Gender Roles in Teens

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/07/3468380/gender-roles-health-risks/

The article discusses the impact of gender roles and how they can negatively affect people, especially at a young age.  Maria do Mar Pereira, a deputy director at a University’s Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, observed kids in Portugal to see how their behaviors reflect the social guidelines that seem to be set up for both girls and boys.  She observed young teens, around age 14, and she noticed their behaviors were polar opposites.  She noticed that girls who enjoyed playing sports wouldn’t participate because it wasn’t feminine enough.  She also noticed that most of the girls were skinnier than expected because they were restricting their food intake.  As for the boys, she observed their violent behavior every day on the playground.  Aside from the violence, the boys seemed to consume unhealthy amounts of alcohol, as if they had to drink to be considered a real man.  The boys also struggled with the anxiety of proving themselves and minimizing their emotions.  Both the boys and the girls were under mental stress, whether it be from drinking alcohol, anxiety to hold back emotions, or restricting eating to look skinnier like all of the models. 

This article was relatable to me in a lot of ways.  I remember grade school recess, when I was the same age as the kids in the article.  Everything from the article, aside from the alcohol consumption, was spot on.  At recess, the boys would constantly be fighting and trying to hurt each other, as if they were trying to impress the girls.  On the other hand, the girls would all huddle up and talk among themselves because it wasn’t seen as a feminine thing to play sports with the rest of the boys.  On the rare occasion that a girl did sneak into the sporting event of the day, she was immediately the talk of the boys, and she looked to be out of place.  The worst part of the article is the long term affects that the eating and drinking habits will place on the teens.  As mentioned in the article, a lot of eating disorders are triggered at a young age.  This is completely unfair to the girls.  It’s not right to put the idea of being skinny and model like into a girls head, but I think the worst part is that there is minimal information on a healthy way to achieve the physique.  Limiting your food intake is definitely not a healthy way to stay skinny.  You can get hearty meals and get all of your macro and micro-nutrients in all while filling up your stomach.  I know because I have done it and I know plenty of people who have done it as well.  It’s bad enough that society persuades women to thinking they need to be skinny and petite, but they don’t even give them any parameters on how to do it in a healthy way, so like anybody else would, they just eat less and starve themselves because they haven’t been given the proper information on the matter.  Growing up is hard enough, the last things kids need is to be pushed and pulled in every which way trying to meet social standards.