Girl Talk

While watching the video I felt that I could relate to Anna and agree with many things that she was saying. I feel that all of us, boys and girls, women and men, all strive to find balance in their lives. I do feel that girls feel more pressure to find balance, to fit in, and to try to keep their emotions in check. I also feel that if they were to interview a 9 year old boy, he might share similar thoughts to Anna's. In the story, Willie struggled to find a balance in his life between living at the apocatheory store all week and trying to spend time with his mother, and maintain and strengthen his friendship with Gerty, with only being able to see her about once a week.
I feel that there is so much pressure on girls that has really not changed since Gerty's time. Though Anna and Gerty live in completely different times and in different societies, they both share the struggles of girlhood.
One of these struggles is a girl's physical appearance. Through the centuries there have been different expectations for what a girl should look like. In Gerty's case, she falls very short of the prototype for an attractive, proper girl. She is described often in the text as looking like a witch, and being a very ugly girl, not having a "single attraction" to her. As readers we feel for and have sympathy for Gerty after reading these descriptions. Gerty's appearance leads others to not really notice or pay attention to her. She does not look like a little girl should, and therefore is an outcast in society. It seems that first impressions really do matter, and if you're not fitting the typical mold of appearance, your fate is not shaping up to be a good one. Back then, and even today the "beautiful" people are the ones that get the most attention and praise.
Again, I feel that all of us, regardless of gender strive to find a proper balance in our lives, but there's more pressure put on girls. Back in Gerty's time, women were brought up to be proper housekeepers and good wives and mothers, putting their family's needs first. I feel that society puts different pressures on women now. Now that women are active in the work industry, they struggle to find a balance between taking care of their family and focusing on their career. Gerty seemed to have no balance in her life. She leads a very unorganized one and focuses on nothing other than watching True light the lamps. When she is taken in by True and taught domestic lessons by Mrs. Sullivan, we begin to see some sort of balance and order developing in her life.
I don't think Gerty would be invited to be on the Amy Poehler show. For girls back in the 19th centure and girls today, Gerty would not serve as a role model. I think that if she were to be on the show, she wouldn't have been as well behaved as Anna. I don't think she would have been able to sit still for very long and politely answer questions.
In both the video and the story, we see young girls trying to find their place and purpose in the world. Regardless of the times, the struggles of girlhood endure on. I expect these struggles will not go away anytime soon.