Blossoming Self Esteem Paper

Depression is when an individual has feelings of hopelessness and has very little energy to accomplish tasks; many people have tremendous trouble sustaining an interest in life. In today’s culture, girls have become more depressed in adolescence compared to boys (Stice and Bearman). One of the major influences on why girls are frequently more depressed than boys, is that girls struggle to obtain the perfect body in their own eyes. Findings show that, compared to teen boys, teen girls have higher body shame. Fifty-three percent of adolescent girls reported being dissatisfied with their body after the study (Knauss). Low-self esteem, combined with depression, can potentially be very dangerous for young women.

The age of adolescence has become universally known as an awkward period of growth and socialization. The article “Saplings in the Storm,” by Mary Pipher, was published in 1995 and gives an interesting look into some of the issues faced by adolescent girls, but gives little evidence to support her claims or ways in which to encourage the self-confidence in adolescent girls. More recently, there has been further research looking into the reasons as to why girls become more depressed, endure a decrease in self-esteem, and lose their curiosity after puberty.

Adolescent girls growing up in today’s society endure many more hardships than in previous years. Adolescence is no longer a time of endless sunny days spent on the back porch with a glass of country time lemonade and a smile extending ear to ear. Adolescence for girls is now generalized as a dark and depressing period of life that often seems hopeless and never ending. Mary Pipher PH.D tries to illustrate just how drastically life has changed over the years for teenage girls through her best selling book “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”. Although Mary Pipher was once a clinical psychologist, she articulates very well for everyone to clearly understand her ideas and perspectives. One way

In the article, “Changes in Self Esteem During Middle School Year”, it gives information about self esteem, and what effects it, which insinuates that self esteem is a recurring problem in middle schools. “...ethnicity, social class, gender, and social contexts can lead to changes in self esteem,” says the author. This quote shows that many factors influence changes in self esteem. These factors include dating, although it isn’t mentioned. Dating violence can strongly influence a person’s self esteem. “Gender can also effect changes in self esteem during the adolescent years. Girls consistently experience sharper declines than boys in self esteem.” This quote goes into greater detail about how gender can influence self esteem. Sometimes this

One social effect of conformity in young girls is low self-confidence, which often follows into adulthood. Mary Pipher, Ph. D., is a clinical psychologist and author of “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”. Throughout Pipher’s writings she recalls personal and patient’s experiences that have brought to light the “destructive forces that affect young women.” (268). Pipher explains that as girls grow up, “They lose their assertive, energetic and “tomboyish” personalities and become more deferential, self-critical and depressed. They report great unhappiness with their own bodies.” (267) Throughout adolescence they are taught by plays, movies, books, and society that a woman’s purpose is to please others. Her favorite example

[If no to Q5] GIRLS (Girls Inspiring Respect, Leadership and Service) Academy is a transformative program for middle-school girls and the first of its kind among fraternal organizations. Throughout the weekend-long program, participants remark that they feel stronger, more confident and happier about who they are — crucial pieces that help them develop into effective leaders. Collegiate and alumna members facilitate the programming and run the event.

Studies indicate that girls as young as 6 and 7 can struggle with body image. By middle school 40-70 percent of girls are dissatisfied with two or more parts of their body (The Issues). The NYC Girls Project is a multi-agency educational and advertising initiative aimed at promoting self esteem and positive body image by focusing on admirable character traits rather than physical attributes. Colorful signs can be found in various locations throughout New York City. The background of each one features young girls between the ages of 7-12 of all sizes and ethnicity. The catch phrase, “I’m a Girl” in bold yellow text is followed by “I’m beautiful the way I am” emphasized by the use of capital letters. By strategically using

As a mentor, Robin impact the lives of girls (ages 10 -17) in the Girl In The Mirror Program. The girls receive motivation with practical application that increase their self-esteem to become young leaders with self-worth.

Teenage girls try to emulate models. In a research, Mundell finds out that ten years old girls were not satisfied with their body image after watching a video by Britney Spears (2002, p.1). Similar to that, dissatisfaction with the body image reflects

Hawkins et al. (2006) & Sanderson et al. (2013)’s research talks about how college-aged women view themselves and how the opinions of those around them affected their self-image. AA females

The authors Richard Robins and Kali Trzesniewski wrote an article about how self-esteem changes across a persons’ life time. They speculated that in early childhood self-esteem is relatively high then begins to decline. In adolescents’ self-esteem continues to decline, until adulthood when self-esteem gradually begins to increase until around the age of sixty. When an individual hits old age self-esteem begins to decline again. The authors speculate that decline in old age is similar to the decline of self-esteem for adolescents-the rapid changes happening in their lives. For both adolescents and old people their lives begin to change in ways that weren’t apparent to them before. For adolescents and people in

It was decided that the goal would best be reached through a questionnaire given to people to fill out that would evaluate their self esteem. After going through many the Baarksdale self esteem evaluation no.69 , it was decided on as being the most thorough and the one most pertaining to he research. Some questions at the end were added asking for age, sex, and whether or not they play competitive sports. These questions were added so we could separate them onto the respective categories: athlete/non athlete. Our control group would be the group that does not play on a sports team. The athletes would be compared to them. The questionaries were handed out randomly.

The formation of a concrete sense of self is one of the milestones of adolescence. However, this task is anything but easy. The teenage years are full of turmoil and changes that can have a detrimental affect on a girl's sense of identity and

However, people’s perception of gender due to society ignores these findings. Women who exhibit agency, or assertiveness in the workplace, are considerably less likely to be hired for a job than a man who has the same traits or a woman who is sensitive and motherly (Shibley Hyde). Gender stereotypes also affect young men in an even harsher way. Society believes that girls are more sensitive and more likely to have self-esteem issues. However, in Shibley Hyde’s meta-analysis, she found that there was almost no difference between adolescent boys’ and girls’ issues with self-worth (Shibley Hyde). This could potentially lead to boys not getting the help they need because society expects them to “take it like a man”.

Now, let’s get the facts straight about “Beautiful” people’s self-esteem. Our self-esteem has been affected by the “Beautiful” people. We either have high or low self-esteems and the environment that we live in creates it. At work, school, and home we are surrounded by beautiful people with high self-esteems. The not so pretty people have low self-esteems towards the world and themselves. Dove gives plentiful facts about self-esteems related to beauty. Dove Self Esteem Fund, company, in the article "Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National report on the state of Self-Esteem" (2008), analyzes that girls have a lot of pressure due to emotional stress with ourselves. Dove gives a lot of ethos to back up each statement said. Dove talks about kids and parents in order to get to kids and parents to be involved in a positive way. This article attracts audience as young kids, teens, and parents. Parents also contribute to kid’s low self-esteem issues. Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, commissioned by the Dove® Self-Esteem Fund, reveals that there is a self-esteem crisis in this country that pervades every aspect of a girl’s life including her looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members (Dove). Self-esteem is a key issue in the world. In the article it’s revealed as a crisis in the country and it’s mostly about beauty.