Ad Campaigns for "Real Women." Are they Wrong?

Recently, there has been some amount of push to stop the media representing body image in a way that objectifies wo/men and sets ridiculously high standards for them. A woman, in order to be attractive, must have a thin waist and abdomen, but also much have a big round (practically buoyant) ass and giant boobs (and trust me when I say most women find giant boobs a monumental inconvenience). We also must have no organs so our abdomens will be completely flat, but we must have just enough fat/muscle so that we aren't "skeletal." A man, in order to be attractive, must be straight-bodied but well-muscled, have a strong jaw and piercing eyes. He must be more or less intimidating and seem territorial.

Fortunately for those of us who aren't perfect specimens, activists critique the media that creates this aesthetic. It's told, basically, REAL WO/MEN OR GTFO!

Here is where I'm going to turn the focus on images of women. What drew the attentions of most of social media is the Dove "Real Beauty Sketches" ad and the Dove ads with "Real Women". I, personally, thought this was an admirable effort on the part of Dove...somewhat...

 

Despite the models actually having bodies and not being sticks, this ad doesn't seem like a very fantastic representation. Only 3 out of the 11 models are non-white (an issue for a different day), and none of them lack that classical hourglass figure that is seen as traditionally attractive. Dove wants to speak out and make a statement, but they also want to be safe. They are obviously such a small company that an actual risk would drop their sales to a point where they would notice. Dove's ideal sizes range from size 6 to size 14 in the above photo. How is a woman supposed to feel about her "beauty" if she's a size 16 and her figure isn't classically curvy? Like it isn't real? All of those women can be seen as conventionally attractive, which is why I feel that Dove may have played it a little safe. Look at all those stretch marks and lines that NONE of those women have!

Enough about Dove, though. There are a lot of blog articles critiquing Dove on the internet. I would just be rehashing the same.

Look at this photo I found today:

 See blog who discussed it first here.

Forever Young hired Elly Mayday for their Lingerie. She has ovarian cancer, and they kept her anyway. As much as this probably gets them more sales, LOOK at how not-"perfect" her body is. This ad oozes empowerment, and while her face is classically pretty, her body is not but it is still fabulous! This ad represents the types of invisible illnesses people can have, and sends the message that these illnesses do not lessen them as people. By not firing her, Forever Young have made a powerful statement to women who don't see themselves as "ideal."

Let's go heteronormative for a second (because the US media is pretty heteronormative), and discuss the above two ads in terms of "real women". Despite the latter ad's empowerment to women with invisible illnesses (I am not criticizing it at all, you understand), it still leaves us with a very narrow view of "beauty." While Ms. Mayday is less generically perfect than the other women, she is still curvy and "model-esque." I prefer to not think of these ads as portraying "real women" but rather "women that men want realistically" (I know...too verbose...).

This article from the telegraph (UK) states that according to research, men from all cultures generally prefer an hourglass. That is, a high waist-to-hip ratio. Literature and classic movies have featured women who are curvy with small waists and broad hips. This is seen, even by women, as associated with health and beauty.  Why? The shape is associated with Estrogen! The article asserts that the idea is evolutionary: men are attracted to these women because high Estrogen levels imply high fertility rates. It also briefly discusses that even open-minded men would tend toward women who are not fat because big bellies imply a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes II, to name a couple health concerns.

The question then is: why would the media paint a picture that in reality men don't want?

Dat scowl.

These are Victoria Secret models. I personally love Victoria Secret bras, and they're coming out with more bras to fit more body shapes, but they're not really coming out with more models to fit more body shapes. These models, obviously, are more geared toward women: you should buy our bras and underwear if you want to be as attractive as we are! Look at them: small butt, small hips, fairly straight down the sides (even if they strike poses to make themselves look more curvy). The point here isn't to criticize women who are shaped like this (I would absolutely LOVE the ab muscles of the woman in the yellow...time to go to the gym...*snuggles under covers*), but rather to criticize that this is mostly what models are. Never mind the fact that they're airbrushed for the ad; look at how they totally negate everything I just said about what men are naturally inclined to be attracted to. So here we are: not only is the media dishing out false ideals of beauty to women, but they are also telling them that men are attracted to this (which they are srsly not when looking for a mate) and women are jealous of this (which they might be, but that's a circle jerk that is totally the media's fault). Should we feel good about ourselves if we look like this? Sure! Should we feel badly about ourselves if we don't look like this? Absolutely not.

I just google image searched "beautiful women" and I had to scroll down 9 rows of pictures to find a picture of a woman who isn't slender and young and trying to seduce a man. Well, I guess I found a picture of two women, but still. LOOK at the, non-conventional beauty! And less than 10 rows down! Woo!

Oh, and most beautiful women are apparently brown-eyed brunettes or blue-eyed blondes. They are young and they are very slender. Woo! (I also often forget that sarcasm is lost on the internet, so if you get offended because you missed my sarcasm at any point I apologize.)

You have this discrimination not only in the modelling industry, but also in TV and film. A skinny actress can just be there, but a bigger actress must have a defining personality trait because she can never survive on her looks alone. Quick! Name all the non-thin actresses you can think of! Now name all the non-thin actors!

