EnglishFor the english portion, I had wanted to hear from girls in Generation Z themselves. The way I did this was that I created a google forum with questions that would help me understand their perspective of the issue.
After I received 19 responses from the forum, each providing a unique and useful perspective. There were girls who had never heard of the terms, and others who admitted to once having the toxic mindset. The survey had affirmed that "I'm Not Like Other Girls" syndrome is still prevalent to this day, but the fight against it has only gotten stronger. Several youtubers have spoken out against the harmful mentality, which has caused many girls to become aware of it and work to stop it.
After I received all the responses from the survey, I then wrote a summary of what I learned and what could be concluded from the survey. After getting a grasp on the results of the survey, I then worked to create a creative piece that would show the perspectives of the girls in a more interesting format than just reading charts on a google doc. What I opted to do was to create fake interviews using fake names for the participants of the survey.
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ArtThe art portion is the side I struggled with the most. I was overwhelmed with artistic references of how the mentality expressed itself in the modern era, as that was how it gained popularity in the first place. People drew sexist art, comparing themselves to "other girls" and then girls who related liked and shared it. Below are some examples.
Despite being overwhelmed with examples, finding out how to bring out the perspectives of the girls affected by the mentality was quite difficult, and I found myself in an artists block. However, I didn't let this stop me from drawing whatever I could think of to make it stick.
First, I tried drawing many of the survey's participants to show the visual differences the girls had. However, these drawings still didn't draw out what I truly wanted. I wanted to show perspectives, and I felt just drawing a handful of participants wasn't enough.
I then tried to draw how the syndrome had transformed over the years, starting with the 50s Greaser Girls vs Poodle Skirt Girls to the modern Girls Who Say "hiiii" vs Girls Who Say "bruh" but even that left me unsatisfied. It still wasn't the perspective piece I craved. After a couple days of trying to get out of this art block, I then came up with the idea to draw a representation of how both sides are being pitted against each other by the misogynistic system that society holds proud. I wanted to visually depict the idea that women are often pitted against each other by society without them being aware, too distracted by their hatred and disgust of those who aren’t like them. To do this, I drew two very different girls: one prissy and feminine (as she wears a skirt and earrings, and her hair is well kept), the other messy and lazy looking (as she has a messy bun and is in a grey hoodie). They’re both rolling their eyes in disgust and annoyance of each other, not even noticing that they’re puppets for a far more sinister force above them (represented in the giant hands). Both women’s strings are being pulled by the same set of hands, representing the same misogynistic system. |