...Popular Girls “Popular Girls, a short story by Karen Shepard, written in 2001, about the life of 5 spoiled girls, who lives in the city that never sleeps, with absent parents and their daddy’s credit card. You’ve guessed it. It’s about “Popular Girls”. The story follows five girls living in New York City in 1982, whose lives revolve around being popular. They do everything in their power to do so. God has put them on earth to know everything about the latest fashion and trends. They have become so obsessed with the big city life, that even though they only attend tenth grade (only when they want to), that they have completely lost their sense of normality for a typical 15 to 16 year old. All they care about is, seeming older than they are, so that they can hang out with college students, drinking and do drugs. Even having sex with the college students if that’s what it takes. There is not a single line in the text giving any doubt, whether these girls “are from another world”. The first 3-4 pages is basically just a description of the girls’ life, how they act, what type of clothes they wear, the accessories that goes with it and their hatred towards everybody else at their school. “We’ve seen everything the world has to offer, and we’ve dismissed it”. With every line or so containing a brand name the reader quickly gets the idea that these girls know what they’re wearing and why they do it. God forbid anybody would think otherwise. Not only do they know how to look cool,...
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...Popular Girls by Karen Shephard ------------------------------------------------- We are immediately introduced to five girls in Popular Girls written by Karen Shepard. The five girls, Kaethe, Alina, CJ, Sydney and Stephanie, in Popular Girls have very few physical descriptions. They are only described by their hair as being straight and every colour but red. ------------------------------------------------- With sentences as “we do not notice you15” and “we have seen the theater teacher looking at them. We are not shocked. We are not surprised26” (about their breasts) we can assume, that they have plenty of confidence. But even though, they may seem confident on their outside, their confidence is put on the line, when they meet three men, that they are all interested in. ------------------------------------------------- Suddenly, their worth is in competition, and they see one by one, who is the most wanted. Their confidence is peeled down. ------------------------------------------------- They have an usual formation then they walk. Stephanie is always first, then comes Sydney and Alina and at last Kaethe and CJ. ------------------------------------------------- When it comes to conquest the men, they are not in the same order and position. CJ gets home with Pablo, because of CJ’s lack of consciousness. Sydney gets Gilles when they get home to the three boys, and only Antoine is left with no girl. ------------------------------------------------- “We like...
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...Popular Girls by Karen Shepard – Text Analysis What is the result of a spoiled girl living in the city that never sleeps, absent parents and her father’s credit card? “Popular Girls” tells the story. “Popular girls”, the title really hits the spot. And what do I mean by this? Well it’s actually quite simple. The story revolves around five, or maybe six, girls living in New York City, which is the richest city in the US, doing everything in their power to be popular. And how do they do this? Well as I said everything they possibly can. Even though they only attend tenth grade, they have become so affected by the big city life that their sense of reality has completely disappeared. They have one thing in mind, and that is becoming older and until that happens, they are doing what they can to at least seem older. They go drinking, they do drugs and they throw themselves at older boys, sleeping with them. The text in itself is pretty hard to analyze because of the structure of the text. The first three pages is basically an environment description which is very confusing. An environment description of the girls lives. How they live and how they go about living. With every third of fourth word being a brand name, the reader fast gets ahold of the idea that, these girls are very aware of how they display themselves to the public. With almost all the attention being put on the girls posh lives, it is easy to miss the subtle contrasts in the text. There are a few times, where we...
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...are only three groups of people and within those groups are many sub-groups. I don’t much though into sub-groups though, since virtually everyone from the same group gets along. First, the mass majority of an average highschool population; the populars (pops). Yes! That’s right, you didn’t read wrong. Contrary to the beliefs of many, populars are not a select few, but majority of the population. The pops are just as you might expect; crude, annoying, vicious, disruptive, think much too highly of themselves, etc… I would continue, but then this letter would never end. Now, something you may not believe is that they actually get better grades than some of the smarter kids in this school. Not because the pops are by any means smart, but because they actually choose to do the dumb-downed, simplistic work teachers handout now-a-days. Though the schoolwork incredibly easy, pops find it to be increasingly challenging. Popular girls will most likely get pregnant early on and be force to drop-out of either highschool, or college. They will most likely end-up as a stay at home mom, or a cashier at some store, or fast food place. Popular guys will either be a drop-out so they can raise money to support their family, or they will ditch the girl and go on to be a sports star or an actor. Surely there will be a few who change their ways and escape this fate, but not many. The second group of people are within the top percentile of the school and you’ll probably find their schedules full...
