You're beautiful...

Thanks everyone.

Here's another interesting article:

While American women see super-thin stick models and feel unattractive and unhappy about their average or curvy bodies, men don't feel the same way. Fully 80 percent of men ages 18 to 50 say they want a voluptuous woman, according to former plus size model Nancy Hayssen, who has written a book every woman could love based on the title alone: "101 Sexy Secrets: How to Be Hot, Sexy & Beautiful at ANY Size!" Another 15 percent of men prefer a woman of average size, while just 5 percent opt for a super skinny lady.

I totally agree that it's absurd to allow ourselves to be manipulated by the moguls in the fashion and entertainment industries, but I also think that the backlash against super-thin, sullen, pouty fashion models is missing the point. All we're doing is replacing one stereotyped view of female attractiveness with another. The point we should be making to our daughters is that their self-worth should not be defined to them by how attractive they're perceived to be, whatever concept of "attractiveness" you subscribe to. Whichever way our society's "attractiveness pendulum" happens to be swinging at the moment is not the point. The point is that the pendulum itself is irrelevant and insulting. A young woman's self-worth does not depend on how "hot" she is.

That's the real damage we do to our daughters ... allowing them to believe that they are worthwhile and important in our society in proportion to how pretty their face is or how big their tits are.

And by the way, if you haven't seen Katie Makkai's presentation of "Pretty", you owe it to yourself to watch ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

The entire basis of female worth in our society is based on her looks. "Will I be worthy ... wanted ... pretty?" Even women who are strong and capable and accomplished are subjected to this scrutiny about their looks. Remember Janet Reno?

This so permeates our society that we don't even think about it. Sure, everybody likes a pretty girl, but for every young woman in a magazine ad or who turns heads walking down the street, there are a hundred ... two hundred ... three hundred more who are discounted or not taken seriously because of her looks.

And let's be careful about the notion that it's ok to be overweight and out of condition as long as you "feel good about yourself." The issue here is our health, not "feeling good about our body." What matters is taking care of ourselves, eating right, getting the right amount of exercise ... not fooling ourselves into thinking we can let ourselves go, just because it happens to "in" now.

And something I might also point out ... take a look at the picture threads on this site. What do you see? You see pic after pic of jaw-droppingly gorgeous young women, the vast majority of which are rail-thin. And what do we do? We comment on the ones we find the "hottest". We "rate" them with our comments and our votes.

There are some who get angry at what I'm saying. "Just more feminist ranting", they'll say. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being attractive, nor, on the other side of the coin, is there anything wrong with men having their own idea of what they find attractive to them.

What's wrong is making a woman's attractiveness the criteria for judging her importance in society.
 
Back
Top