By Miriam Nassif
Name is Miriam Nassif and I am 14 years-old so I completely understand what it like to be a teenage girl growing up in our modern day world and what it is like to deal with the things that are being thrown at us by the media.
I was lucky enough to have a childhood. I was allowed to play in the mud, sometimes eat mud, run around and be as messy as I liked. But many children around the world are being forced to dedicate themselves to a beauty pageant life. Small children are forced to dress like adults, wax their eyebrows (even though there are hardly any eyebrows to wax) and pose for hundreds of people so that their parents can win some money! And I thought it was bad enough to be a teenager dealing with this sort of pressure! A poor child is denied their childhood!
These days, who doesn’t walk into a Westfield shopping centre to see a topless girl in the most ridiculous poses to advertise perfume or a pair of jeans or something totally irrelevant to the advertisement? I know I have. We are constantly being given these images that imply that women have no purpose in life but to be “hot” and “sexy”. We are told that if we are not these things, we aren’t worth anything. The media and popular culture tells us that our whole being and value relies on how we look! This is totally and utterly wrong.
I am not here to say that we should all wear baggy clothes, have scruffy hair and that we must try our best to look as terrible and unattractive as we can. You can still look fine if you have bushy hair, a crazily curvy shape, zits (which we all have) and pale skin! I am simply saying that our worth is not based on how we look. Trust me, I know what it is like to want look nice and there is no crime in wanting to be so!
But where we go wrong is when we are defining nice and attractive. Because of major media influence, we have been tricked into thinking that beautiful is someone who is skinny (more like anorexic if you ask me), tanned skin, no zits, and big boobs. But let me tell you that a very few naturally fit this description, and many of the women you see who do fit this description in magazines or on TV have had a major touch up, got a fake tan, wear tonnes of makeup, have had a boob transplant or plastic surgery.
Did you know that if shop mannequins were real women, they would be too thin to menstruate and bear children? Did you know that in every 3 billion women that live on earth only 8 naturally look like supermodels? Did you know that if Barbie were a real women she would have to walk on all fours because of her unrealistic proportions?
We are tricked into thinking that women on magazine covers and on TV naturally look like this in real life!
We are all different and we are all beautiful in our own ways! Whether we are robust, skinny, pale, dark, covered in zits, have a big nose, huge ears or frizzy hair. We need to learn to live with the gorgeous body that is our own, not try and change it or be somebody else!
I can’t help but worry that the new Dolly model search will make girls wonder if they are OK as they are.
Girls feel so pressured to look perfect every single minute of every single day. Many girls feel like their life is not worth living if they don’t look good. Some teenage girls have even been overcome with depression or anxiety due to the stress and pressure to always look “sexy”. It is as if their whole life is based on how they look!
Your worth is not based on your looks! It is based on your personality! Our value is based on who we are as a person! Girls need to spend their time enjoying life, not trying to look good! Be yourself! Be YOU! Be the beautiful person that you were created to be! And enjoy life! If you are so busy being somebody else, who will be you?
And fight the culture that makes you feel bad. If more girls joined together to reject these negative messages, I think we would all feel better.
Miriam is a student and lives in the Blue Mountains, NSW
14 Responses
Fantastic piece, Miriam! I love hearing young people write/speak with such conviction! The standards of beauty presented to us in magazines and television (among other things) are completely unrealistic! They are simply images without personality or true dimension. Keep being amazing! xx
Greetings from Canada! I have a young daughter and will teach her exactly what you just express here. We need to change this culture that does nothing for our girls’ true happiness. This is why these things you just said need to be repeated again and again and again, until the change comes. Thank you for expressing yourself so brilliantly!
What a wise girl you are given the lack of space you are allowed to “think” in, in todays culture! You need to continue to speak loudly and with determination and people will soon begin to hear your voice.
Well done and most of all, accurate! An A+ Assignment in my books 🙂
well said. Congratulations Miriam… for seeing and articulating what most adults cannot! you go girl!
Fantastic piece Miriam. I wish I had your clarity at age 14!
The advertisers and magazines claim we all know its fake but we wont buy the mags/products if the people are not perfect. I think we should start proving them wrong by refusing to buy the products UNTIL they start to portray women as we really look – yes, a small number do look like supermodels – but even Miranda Kerr is photoshopped! Even Jessica Alba had HEAPS trimmed off her body for a Vodka advert.
As women we can reject the “hottie” culture. We can start to really look at each other and see the beauty in each other – support each other, especially our young women and seek guidance from the wise women in our culture – the Mothers, the Grandmothers, the Elders. No-one is immune to wanting to look nice – but I am finding now in my 30s – how much more joy there is to be found in connecting with other women and in celebrating our authentic beauty than shopping and desperately trying to fit into this narrow and really, boring, single aesthetic of the pornified woman.
Amazing piece, very well said! Good to see someone so young with such a good grasp on this issue.
Miriam you are too right!!!
Congratulations on speaking up…if only girls/women realised that if we collectively stopped focusing on cosmetically changing themselves, and instead put our mind to changing the world… the world would be a better place in a much a shorter time!
Keep up the good work!!
Agreeing with the others here Miriam ~ go girl, & we are supporting you that’s for sure 🙂
Brilliant – well said! “Girls need to spend their time enjoying life, not trying to look good!! oh yes!
Great article, well done and keep it up 🙂
Thanks for all the support! It’s great to hear such positive feedback! Together we can conquer this and change society’s influence on young people!
Amazing Miriam, Your an amazing writer and all of this is so true.. Love you soo much. See you soon fellow student <3 😉
I am 57 years old, male. If married and at the right time, i would have a great grand daughter like you. And it would be my privilege if she was like you and wrote this article. No matter how dark the works of the evil one; God always has a little light saved away somewhere which will pierce, grow and eventually overcome the darkness. Love you darling.
Beautifully written. Very raw and honest. Keep writing love. 🙂
Wow! I wish you were MY friend growing up. Looking back at my high school days, I had a great figure, and many adults told me so at the time, but all I could think about was losing weight to look like those gorgeous girls on the magazines. The fact is, however, that skin-deep beauty only lasts for a short time anyway. Who you really are (on the inside) is what will either push people away or attract people to you for the long haul. Outside beauty is great while it lasts, but when it’s gone, what do we have left except the real “us”? Proverbs 31:30 🙂