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...surfacing popular media nationwide, the self image of most teenage girls in society today has never been worse. By cause of unrealistic standards of feminine beauty surfacing popular media nationwide, the self image of most teenage girls in society today has never been worse. By cause of unrealistic standards of feminine beauty surfacing popular media nationwide, the self image of most teenage girls in society today has never been worse. By cause of unrealistic standards of feminine beauty surfacing popular media nationwide, the self image of most teenage girls in society today has never been worse. By cause of unrealistic standards of feminine beauty surfacing popular media nationwide,...
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...Girls tend not to take enough of an active role in sport both in school and in adult life. Why is this so? How could girls and women be encouraged to take a more active role in sport? Use reasons and examples from your own experience to explain your answer. Sport is important for everybody, especially for girls who are generally less active than boys. There is barrier that makes girls tend not to take enough of an active role in sport both in school and in adult life. Popular sport dominated by men. Football, basketball boxing or Motorsport is exactly to be male dominated. That make the barrier to participation in sport is that sport itself. I believe that popular sport has been defined, organized, promoted as a male activity. For example, some women/girls are turned off sport altogether because they see it as a male dominated activity. It is just not seen as feminine to be interested in sport and for many girls, being sporty is felt to be odds with being feminine. Women and girls are often reminded of this male domination by others who are surprised to see them participating or competing in sport. Working in a sector where they are a minority can make them feel that they don’t belong. They tend to prefer the social aspects of physical activity like having fun and making friends. So it is very important to find the right sport for girls, because a girl is not participating in a sport she likes, she probably cannot stick with it. Girls must find out what she likes to do and...
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...Perfectly Imperfect You know those girls in your school who think they are better than everybody else, and act like school is a Vogue photo-shoot? If you answered yes, then you know exactly how Kaylee Roberts, and Mia Anderson will act through this story. If you answered no, well then, you will figure out the seventeen year olds personalities, with no trouble on your own. Kaylee Roberts is a tall, lighter complexion, thin girl, with green eyes, and long black shiny hair that falls right above her butt. She is one of the top students for her junior class, and is extremely bright and athletic. Mia Anderson on the other hand, has shorter blonde hair the hits her shoulders, a more golden tan complexion, with big blue eyes and a beautiful smile...
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...Pink for girls; Blue for boys? Nowadays if we walk into a department store we can be sure that we will find pink and some blue clothes, toys and little other objects for children such as books, bikes, lunchboxes, board games, toy cookers, cash registers, even games consoles. If we look at these objects there is no wonder everybody knows that pink is specified for girls and blue for boys. But how did this become a common thought? Since when do we use colors to make a difference between genders? And why exactly did we choose pink and blue to fulfill this role? In the 1800s most infants were dressed in white and both boys and girls wore dresses or short skirts until the age of five or six. Although, there was a few small difference between boy and girl clothing. For example girls wore dresses which were buttoned up in the back while boys’ dresses were buttoned up in the front. So gender difference wasn’t highlighted just in a little scale. Why wasn’t this important in that age of time? One theory is that distinguishing boys from girls was less important than distinguishing kids from adults. Childhood was a time of innocence while adulthood typically meant working hard. By the 1850s other colors than white had started to appear in baby clothing, but gender-based distinctions were slow to emerge. For example a Times fashion report from 1880 says that boys and girls were dressed alike in shades of blue, pink, white or violet; another report from 1892 says young girls were wearing...
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...When a girl becomes a teenager, her mother rewards her with plastic surgery so she can look more “caucasian” (Hidayat). The previous statement was written about young asian women in Japan and Korea. Nina Hidayat wrote an article about the expectations and body image issues for young women in Asia. When people think about body image, they only think of the US. Not many people think about how those in other countries have the same issues we do. Studies show that the more reality television a young girl watches, the more likely she is to find appearance important (Web 1). The media plays a large role in how women perceive body image and themselves (ie, magazines, internet, television, etc). The results said peers predict the negative outcomes...
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...When G. Stanley Hall first introduced adolescence as its own age group, he changed the way that society would view girlhood. In Hall’s publication, Adolescence, he characterized this age group of being between the ages of 14 to 24 and exhibiting attention and risk-seeking behaviors, especially when it came to discovering your sexuality. Adolescents would go through what he described as “storm and stress” and would be in this state of unstableness until they found a middle ground as aged closer to adulthood. This new view of adolescence began in the early 1900s, around the same time that movies were reaching a wider audience and become more technological advanced. As adolescent girls were portrayed more frequently in films, they gave these...
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...There are many traditions in the Hispanic culture, and I believe the one that is more commonly celebrated than any other tradition is a young girl’s quinceañera. A quinceañera is when a girl is about to turn 15 years old, and it stands for a girls transition to womanhood. It can be compared to the sweet sixteen celebration that is done for a teenage girl on her sixteenth birthday in the American culture. The quinceñeara tradition has been around for hundreds of years and it’s celebrated just as much today than it was before, though through the generations the ceremony part of it has had its changes. What is the origin of the quinceñeara? It is believed that this tradition dates back to the ancient Mayan and Aztec times. Though the significance has changed slightly since then. the significance that has stayed the same today is of the a girl coming to womanhood, but back...
