General Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

General Psychology - Essay Example Although women have attained much more freedom and greater respect as equally human, they continue to be judged more by appearance than personality, intelligence, talents or compassion. In the modern commercial culture, female role models have been mostly portrayed in the media as all appearance and no substance, or very little substance. TV has become our expression of the ideal as much as ancient Greek statuary was theirs, but it typically illustrates that happy and popular girls are very slim and tall with flawless complexions. The importance placed on this perfect image has created a culture that is inordinately focused upon appearance to the great detriment of most of its members. Girls exposed to this culture feel heavy pressure to do everything they can to bring themselves as close to this ideal as they can manage, many times developing unhealthy, sometimes fatal, ways of addressing their perceptions. This unhealthy female self-concept as a result of an innate need to conform to cultural norms is the focus of an article in Teen Voices Girl Talk about new programs being introduced by the Girl Scouts. The article reveals that 60 percent of girls compare their bodies to the bodies of fashion models and just a little less than that number admit they are trying to achieve that image for themselves. â€Å"Even though we know that these depictions are not based in reality, many of us still define our self-worth by how we measure up to them† (Harig, 2010). Because the images on TV are perceived to be the only possible images of success, girls everywhere adopt methods like going on starvation diets, inducing vomiting after eating or developing other eating disorders. They may also try to get plastic surgery when they are still young or try other crazy methods of bringing their body in line with these ideals no matter what kind of body style they have or what might be healthy for th at form. The numbers reported in