Reading Reaction

Mondo Barbie: Voodoo Silences: “I run faster than my heart can drum, up the stairs, past the statue of Jennifer, into my room. Barricade the door with everything I own till Mom comes home.” 

• I chose this quote because it reminds of all the times I was in trouble with my dad and I would run and think that everything would be fine once my mom could calm him down. It is funny that kids do the same things and think in the same ways. Girls probably have the opposite effect that they run from mothers and wait for their dads, but I just liked that way the writer told it.

 Barbie Ferrari: “Turning in slow motion in the air above the banister, for whom ideas of gender and marketplace are nothings less than nothing. It’s the car she was born for. It’s Barbie you mourn for.”

• I chose this quote because the writer is trying to characterize the Barbie car as gender neutral. The car was made for Barbie and it goes with her, but it is funny that boys probably wouldn’t have a problem playing with the Barbie car because of the name of the brand.

 Body Outlaws: The Elephant and the ice cream: emotions, politics and food: “I realized that I had been chasing after some male fantasy that never provided me with happiness, no matter how thin I was. I realized that feeling beautiful was about self-acceptance, not fitting into a certain pair of jeans. It is ironic that I came to love myself most and feel most beautiful only when I stopped trying to ‘be beautiful.’”

• This quote perfectly sets an example of how women think that they need to be thin to be beautiful and get male attention, but women should choose to diet and exercise if it is for their happiness. There will always be men that don’t like the stick thin girls and girls need to realize that. But this quote explains the message that women should follow, to be happy with themselves and not worry about things for men.

 Memoirs of a (sorta) ex-shaver: “Beginning in the 1920’s, women’s legs and underarms had to be smooth and free of body hair; the torso had to be svelte; and the breasts were supposed to be small and firm.”

• I chose this quote because it relates to our class discussion perfectly. We have talked about women issues such as these that are stereotypical of what a woman is supposed to be like. Facial hair, leg hair or armpit hair are considered male traits. So women are supposed to be smooth in all of those body areas.

 “The word was that college years were a time to get all the nose rings, goatees, crimson hair and bottomed-out Birkenstocks out of your system, to quick-get-it-over-with and dabble in bisexuality and ménages a trois (or at least talk about it), because you’d probably never get another go.”

• I chose this quote because it is funny what she thinks college will be like and what those years of individuality mean. She thinks of it as a freeing time to try anything and everything to discover who she really is. It is a good quote from the perspective of a young girl.