The Reasons Why Girls Are More Likely Than Boys To Want Braces
Nov 20, 2013 19:20
Everyone wants to own a perfect smile, but a new survey reveals that girls are more likely to get their teeth fixed than boys.
A study of Michigan public school students showed that although boys and girls had equal treatment needs (orthodontists have developed sophisticated tools for measuring this need, which everyone agrees is usually aesthetic), girls' attitudes about their own teeth were quite different: Girls were also twice as likely as boys to say they didn't like their teeth.
And apparently this also applies to those whose teeth weren't that bad, but just not perfectly straight. One study of 12-19 year-olds getting braces at a university clinic found that 56 percent of the girls (compared with 47 percent of the boys) had "little need" for them on the aesthetic scale. The same pattern is also found in placed like Britain and Germany, where 38 percent of girls versus 30 percent of boys ages 11-14 have braces.
So why are girls so obsessed with perfect smiles. Sociologists believe that since gender identities are socially constructed, this could be just another manifestation of the greater tendency to value appearance for girls and women more than for boys and men. Seeing as braces are expensive, this is also tied up with social class, so that richer people are more likely to get their kids' teeth straightened. As a result, only richer girls are more likely to meet (and set) beauty standards.
When you put it that way, it's kind of sad to think how all these kids are already feeling self-conscious about themselves at such a young age.
A study of Michigan public school students showed that although boys and girls had equal treatment needs (orthodontists have developed sophisticated tools for measuring this need, which everyone agrees is usually aesthetic), girls' attitudes about their own teeth were quite different: Girls were also twice as likely as boys to say they didn't like their teeth.
And apparently this also applies to those whose teeth weren't that bad, but just not perfectly straight. One study of 12-19 year-olds getting braces at a university clinic found that 56 percent of the girls (compared with 47 percent of the boys) had "little need" for them on the aesthetic scale. The same pattern is also found in placed like Britain and Germany, where 38 percent of girls versus 30 percent of boys ages 11-14 have braces.
So why are girls so obsessed with perfect smiles. Sociologists believe that since gender identities are socially constructed, this could be just another manifestation of the greater tendency to value appearance for girls and women more than for boys and men. Seeing as braces are expensive, this is also tied up with social class, so that richer people are more likely to get their kids' teeth straightened. As a result, only richer girls are more likely to meet (and set) beauty standards.
When you put it that way, it's kind of sad to think how all these kids are already feeling self-conscious about themselves at such a young age.
