What Is It Like to Be a Teen Girl? Part 2 by Angie Salzmann, MA, LPC

What Is It Like to Be a Teen Girl? Part 2…

By Angie Salzmann MA, LPC

I, being born a woman and distressed 


By all the needs and notions of my kind,


Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest


To bear your body's weight upon my breast:


So subtly is the fume of life designed,


To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,


And leave me once again undone, possessed.


Think not for this, however, the poor treason


Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,


I shall remember you with love, or season


My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:


I find this frenzy insufficient reason


For conversation when we meet again.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

The poem above is one of my absolute favorites.  To me, this poem not only sets a boundary, but also does so in a wonderfully intelligent and witty way.  The poet does not thank the man to whom she is speaking for the attention that he has paid to her; she does not indicate that she desires to repay him for this kindness.  Instead, she acknowledges certain inclinations on her part, but firmly states that she has no need for this person in her life.  As I said, this is one of my favorite poems and it is so because of its wonderfully artful, clever, and sassy description of encounters, which are often experienced by women and girls in our society.

Last time I wrote, I wrote specifically about objectification; that is, the tendency within our society to treat our girls and women as their bodies rather than as people with bodies (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997).  This time, having the definition already established, I’d like to take the opportunity to say a little bit more about the impact of treating young women in our society as objects.

To me, one of the most obvious ways in which we treat our young women as objects is through societal expectations that girls barter in their relationships with their bodies.  For instance, young women are often treated as though there needs to be some bodily payment in exchange for dinner and a movie.  I wonder how many times I’ve heard people make statements like, “Well, after all that, I think he’s earned a kiss,” or “You need to make him work for it.”  Think about these statements.  How much more clearly could we indicate that a young woman’s body is a commodity to be traded in response to others’ actions?

Surprisingly enough, we could actually form a term to refer to a person’s ability to trade their bodies and attractiveness for the things he or she wants.  This term is “erotic capital” (Hakim, 2010).  In her article, the author actually speaks of this erotic capital as a valuable commodity within interactions between people in the realms of relationships, career, politics, advertising, and arts. 

So, with messages like the ones listed above, it seems like it ought to be impossible for us to wonder why young women often find themselves feeling pressured to trade their bodies for attention, affection, and/or various other results.  Yet, we often do not take the time to examine these everyday kinds of statements and acknowledge their impact.  In fact, not only do we often fail to acknowledge the impact these routine messages have on our young women, but also on our young men. 

In this society, we give and take power in odd ways in dating relationships among our young people…

We tell our young men that for several years, they will be dominated by their hormonal urges.  Within Christian circles, we tell them to work to control these urges and remain pure (Focus on the Family, 2008).  However, we then tell our young women to expect these urges from our young men and to be prepared to defend against them.  We therefore, deny urges among our young women and, instead, make our young women the gatekeepers of purity for the young men, thereby, absolving our young men of the responsibility of monitoring themselves to a large extent while, at the same time, placing additional responsibility on our young women (Valenti, 2006). 

Our young women are taught that our young men are truly, primarily interested in their bodies and that these bodies are the key to garnering attention (Seventeen, n.d.). How many times have each of us heard, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”

By providing these messages within our society we take power from our young people in different ways. We take power from our young men by saying they may not be able to control their own bodies. We also take power from our young women by telling them that they have only one primary way to affection. 

In this scenario, how can our young people win?  Our young women, especially, are given contrasting messages.  On the one hand, they are told to keep their bodies away from young men for the sake of purity.  On the other hand, they learn that using these bodies is the way to gain attention and affection.  What, then, are they to do?

It is within this predicament that young women often find themselves in my office.  They tell me about the conflicting messages and of their confusion as to what to do.  So often they express feelings of loneliness, hurt, sadness, frustration, and guilt.  They seem to have lost the attitude that I find so inspirational in the poem written above.  Because of this, I frequently find myself working to infuse that sense of sassiness back into their demeanors along with the knowledge that they are so much more than their physical selves. I do this in the hope that they will look at others and know that they have no obligation to repay anyone for showing them attention.

References

Focus on the Family. (2008). Abstinence before marriage. Retrieved March 14, 2013,

from http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues/social-issues/abstinence-before-marriage.aspx.

Fredrickson, B., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding

Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks. Psychology of Women

Quarterly, 21, 173-206.

Hakim, C. (2010). Erotic capital. European Sociological Review, 26(5), 499-518.

Abstract retrieved March 14, 2013.

Seventeen: 10 things guys love about girls…(n.d.). Retrieved March 14,

2013, from http://www.seventeen.com/love/advice/things-boys-love.

St. Vincent-Millay, E. (1998) I, being born a woman and distressed. In S. Rattiner

(Ed.) Great poems by American women (p. 211). New York: Dover

Publications, Inc. (Original work published 1923)

Valenti, J. (2006, June 25). Abstinence double standard threatens girls’ health.

Retrieved March 14, 2013, from http://www.alternet.org/story/37956/

abstinence_double_standard_threatens_girls'_health.