Every girl dreams of changing the way she looks. Really?

[Themumsnot]

And Mumsnet is promoting this shit [[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/teenagers/1557869-Q-A-for-parents-of-teenage-girls on the teenagers forum?]

Horrified doesn't begin to describe my reaction. And if I bought the book for my 15 year old DD she would probably lamp me.

Oh dear. Yes, not good at all.
That 'Every girl...' line in the blurb is really dodgy.

I've yet to meet a female who wouldn't change at least one think about their appearance no matter how gorgeous they look to the rest of the world, most aren't even good looking so would probably want to change a lot more than one thing! What's the big deal? Wanting to improve your looks is natural, it ups your status like earning more money or having a nice house or lots of friends.

Really? I certainly wouldn't have changed my appearance at that age! (Now I would quite like rid of my rosacea, but otherwise I am pretty cool with how I look - surely it's not that unusual?)

Agrees with dunk

Don't see the issue tbh. I would change something about my self and I doubt there hasn't been a day someone hasn't thought "wish i had longer hair" or "wish my nose wasn't so big"

Everyone does it.

Everyone may do it... though I doubt it.

If they do it is primarily down to women-hating fashion magazines; which is to say all of them I have ever read.

OK, heroin chic may be past, but you can't model unless you're photoshopped to the hilt to look even skinnier. How is that female? And where do I sign up to a campaign against this abuse?

[Most women can avoid the trashy depiction of women in porn to some extent. Fashion mags? A lot harder.]

We are telling our daughters that the most important thing they can do to feel better about themselves is to change the way they look. How can that possibly be good on any level. I want my daughter to feel good about her achievements, not her appearance.

OneMoreChap - totally agree.

It is very common for women and teenage girls to be unhappy with their appearance. I don't think anyone is denying that.

What I think can be harmful though, is the insistence that everyone feels like that, which implies that feeling happy with the way you look naturally is simply not an option. And that is what the 'Every girl dreams of changing the way she looks' tagline does.

I do find it quite strange the way some people are so eager to insist that all girls must feel unhappy with their appearance, even when some women say that they didn't. Why so invested in everyone feeling that way? Why is it so hard to believe that some of us didn't?

I suspect the title of the book was dreamed up in order to make the idea of selling beauty tips to teens look much more positive than it is. "100 tips to make every girl look fantastic" seems to be more or less what the content is, but they add "& feel" to the title to make it seem that it is about welfare, wellbeing, confidence, and to make it look like buying the book could be part of good parenting.

I know that aged about 13-18 my confidence was shot by the fact that magazines all around me made it seem like caring about make up & shit was a compulsory part of being a girl. I wasn't interested in that stuff so I felt I wasn't a "proper" girl.

Oh, that's just because if you aren't obsessed with your appearance you are abnormal. And impossible to flog loads of shit products that you don't need to. Ergo if they can make you insecure about not being obsessed with what you look like, you might buy some crappy make up or whatever, so they'll get some cash out of you.

Important for girls to understand that if they are unhappy with the way they look, it is probably the fault of unrealistic societal expectations. And the cure is to understand that, and try to change expectations, not to try and change the way you look.

At this age, girls should be perfectly capable of looking at that pressure and deciding whether to conform, or not.

The whole 'this is what you need to do to improve makes me want to spit feathers. And yes, I do go to the freaking gym three times a week in the vain hope I might at some point lose weight.

There's a huge difference between having things you're not ecstatic about, and wanting to change them. As a teenager I felt incredibly self-conscious that my boobs weren't big enough, but I am so squeamish, the idea of a boob job made me feel sick - it wasn't even a feministy reaction, it was just visceral. It's perfectly possible to be nit-picky about things but still not want to do anything about them.

Can't say I ever did.

Awful message that "every" girl wants to change something. I never did, I thought I was beautiful (and I was).

And that of course, is unacceptable. That's stuck up, arrogant, full of myself, up myself, blah blah blah. Women aren't allowed to be happy with the way they look it's a sign that they need taking down a peg or two.

Yuk

Look, that book is written by a Beauty Editor. The job of a Beauty Editor is to sell "beauty" products to readers. The way to sell products is to create insecurity, then offer a product which purports to resolve the insecurity.

It's beautiful in conception. And it works beautifully.