"TEENAGE GIRLS ARE NOW EXPECTED OF MORE IN THEIR YEARS OF EDUCATION THAN TEN YEARS AGO" - Mother of three. (Two Daughters and a Son.)
This blog may sound one sex sided, but since 1999, with 53% of girls getting getting five or more GCSE's at grades C or above, and only 42% of boys passing with five GCSE's at grade C or above, girls have been getting acedemically better than boys. So why is it teenage females are under the destructive pressures of having to meet the needs of:
Size zero, partical physicist, withe large breasts, and perfect hair extensions.
" From the age of five, girls wipe the floor with boys. They get the best exam results and the best university places, so why are our teenage daughters the most despondent people in britain?" - India Knight.
The influences of the media, strikes fear in every young teenage girl. Seeing the likes of Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Mischa Barton, who may I add was sectioned a fortnight ago, on the front covers of magazines. Looking flawless and perfect, with bigger breasts, thinner waist, nice legs, perfect hair and clothing and not an impurity to be seen. But these celebirtys are living with eatting disorders, sometimes drug use, have make-up artists and hair stylists, personal shoppers and live the photoshoped life.
Ten years ago... We didn't have computer games, we walked almost everywhere and we could eat Victoria Sponge and custard everynight after a large dinner. We could get into Oxford University with two A's and a B. And a second (2:2) in university was amzing, and a first was unheard of. Now girls and boys feel pushed to live out their parents dreams that were never furfilled, to get into uni, and get a first. Oxford now ask for three A's and an A* at the least, and girls are too scared to eat cake incase they put on one pound. Years ago you could get great GCSE grades, at C or above, and could be a size ten or twelve and be considered perfect. So now so many girls (imperticular) are driving themselves down a bottomless spiral to be six foot tall, size zero, intelligent, beautiful and furfill the needs of the education system.
Girls can have all A's and A*s at GCSE and A-level, get into a great university and have degrees coming out of their ears, and they still aren't happy, and still are not being empolyed!
I myself am a recovering Annorexic, I was three and a half stone, about 4'8 and only ten years old. It took me four years before I was at the weight of five stone. Now I am a seventeen year old female, awaiting my GCSE results in August with anxiety. I admitted I couldn't cope with all the work I was getting, and I am an above average student, as so said by my teachers. I was diagnosed with Annorexia again, as I refused to eat untill I revised enough, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Diorder due to so much pressure pushed apon me. I myself can admit that education has not got easier! It is not a walk in the park and that I am one of the people fearing not getting the grades I need to achieve, to carry on into further education.
"Young girls are the most depressed section of the population" - An offical Doctor said after reserching, and taking a survey of over 3,000 mid-teens in 2006.
It is oblivion... thats the fact of the matter, Annorexia, Bulimia, Self Harm, Depression and Anxiety has had a 24% increase in young people the past five years. So why is there so much pressure? Why has the world changed on us kids? Why must it be now that we must over achieve and work harder for the grades, universitys, and degrees? So what if we are the more intelligent generation. Theres these two things called Happiness and Satisfaction, and it is something, that I myself have not experienced in six years now, and I won't for another twelve in the future, because of the pressure of education.
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