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...that women, like the girl described in the poem, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly she should be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are being compared to the unrealistic physical looks and life of the Barbie doll. Through the past many years, the Barbie doll has gone from a popular toy to a role model for actual women in today’s society. The extremes to which women take the Barbie doll as a role model are implicit in this poem. The opening line of the poem says, “This girlchild was born as usual,” which suggests that as soon as a female child is born, society expects her to learn the role she will play once she hits puberty. Therefore, showing the readers why little girls are given dolls at a young age to illustrate how they should act and appear according to society. Once girls learn the roles they will soon have to play in their own lives, “the magic of puberty,” hits and girls immediately begin applying these ideals to their own lives. As if the attempt of girls trying to conform to the Barbie doll image isn’t enough, they also have other people in society telling them that they’re not perfect. “You have a great big nose and fat legs,” says a classmate to the girl. This type of pressure from peers and society can slowly but surely destroy the little confidence women may still have in them. In the second stanza of the poem, Piercy describes the girl as healthy, intelligent...
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...anything else. Every little girl has had a Barbie doll, and that Barbie is always beautiful with an hour glass figure and this is where it all starts. When a child becomes a teenager, their body starts to change and develop into ways that society may not improve of. Then when adulthood is reached, some spend a lot of money to change their appearance just to feel excepted. Sometimes they make it off of the operation table, sometimes they don’t. The Barbie doll has become the ideal way that girls are supposed to look like when they get older. The title is not about just a toy, it’s more about an image of perfection. In the first stanza of the poem, Piercy gives an example of metonymy by illustrating that “This girlchild was born as usual/ and presented dolls that did pee-pee”( Doherty 1 ). She lets the readers know that the child is being compared to a doll. This also describes that the child was given small toys that seemed like real life. The toys gave her the wrong image of what life really is. In the last two lines of the first stanza, Piercy states “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said/ you have a great big nose and fat legs.” In that line of the poem, the child is turning into a teenager and she doesn’t like the ways she looks. Other kids make fun of her because she doesn’t have that Barbie doll figure. So as a girl goes through middle school and high school, she tries every day to do her best by fitting in with the popular pretty girls even though they make fun...
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...Boys Against Girls Summary: Discusses the academic and social rivalry between boys and girls. Findings of a study conducted by the American Association of University Women regarding the issue; Gap between men and women in the sciences; Strengths and weaknesses of boys and girls. GENDER A 1992 study by the American Association of University Women reported that schools shortchange girls--letting them lag behind boys in science, silencing them in class and damaging their self-esteem. But some experts are arguing that it's boys who lose out. "The Columbine killings have been a wake-up call," says Judith Kleinfeld, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "Boys also have their problems." Kleinfeld refutes the findings of the AAUW study: With the exception of the (rapidly narrowing) gap between men and women in the sciences, she says, "most of the other findings are misleading or false." Studies show, for example, that girls receive better grades and more awards than their male counterparts. They also have superior verbal skills and are more likely to attend college. But while many schools sponsor interventions to coach girls in physics and math, few have tried to remedy boys' poor reading and writing abilities. And contrary to popular belief, many boys have a well-hidden low self-esteem, believing that schools are hostile towards them. "Women have been shortchanged in other areas of life," says Kleinfeld. "But schools, with their...
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...approach. Safety of girls and women in India is a grave issue. To tackle the problem, a multi-thronged tactics is required. Skewed sex-ratio, ‘commodification’ of the female body through media and other popular means, patriarchal mind-set, lax justice system etc are some of the reasons why there is apparently an increase in incidents of assault on girls and women. First and foremost, exemplary punishment would be the best method of sending the correct message throughout the society. Potential criminals will be deterred once they see that justice is done and it is done within a time framework. Secondly, skewed sex ratio is bound to bring crimes into picture. India needs to be educated that girls should be allowed to live. Killing girls in the womb must be stopped. Again, exemplary punishment to the offenders will go a long way in improving the situation. Advertisements, films, television serials need to portray women as human beings and not just as sex-agents. Women and girls, like all other human beings, exist for many things apart from satisfying and fulfilling needs of the body. Presently, female element is being used for ‘peppering’ the show, the advertisement or the film. It settles the female with the concept of ‘masala’ in our minds. These along with patriarchal brining up give a kind of licence to the criminal’s mind to venture into the territory of violence. All elderly men of Haryana are not villains. Most of them want girls and women to...
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