In this day and age, being smart is either admired or looked down upon depending on who or where a person is. In Harvard, being smart is most definitely an asset and prized possession, but if one chooses to be around those who are not so blessed with much intelligence, it is instead a burden to have the brains because some may make fun of the smart one and call him or her names such as "nerd," "geek," know-it-all" etc.
For men, they like to have all the smarts so that they feel that they can do almost anything, whereas for women or young girls, they will sometimes pretend to not be as smart as they really are, thinking that they are attracting more positive attention than they really are; this is a real problem. Women need to know that being smart is an asset and not just a burden to their appearance and social status.
Women, compared to men, are for the most part more concerned with how they are seen in society. They worry more about their appearances, who they are with, etc. As a part of their appearances, their brains are also included. Women do not want to seem like they are brainiacs that are always outsmarting their friends as well as any significant other that they may have. The media, such as magazines and television shows, lead women and young girls to believe that it is more important to be pretty than it is to be smart and accomplished. On television shows, the smart woman as one who does not know how to dress fashionably and the woman or girl is always wearing huge glasses that are unattractive in many ways. A smart woman is almost never portrayed as beautiful; instead the "dumb blondes" on the show are the ones that are found most attractive to the men. When a young girl watches these types of shows, her mindset is thus that "men are only attracted to gorgeous and dumb girls" and then she will not live to her full potential because she believes that it will make her look unattractive to men. A company in France, Jours Après Lunes, introduced a new line of children's lingerie for girls as young as 4 years old. This company is basically telling young girls that all they are good for is for looks, the company is not telling the young girls to stay in school and pursue a successful life instead of just looking good. Another example of praising the beauty of women instead of the intelligent women is the "Miss Universe" pageants. The women that compete in these competitions are trained to appeal to the audiences' emotions as well as the judges by sounding compassionate with the third world countries. The problem with this is that the girls that are competing come up with the most unintelligent answers possible, that it sounds as if they are purposefully sounding dumb, so as to get more points from the judges. When these women answer with dumb answers, the young girls that are watching think that these girls are their role models and will start to do the same thing so as to look good for other people.
In conclusion, being smart does have its high and lows in today's society. Women unfortunately sometimes believe that being smart is a low, therefore not living to their full potential in their lives. Women will tend to believe that men do not like and are not attracted to intellectually smart women, and are instead drawn to the "dumb blondes" in society. Instead of only praising the beautiful women in the world, it is necessary that the media also show the great accomplishments of the smart women in the world so that the intellectually smart women and girls out there believe that it is okay to be smart and that it is not nerdy, weird, or geeky.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-roth/teach-girls-to-be-smart-n_b_929689.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/miss-usa-utah-create-education-better-video_n_3451896.html
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