The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reminds us that teenage girls are twice as likely as boys to develop mental health issues due to stress. These stressors stem largely from the emphasis which our society puts on things that are arbitrary in the grand scheme of life, such as GPA and standardized test scores. GPA makes little difference in indicating someone’s success in the future. My school had a Cum Laude assembly to honor the top 10 percent of students in GPA while the speaker suggested that grit more accurately measures success. Parents and teachers tell teenagers not to stress. Despite these positive affirmations however, they continue to encourage high GPAs and standardized test scores, adding to the ever-present social pressures that teen girls face.
Teenage girls are often very complicated people, and understandably so, as the teenage years are a turbulent time in their lives. All in all, society views teenage girls as victims. Teenage girls are often labeled as materialistic, self-involved snobs. But perhaps teenage girls would not be twice as stressed out if they were treated the same despite the stereotypes. For example, the popular movie, Mean Girls, portrays teen girls in a negative light. Yet, people do not realize it. The brain automatically puts teenage girls in a single faceted lens of stereotypes because it is easier for the brain to comprehend what the media has fed it than look at it any differently.
Society expects that everyone should go to school, then go to college, get a job, get married, and have kids. Regardless of your gender, this traditional pattern symbolizes success. This traditional pattern may not be meant for everyone nor should it be assumed that everyone needs these things to live a fulfilling life. Life can take unexpected twists and turns, and not all of these expectations can be met in society’s ideal order.
Society has expectations of how everyone should live life and what teen and adult bodies should look like as expressed through the media. Being different does not and should not have to be a bad thing. Not living up to societal expectations typically makes people feel ashamed of themselves for not conforming to these expectations. We should praise the nonconformists of society, rather than shaming them. Teen girls, in particular, think that if they do not conform people will not like them. Teen girls should want to stand out. Yet, diverging from the social norm is a huge stressor for teen girls.
Standing out in the eyes of society is a huge risk, because it’s human nature to want to fit in. In truth, many surrender to social pressures without even realizing it. Nathan Heflick’s research from Psychology Today shows that most people think they are less likely to succumb to social pressures when in fact they are not. Silvia Bellezza, Francesca Gino, and Anat Keinan prove this. Their research from MIT’s research on business and nonconformity show that dressing differently in job interviews enables the interviewee to remember you more, thus giving you a better shot at success. Professor Gino, who teaches at Harvard Business School, wrote an article for the Scientific American, describing her experience teaching a class while wearing red converse sneakers and a suit. A post-class survey revealed that her professional status increased in the eyes of her students due to her nonconforming red shoes. Another famous example, is Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to wear a hoodie proving to have a positive impact in his success on Wallstreet.
Teen girls need exposure to more cases proving that standing out from the norm has a positive impact on one’s success. Conforming to society is detrimental for many teen girls, causing eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. Dr. Stephen Hinshaw explores the stress that teen girls face in his book The Triple Bind: Saving Our Teen Girls from Today’s Pressures. To further underscore the detriments of social pressures, Hinshaw interviews teen girls in his book: “Sixteen-year-old Lupe … ‘The expectations are impossible!’ she tells me”. Lupe and her friends continue to say that no one tells you what is expected of you. Girls are just supposed to know, and are expected to exceed expectations. The triple bind that Hinshaw describes is that girls are expected to act sweet, be a star athlete and get straight As, as well as appear sexy. Hinshaw writes in an excerpt of his book featured by the Today Show, “At least one-fourth of all U.S. teenage girls are suffering from self-mutilation, eating disorders, significant depression, or serious consideration of suicide.” Overall, all girls face overwhelming expectations, threatening their health and wellbeing.
It is hard to know if you are conforming to what is being fed to you through your education, upbringing, media, and even culture. For instance, Judith Sargent Murray and Catherine Beecher stood up for women by saying that women should be educated as well as Catherine’s separate spheres ideology, encouraging women to be a part of both the public and household spheres of life as one does effect the other. These two women stood up for what they believed in, although not fully, due to fear of judgement, lending to contradiction and a base for feminism. Judith was the first feminist and even though she did not cause immediate change, she impacted the world for the better. Nonconformity takes time to evolve and can lend to contradiction. Teen girls contradict themselves while struggling to be uniquely themselves.
It is human nature to fear taking risks. Nonconformists have fears too, but they decide to use that fear to their advantage, risking the idea of being judged. Without these risk takers, no one would foster change or advance society. You must make a choice to take a chance to make society change. Otherwise, change will never happen. Societal change, therefore, depends on the courage of risk takers.
Society can come together to accomplish great things when it looks past its own confining expectations. Society’s boundaries never can be broken. Instead they are just adjusted, made more encompassing. People evolve slowly as does society—dramatic change requires courageous individuals to take baby steps, which does not happen immediately. It took years for women to gain the right to vote. Women are still fighting for equal pay. Courageous change agents like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton have been catalysts to this progressive change. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton paved the way to give women the right to vote. They were not afraid to stand up for their beliefs and fight.
There must be a way for society to let human nature and being different thrive. This will occur where the stigma of being different is gone. Differences should be viewed as positives in the eye of society. Different is good because life is boring if everyone is the same. Diversity leads to innovation and progress. Society must find this balance or society will continue to cause controversy and outcasts, rather than including all and praising our uniqueness. If perfect cannot exist, then everyone can come up with their own ideal. Society should stop trying to make us conform to its own form of a paragon in terms of our bodies and our lifestyles. Humans strive for impossible ideals, defined differently throughout various places in this world. Society has its own dynamic judgements which govern our lives. To live more carefree, one must change these ideals and define their very own. Societal expectations should empower teenage girls rather than harming them.