background

PROPOSAL

Purses can say a lot about a girl and time period.  They can show economic status,personality, and academic and intellectual interests.  In looking for some background information, although we did have some trouble finding information that make sense to include in our study, we have found many interesting things pertaining to our study.  First, many schools are considering eliminating purses in school.  Those in charge of the decision state that they are safety hazards.  They have no way of knowing what the girls are carrying in their purse, and with the size of some of the purses girls have been carrying in the past few years which can get to the size of backpacks, they have no way of knowing if the girls are concealing a dangerous weapon or illegal drugs. "With the recent shootings and the threats that we had this year, I don't want to take the risk," says Jeff Sampson, an assistant principal at one of the schools that has eliminated purses.  But not all agree.  "If someone wants to bring a weapon to school, not being able to carry a purse won't stop them," said one of the students at this school (Bazar, Emily). 

            With the weight of purses today, girls are pretty much prepared for anything the world can throw at them.  The average weight of a girl’s purse is about 3 pounds (Hilda, Pattie).  Some common items that most girls carry are an ATM card, cell phone / Blackberry, change purse, checkbook, tissues, hand cream, hair brush, keys, lip balm, nail file, makeup, pens, wallet, and credit cards.  Girls in high school may carry even more, including a snack, text books, or other items which can greatly increase the weight of the purse.  Although grils do carry a lot these days, studies show that over the past 60 years, purse weight has gone way down.  This is mostly due to the fact that technology has involved.  In the past, music devices and phones were much larger.  For a girl to carry these around it would require a much larger purse and also much more weight.  These days, everything you would need fits in the palm of your hand and weighs almost nothing.  This has resulted in a negative trend over the past few decades (Moyes, Brenda).           

With the increasing size and weight of the handbag, there are many health risks.  Some bags can weigh up to 15 pounds, and you can’t carry something of that weight around all day everyday and not expect to have back problems.  This has many worried about the young high-school aged girls and the problems they will have later in life.  Because of this, many are trying to get the word out on how to properly wear a purse and the problems that can occur in your health if you don’t follow these guidelines.  According to the ASDA, larger bags should be worn across one’s shoulder in order to evenly distribute the weight evenly across one’s back.  It is not worn in this fashion, weight can be solely on one back muscle and cause strain and injury, and over time can even damage your spine.  Also, the ASDA suggest not carrying a bag over 3 pounds to eliminate any overstress to muscles ("Handbag Style Tips.").  After hearing these guidelines to wearing a purse correctly, we began to think of the girls in our high school.  Walking down the hall, you can clearly see that the majority of purses are well over the recommended 3 pounds and that many are not wearing the purse properly.  This made us very worried about the health and welfare of the young girls in our city.  Hopefully our study will help to shed light on how much weight girls really carry and how much is not needed.