The Good Ole Days….Junior High

Reading Just Girls has brought back a whole lot of feelings I would have been much happier forgetting altogether. A lot of really horrible things happened in Junior High, and not just acne and the explosion of my hips, but bullying, gossip, and plenty of ended friendships. Its a time when you are really trying to identify yourself in a group while also being unique, all the while dealing with new feelings and body changes that are truly unkind to a girl reading magazines like YM. Its awkward for almost everyone, and if it wasn’t for you, then you’re simply oblivious to how miserable you were and it’ll come out someday in therapy. But back to the book…

While my group and I were talking about the book last week we kept straying off topic to talk about our own misguided, awkward stages as preteen girls and how our own literacy practices then influence us now. Reading about the girls who read R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike alongside books like the Babysitter’s Club reminds me so much of the types of things I used to read, and how much they got me through. Reading about the girls in this book really opened my eyes to how much reading affected me and what a huge part of my adolescent growth that it was. I didn’t even realize, as I’m sure they didn’t either, how much time I spent reading and how much a part of my social life involved talking about books, magazines and passing notes in class. All of those things that parents think are a waste of time are actually helping to make a literate society, however, some of that thirst for reading and information can be taken advantage of by advertising and marketing companies as we see in Just Girls.

While the magazines they read are still considered a type of literacy what it teaches young girls is not necessarily what they need to hear. No matter what the intention of the reader, the ads and models in the “zines” tell a story of what adolescence “should be” and when girls don’t measure up, it makes it very difficult to live through an already difficult time and remain happy with yourself. Most girls can look back at their insecurities and pinpoint their arrival at around the time of Jr. High which is when those types of advertisements and strategies are fiercely marketed and sold to them. This is one of the dangers of adolescent literacy that makes it difficult for some girls to move away from the lens that society puts on them and into their own worldview. Hopefully teachers can introduce them to literature that builds them up instead of breaking them down in order to counteract this cycle.