Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

Joan Ryan chooses the title of her essay well. The girls she writes about are "little." They are little in physical stature, immature of mind and body. Yet they are boxed into the telescreen of society's superficial eye, under the crushing weight of a nation's, a parent's, a coach's expectations of physical beauty, femininity, and athletic success. As a society, we shape these young girls into contortions that please us, rewarding them when they meet our expectations and punishing them quite severely when we decide they have fallen short. But even success for these young girls has a price that society should never ask them to pay.

Ryan argues that gymnasts and figure skaters hold a unique and cherished place among American athletes because of their athletic grace, youth and beauty. American society rewards the gymnast or figure skater who excels at the Olympics, such as Mary Lou Retton and Dorothy Hamill, for example, with accolades and endorsements that run into the millions of dollars. These potential rewards of success drive these young girls and the adults who should be looking out for them to extremes of behavior, the results of which are the exact opposite of the success they seek. For example, she tells the story of a 13-year-old girl who had to be committed to a psychiatric hospital after her father's reaction to her quitting gymnastics (Ryan 479). Ryan also mentions others who literally starved themselves to death (482).

Ryan maintains that America's obsession with youth, beauty and success has produced a training environment that permits the legal abuse of these children. Her investigation of the "other side" of these Olympic sports reveals a society that rewards only a very specific result, without regard for the process of how that apparent result was achieved. We want to see that slim, beautiful winner on the top step of the podium, no matter the cost. But apart from the obvious expenses of competing in t...

Page 1 of 6 Next >

More on Little Girls in Pretty Boxes...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 13:59, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1698837.html