated with slightly plump women.
However, in contemporary America, 90 % of national Medias are being controlled by representatives of certain ethnic group, which has traditionally been linked to the promotion of spiritual degeneracy, throughout the history of humankind. The problem is not that young girls strive to get rid of excessive weight by adopting different diets, but that they often feel emotionally disturbed over the fact that they do not look like walking skeletons, featured in TV fashion shows. The makers of Reviving Ophelia do not seem to understand this, as they insist that girls desire to look beautiful is wrong in principle. Such suggestion, of course, can be easily brushed aside by pointing out to the fact that womens traditional virtues are not entirely alien even to Mary Pipher herself, since she appears to be the woman who enjoys wearing jewelry and make up, on most of her official photos. We can say that Reviving Ophelia contains a valid description of symptoms, related to our society loosing its biological integrity.
However, video fails to come up with a social diagnosis, which could have provided us with the insight on what needs to be done, in order to change situation for better. It suggests that American popular culture is the root of all evils, without realizing that the popularity of such culture corresponds to marginalization of American society, as whole. Bibliography: Pipher, Mary Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine, 1994. Raising Cain: Book Review. 2000. Parents Association.
Com. 14 Apr. 2008. web
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Research essay sample on Teenage Girls And Boys
