“On a typical afternoon four years ago, I would be sitting in my room at my dad and stepmom’s house trying to do my homework. My baby sister was usually crying downstairs. However, it was hardly audible through the music blaring in my stepsister’s room across the hall. At any given moment a sibling would burst through my door without knocking and run to the bathroom adjacent to my room. Whenever I would go downstairs my little sister would ask me to make her some food. Not wanting her to starve I would make her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or something equally simple. Before I knew it, it was time to go to my mother’s house where I would hopefully get some homework done.
At first I felt like the only place I could escape from my problems was at school. However, at school I was faced with a bigger problem than not having my homework done. I felt that I didn’t look right being white in a mostly Latino school. I felt that I didn’t dress right since I only wore sweats when everyone around me wore jeans. Worst of all I felt like my clothes were three sizes larger than everyone else’s. I was faced with the problem of how I felt about myself.
When I looked in the mirror I didn’t see a girl who was struggling through common problems such as self-acceptance and finding a voice. Instead I saw a girl who was ugly and fat, a girl who was alone in the world and was destined to be miserable for the rest of her life. For a long time I hid from my problems and took solace in magazines like Seventeen, taking comfort from stories about girls with similar problems to mine.
I realized I couldn’t run away from my problems
When I went to a new school in the fall of 1995 I made new friends who wouldn’t let me feel sorry for myself, friends who helped me to see that running from my problems and reading those magazines would never solve anything. I decided that the messages I had been receiving from the magazine were not the right ones. For instance, in an issue of Seventeen I read an article about the eating disorder anorexia. Just a few pages away there was an article on dieting. Even worse, every model in that issue was disgustingly skinny. This wasn’t just the trend in the advertisements, these little waifs of flesh and bone were all over the magazine, even in the article about boosting your self-confidence. But how big is someone’s confidence going to be if we are constantly shown that we don’t look right? It makes no sense that someone who wears a size larger than ten should think that they are big! I don’t wear a ten, lots of my friends don’t wear a size ten. In fact the average woman is a size 14. Yet even though there’s so many of us it’s like we’re all alone, fighting our own battles to accept who we are.
Does anyone actually fit this culture’s standard? Sure, her name is Barbie. You know, the little blond chick with virtually no waist who is always wearing high heels and a miniskirt. She’s every little girl’s playtime companion. When we were little, Barbie was much more than a toy, she was a role model. From the age of three we’ve learned that this is what you should look like. By the time we’re seven we’ve realized to our dismay that we don’t look like Barbie. However, accepting the fact that we aren’t Barbie and that we will never be Barbie is the hardest step, and unfortunately some people refuse to give up.
Not long after we stop obsessing about our weight we are faced with a fact of life that culture considers a problem: getting old. What is so bad about getting old anyway? Aging is an inescapable part of life, yet this society chooses to look upon it as a condition which should be reversed at all costs. Why else do you think there are so many forms of age-defying makeup and anti-wrinkle creams? Wrinkles could remind you of everything that you have experienced or in the case of laugh lines, it could remind you of all the laughs you’ve had with friends. But instead of women growing up, you get people who dress and act as if they were 20 years younger and, even worse, there are women like Cher who spend millions of dollars to change their face through plastic surgery. Personally, I’m looking forward to the years when I’m just sitting in my rocking chair being grateful I’m me and being grateful that I still have the face I was born with.
Thankfully, there’s still hope for this culture concerning the portrayal of women. For instance, a lot of those teen magazines such as Seventeen and Teen have started to put women of different sizes in their articles. Mattel has also changed by coming out with a variety of Barbies of different races, not just black and white. So society does eventually change when we have a problem, but do these examples solve our individual problems? Are we now all comfortable with ourselves? Absolutely not.
I don’t have a solution to every problem that affects women, but I do know that a good first step into feeling better about yourself is to realize that only Barbie looks like Barbie, that everyone is different. Having healthy eating habits such as avoiding fast food and eating fruit is also a good way to feel better about yourself. I’m not saying that thin is bad because I know a lot of people who are naturally skinny. My problem is solely with people who come by it in unhealthy ways.
So how did I make the transition from being an extremely self-conscious and shy kid to one who is writing an article about self-confidence? Well, the first thing I did was to realize that I needed to change my attitude about myself. I also realized that trying to change myself in order to look like a plastic doll, or a human impersonation of one, is not only destroying my individuality but makes it impossible to accept myself and therefore extremely difficult to be happy. I also had to muster enough courage to talk to new people. I made a point to make new friends who wouldn’t ignore me, friends who encouraged me to talk about my problems. Teachers were also instrumental in helping me to build my self-confidence. They encouraged me to participate in class and were there whenever I wanted to talk. In order to vent my frustrations, I wrote non-fiction stories. You might want to keep a diary or write songs.
It’s taken me three years to get my self-esteem to where it is today. And although my self-esteem still isn’t high all the time, and I’m far from being totally happy, I know that I will be changing for the rest of my life. Personally, I’m much more self-confident today then I was three years ago. For instance, I used to never raise my hand in class, but now I try to participate every week. I know that’s not quite as good as every day but I’m getting there. Everybody has room to grow. So I advise you to go to the mirror, say hello, and begin to recognize yourself for who you are.”