Are you ‘Team Edward’ or ‘Team Jacob’? Do you know what that means?

It means you either prefer or ‘like’ Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) – the vampire or Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) –  the werewolf from the Twilight movie series.  http://www.twilightmovies.org/

From my observations, the majority of young girls stood firmly in the ‘Team Edward’ camp after the first movie “Twilight”.

Then came “New Moon”, when Jacob ‘buffed’ up, cut his hair and attracted more attention. So it seemed, the ‘Edward’ team were converted to Team Jacob.

Then “Eclipse” aired, and it now seems from young girls I talk to, that Jacob still has the votes.  “Breaking Dawn” is next to be released, and only time will tell how our younger female generation will vote.

What I find interesting, is how one camp or group of supporters, will openly denigrate the other. I have used this as an activity when talking to young girls at High School- to help them understand about relationships and to define their own relationships. I try and help them see that although a guy may seem ‘cute’ or ‘hot’, that if he tries to control you, tell you who you can see, what you can wear – then that guy either needs to be told to back off, or just leave him well alone.  I am not saying that either ‘Edward’ or ‘Jacob’ do this, but I highlight how quick we are to judge others, when they don’t share our opinion.

Too many times, young girls feel pressured to remain in abusive relationships with a guy, because their friends think that the guy is ‘hot’ or ‘cute’. The power of what your friends think, outweighs how you define your own relationship and how you should demand to be treated.  I find it sad that our young girls still feel like this in 2010.

I would like young girls to understand about a respectful and equal relationship and that it is ok to say ‘no’.  We need to do more in educating our young people about relationships in general, about respect, and about not tolerating any form of abuse.  I don’t believe we do enough, but if we put more emphasis in helping young people to learn not to tolerate abuse and to speak up, then we wouldn’t need so many ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.