twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win Americas next top model than the Nobel Peace Prize. The rest of the article is what it is, but this caught my eye. The implied converse ...

1. How to Talk to Little Girls
twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America’s next top model than the
Nobel Peace Prize. The rest of the article is what it is, but this caught my eye. The implied converse
...
twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America’s next top model than the Nobel
Peace Prize. The rest of the article is what it is, but this caught my eye. The implied converse is that 75%
of young women would rather win the peace prize, a rather reassuring percentage. And is this
percentage increasing or decreasing. Moreover, the question itself is possibly meaningless without a
comparison with an equivalent question asked of young American men, like how many would rather be a
professional sports star or win the Nobel Prize. The problem with these kind of articles is the knee-jerk
reaction that a focus on beauty is somehow invalid, because some mother of teens died from elective
surgery. What girls are given now is more choices about their future, and with it, perhaps the need to
make more and more "adult" choices at a younger age than ever before. Or it could be that, in a
media-connected world, one's appearance is of greater importance than ever before. Is it only girls who
are increasingly obsessed with their looks? Do we see young men also spending more time on grooming

2. and fashion? These are just some of the many unanswered questions the author ignores to make her point.
It's not so much that I disagree with her opinion about how girls should be educated, but I can't help but
wonder if the focus on beauty is not as heinous as the author believes, or at the least not as chauvinistic.
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