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(Written
for Chics, Guys Welcome.)
All the advice that I've seen
to teens regarding healthy body image (this site included,
even some of my stuff) decries the media. The media that feeds
us image after image of skinny until we hate ourselves for
having fat molecules within five miles of us. We have to accept
ourselves, this advice says, for who we are. We are not Pamela,
not Jennifer, nor Kate, nor Heidi. We are real people with
real curves and real muscles underneath. Celebrate your authentic
sexy humanness!!
OK. So who's partying?
After many a sermon like this
that I have listened to or read, (not that there's anything
WRONG with that, mind you), I do not see throngs of girls
burning pictures of Calista Flockhart outside of Spa Lady.
We still want to look thin. Still
want THE hair, THE skin, THE face. We know it's unrealistic.
We know it's unhealthy. We know it's mostly pointless. But
we try anyway. Instead of being happy with ourselves, we will
squeeze and poke and diet and run and lift and curl until
we somehow look something like someone who has been published
or broadcast.
So, why?
One thing's for sure, it has
very little to do with guys. Most men I know would prefer
Salma Hayek over Kate Moss any day of the week. Full is good.
"Perfect" is scary. Marilyn Monroe? Men say: Sexy.
I look at her, and I think: If only she had had Oprah's cook.
Throw men a curve any time. And do they notice most of the
little stuff you pick apart in the mirror each morning? Survey
says: Ix-nay.
It's bizarre, really. Here we
have validation from the opposite sex, knowledge that the
media is blitzing us with unhealthy images, and a network
of fed-up women and people-with-a-mission telling us: Love
yourself, healthy and full and natural.
And still, for most women, and for
many girls as young as 9, the war with "lookism" still
rages. It's almost reflexive these days.
Here's why I think: Self-hatred.
Women who are flat-chested get implants.
Women with full breasts want to be flat. Women with wavy hair
straighten it. Women with straight hair get perms. Blondes streak
or darken, brunettes bleach or blacken. This is usually regardless
of trends. Everyone wants to be anyone else but themselves. Calista?
I'll bet she wants to be Pamela. Pamela? She took out her implants.
Now she's starting to look...waifish.
I do not think that girls and women
hate the way they look because of the media. I think the media
plays off of our self-hatred, and feeds us the most images of
the women that it's hardest to look like, so we have to buy more
products. If everyone on TV was real looking, we wouldn't have
to go so far or spend so much to achieve THE LOOK. They need to
make it hard. And expensive.
But the thought "I'm not
good enough" - that's already there. Otherwise, the media
wouldn't make such a difference to us. We wouldn't care as
much, wouldn't compare as much. And girls who grow up without
too much media influence? From the unofficial polls I've taken
- they are just as unhappy with the way they look, the way
they are.
So here's the question: Why don't
we think we are good enough? Why don't women like themselves?
Ah. Now there's a good, hard,
nitty-gritty question.
And the answer is: I don't know.
I don't know why women pick on
their faults, magnify them, while men, for example, tend to
minimize their own flaws, gloss them over, or not notice them
at all. Why women obsess about their pores and men don't know
what pores are. Why women see Jennifer Aniston and feel like
jumping off a bridge, and men don't have the same reaction
when they see Dylan McDermott. (They might even think they
look like him. Or better than him. Hah!)
When women achieve something,
many of them say: I was lucky. Most men say: I'm Da Man. Women
fail, most of them blame themselves. Men? It was a rough day,
dude.
This is a puzzle to me. I'm sure
the psycho-social theories abound; I say: Enigma.
I wish we'd give ourselves a
break, though.
But I have no easy answers that
are more than brain-deep. The guts of the thing elude me completely.
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