So recently I was browsing around Facebook and I saw this performance of a slam poetry that really spoke to me and reminded me of the podcast "Finding the Self in Selfie." Savannah Brown's poem "What Guys Look For In Girls" speaks about how girls are taught to see themselves as imperfect and ugly unless they adhere to specific personality and body types. In the poem I enjoyed the positive message that Brown was sending about learning to accept yourself--not just the body that you reside in but yourself as a person. She also mentions in her poem how girls are told they are narcissistic if they hold themselves up and say that they are beautiful, and this was the portion that reminded me of the podcast the most. The girls in the podcast, even though I thought they were shallow, banded together in order to save their self-esteem from others or themselves who would try and tear that confidence down. Their compliments, whether genuine or not, helped build their self-esteem during a more trying time in life. "What Guys Look For In Girls" greatly affected me because I feel like verbal positivity needs to be shared more often, and whether its said in person or on social media is inconsequential.
*As a side note, she has another poem called "Hi, I'm a Slut" that, even though it is a bit more graphic in it's language, is absolutely on target for how women are oversexualized in media and in life.
This poem is really something. I feel that it addresses many of the issues wrong with our society. A society where you’re not pretty if you don’t have a certain waistline, if you don’t have a certain hair color, if you don’t like the right kind of person…. Even though what makes people like others is kindness, intelligence, humor, and so much more then what’s on the outside in a body that no one asked to get but was forced into at birth. Thank you for sharing this poem, I really love it!
ReplyDeleteI loved the slam poem "Hi, I'm a Slut." What she says at 1:30 really stands out to me: "Or, if I'm a virgin, that makes me a fetish, too…" because I truly feel like that's how it is for us. We're fetishized if we're virgins, because for some reason some men want to feel like they're taking something from us. But then they also want us to be experienced, but if we are, then we're condemned for that, too; we're just sluts. It's a ridiculous sexual double standard, and I don't think we should ever be made to feel bad because of our sexual choices. Everyone gets to make their own choices regarding sex, and should do (or not do) whatever they're comfortable with. If you're not comfortable with safe, casual sex, you're not a prude. If you're comfortable with it, you're not a slut. If your sexual choices aren't hurting anyone else, and it's all always consensual, it isn't anyone's business but yours and your partner's.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these slam poems are really great! They both really capture what society is like for girls, and I am glad that, they gave a positive message. Positive messages aren't something that get a lot of attention in most social media, and that is something that should change.
ReplyDeleteI love these kind of things. The sexualization of women, and men too, has become even more common in media thanks to technology, such as photo shop. The use of social media helps spread the altered pictures at an even faster pace today. With pictures of unrealistic figures and standards are spread with a blink of an eye, people are now held to a standard only to fail at meeting it. This is one of the negative results of technology today.
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