Why should we be plastic dolls for guys?

by KAra Amuzzini
High school: the best time of our lives for some, the worst for others.


Me? I’m with the second group.

Girls wearing tight clothes, showing a little too much skin, hang all over guys who just want to get in their pants.

Lately, a big issue at BHS is the new rules against “grinding” at school dances. Students, both boys and girls, are very upset that they can’t grind freely.

Because, I mean, what other fun things are there to do besides rub our bums against each other in public?

Ladies, we are not dogs! We might as well go around peeing on hydrants and sniffing each other if we’re going to grind on guys who don’t give a flying fig about us.

Luckily, I’m not alone in my thinking.

“I’d like to be able to keep my food [down] while I’m at a school dance,” stated senior Kelly Spinali.

“Like, seriously, get a room,” freshman Kayla Hernandez said.

“Yeah, it’s disgusting,” agreed freshman Sarah Jamal-Eddine.

Grinding isn’t the only way that girls conform to the expectations of guys. The hair, makeup, clothes, diets... Always self-conscious and never pleased with our God-given beauty.

I’m not saying that makeup is bad, or that if you straighten your hair you must be trying to impress a guy. No, but the point is that girls’ lives revolve around pleasing guys. It’s not fair and not right.

The orbiting around males starts at a young age. Programs like “Toddlers in Tiaras” show little girls that they aren’t beautiful until they look like plastic Barbies. The toddlers not only compete in bikini contests, but also in “glitz” portions, where they are smothered in makeup that a grown woman shouldn’t wear.

Don’t get me started on Barbie! I used to play with them and think, “I want to be like Barbie when I grow up!” Skinny, flawless, any clothes I wanted, and Ken as a perfect boyfriend. That’s great, if you can grow out of it.

We all want attention. That’s normal. The difference is how you go about getting it. The world tells us our fulfillment should come from being “loved” by guys. And to get that “love,” we have to be whatever the world (guys) want us to be.

Example: Twilight. The popular book saga features a young girl falling in love with a vampire. She dates him, almost dies, gets engaged to him, almost dies, then she marries him, has a creepy half-human, half-vampire baby, almost dies, and then becomes a vampire herself. The girl gives herself up – even her soul – to please this 100-year-old, blood-sucking vampire.

When it comes to guys people tell me, “Kara you don’t understand,” because I don’t date, and I don’t want to, not in high school.

I don’t date because I don’t want to deal with the stress. I see the aftermath of the relationships gone wrong. I see the broken hearts. These girls truly believe they’ve lost their true love. Two weeks later, they’ve got another true love. It’s a vicious cycle.

I’m not judging people who date. I’m not saying all guys are creeps. I’m just trying to warn girls about a danger that things like grinding and dressing provocatively can bring about. I see girls who feel good about getting approval but don’t feel good inside. I can see it in their eyes. It breaks my heart. They fall so far into what society wants them to be and what guys want them to be that they forget who they are. They lose themselves.

If you’re dating, you just have to do it for the right reasons. You need to take a step back and make sure that you are being respected, and aren’t just doing it for the official stamp of society’s approval.

Girls, if you enjoy grinding, you are confident that you know your boundaries, then I’m not trying to attack you with rambling insults. I just want you to look in the mirror and make sure you know what you’re doing when you hand yourself over to a guy.

Also, don’t be naïve. When you grind against a guy, although you’re just having fun, you are teasing them. Guys don’t like games. Some of them might think you’re inviting them to make the next move, and that might not be the case.

By being your own person you can leave high school more mature than most, and unbroken by men. Self-esteem intact, you can enter college and the rest of life with happiness and pride that you survived the horror that is high school.