Behavior Among Teen Age Girls example essay topic

Self-esteem is a combination of psychological factors that can include confidence, assertiveness, self-respect, strong bonds to and / or the respect of other people. Sometimes it includes conceit, arrogance and an attitude of superiority. But what does gender have to do with self-esteem? Gender, whether you are male or female, is a biological circumstance.

However, when it comes to self-esteem, not only the biological but the sociological aspects are important. Males, however, tend to have higher self-esteem than women due to the emphasis placed on a women's appearance by society (Cooke 12). Appearance can raise or lower a person's self-esteem. Many societies will place a relative value and thus position in society on how people look. For example, in medieval Europe and ancient China laws dictated what clothing styles and materials people could wear according to their social class (Taflinger). Today, clothing, hairstyles, weight, facial features, etc., are elements in many people's self-esteem.

Sometimes people will even go into debt to have plastic surgery done on their faces and bodies to fit better the "ideal" that they think society deems of value. For example, in America the ideal appearance of a woman is to be physically fit, stylish, and apparently young. Until the 1970's a woman's life was to get married and have children. She was happy and comfortable with this way of life; she did not worry about appearance. However, as women began to work they competed for acceptance and respect - and appearance counted. Since those times the number of women unhappy with their appearance has drastically increased, while the number of men has stayed virtually the same according to the study done by Alan Feingold, PhD.

(Billie and Chatterjee). Dr. Emily Hancock, a psychologist in Berkeley California has discovered through various studies that self-esteem in girls peaked at the age of 9, and then began to plummet. She found out that girls tend to lose their strength, independence, and spirit and become wrapped up with the issue of how they look. As a result of this she believes they fall into depression, have eating disorders and severely abuse drugs. The Commonwealth Fund survey in 1997 of 3,586 girls and 3,162 boys grades 5 to 12 revealed that by high school age, only 39 percent of girls were highly self confident and that older girls had less self-esteem than the younger ones. "In contrast", the fund reported, "older boys were more likely to be highly self confident than younger boys, with more than half of all boys in high school indicating high self-esteem...

One quarter (1/4) of the older girls said they did not like themselves, but only fourteen (14) percent of the boys had said they felt that way."Girls and young women tend to be more critical of themselves although opportunities for them have never been greater than they are today in the United States" (Brody "Parents"). Schools and society- mass medias especially- have been blamed for the decline of self-esteem and rise in health damaging behavior among teen age girls by focusing their attention on superficial issues like make up, hair, clothing and weight, "The planet of Melrose Place, or the fake world of magazines, television and movies only make up an estimated 5 percent of the world" (Brody "Puberty"). The national craze with perfect bodies and the idea that bodies are perfectible heightens the pressure on teenagers and complicates adjustment to their own bodies. The fitness obsession can aggravate adolescent self-consciousness and tends to make teenage girls awfully unhappy. For many people achieving what is good appearance is self-satisfying.

Again people tend to base the decision on what to do and what looks good on a comparison with other people in society. "Self-esteem is to a large extent cultural rather than a biological factor in human behavior... None the less people need self-esteem: it gives the sense of self worth and determination to find life worth living" (Taflinger).

Bibliography

Cooke, Kaz. Real Gorgeous: The truth about Body & Beauty. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
Brody, Jane E. "Parents Can Bolster Girls Fragile Self-Esteem". New York Times 11 Nov. 1997: F 7.
Girls and Puberty: the crisis Years". New York Times 4 Nov. 1997: F 9.
Billie, Katherine, and Camille Chatterjee. "The New Gender Gap". Psychology Today 5 (1998): 22.
Taflinger, Richard F. PhD. "Me myself and I: Self- Esteem and Advertising". 29 May 1996.
web (28 May 2000).