To help you, I've found a slideshow from 1999 entitled "50 Fat Celebrities." Some of the people on that list I'm not sure where the authors got "fat" from, but I'm guessing they were put in there as trolls...or something...

ANYWAY, bigger people always need to be doing SOMEthing besides being bigger people. They need to be witty, bitter, or both, and if they are awesome they must be sidekicks. With a few notable exceptions, skinny wo/men generally take lead roles. Fat people must have talent, and they must be willing to make fun of themselves. Skinny women (as evidenced by Paris Hilton) do not need any talent at all, and they do not need to be particularly witty or goofy or dim, because they are attractive and that is why they are cast to begin with. You are not beautiful, so therefore you must exude interesting character traits...or something...I dunno...

I'm of a mind that all characters should have interesting traits, but I guess that's just me.

There are SO MANY THINGS I could still say, but I'm going to shut up for now and go to bed.


I will tack on a little postscript: while I promote loving all forms of beauty, and not insisting that a person must fit any stereotype no matter what they look like, I also promote health. I absolutely encourage all people reading this to adopt a healthy lifestyle. I will always encourage you to exercise and eat healthy. Both of these things raise your self-esteem and will prevent future illness from occurring.

Look for future blog posts about this and related topics! :)

 

A Woman's Role as Wife and Mother. Is it Wrong?

I have plenty of articles to criticise about why a woman should be relegated to the household, but this time I must take a slightly different stance:

I thought I'd kick off my blog with my namesake (it has more than one meaning, but the name was inspired tonight by this woman), Amy Glass. Amy Glass often contributes to Thought Catalog. She has recently posted this article and more recently in defense to a lot of hate-comments, this shorter article. The first article as entitled "I Look Down on Young Women with a Husband and Kids and I'm Not Sorry."

It starts like this: "Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit."

Feminism, Ms. Glass, is absolutely about validating every choice a woman makes. Feminism is telling a woman she can be without judgment whatever she actually wishes to be. Feminism is about educating women and enabling them to be able to make that decision. I concede that many women are not educated in this way, and are raised to feel like they must procreate with a husband because that is their womanly role. In most ways, this is an environmental thing. I live in Texas, for instance, and we are mostly informed from a very Christian view-point as to our gender roles, among other things.

My religious rants must be saved for that topic, though. The topic at hand is women...or more accurately gender roles.

This book actually exists.

While there are many women who are raised this way, there are many other women who look at all the options and go, "You know, I would like to be first and foremost a mother," and I know a lot of women who have a husband and kids and are still successful at life. I do not necessarily believe a woman should have children in her early 20s (before graduating college or living a little outside their parents' household), and lots of marriages which start out that young end in divorce and/or make the wo/man exceedingly unhappy, but I would never presume to tell anyone how they SHOULD live their lives. Sometimes it works. I know people who will probably be living proof that sometimes it works (and I know people who are living proof that often it does not. That's their business. Not yours.

Sometimes (shock and awe) a woman isn't even looking for a husband because she's busy living, but she finds a man who fits with her so wonderfully and she goes "since I plan on hanging out with and having sex with this guy for life, it would be advantageous financially to marry." What's wrong with that? 

The problem I have with the blog article is not necessarily that it takes a stance on marriage and children that I disagree with, but that it dictates without hesitation how every other woman should feel about a marriage and children. In her subsequent article she mentions that women have attacked her because having and raising a child and taking care of a household is hard work. She goes on to say that just because it's hard work doesn't mean it's "good or bad." My response to that is "and your point is...?" This was undoubtedly her initial response to her commentators' posts.

She said - I emphasise...SHE said - it is not necessarily good or bad. You understand, I am confused. If it is "hard", it is not necessarily good or bad, and thus if it is "easy", it is not necessarily good or bad. Did your logic train not quite take you to that station? If having a husband and kids is just the "easy way out" why is that bad? By your own logic, it is NOT bad. Sure, it MIGHT be easier because it's expected of a woman to do this thing. Have you ever thought that not becoming a wife and mother is easier for you because you just don't want to do it? Does that make it bad that you took your own "easy road"? Alternatively, is choosing to have a career instead of raising a family necessarily "good" just because you see it as "harder"? Don't use language with which you can be logically backed into a corner.

Let's take an autobiographical example:

I will never become an engineer because I do not want to become an engineer. I freely admit that I do not want to become an engineer because I do not enjoy maths and I find maths difficult. Am I taking the easy road by not becoming an engineer? I am becoming a teacher/writer instead. Does that invalidate my life choices because teacher is seen as a womanly job? I admire my friend who is an engineer and is actively trying to engage other women into engineering fields (which are sparsely populated by females), I support her, and I try to persuade my female students that science and maths are not evil subjects just because they're hard. If they choose to pursue a liberal arts degree because they find it more enjoyable who am I to judge? That's exactly what I did.

We are asking women to take agency for their own lives. This literally means having the capacity to make their own decisions and taking the right to make those decisions. Surprise, women are people. An even bigger surprise: women aren't there solely to push your political agenda. Using women to push your political agenda is not all that feminist, bro (lol I see what I did there). While we're on the topic of political agendas, you did mention Beyonce in your more recent post. I'd just like to point out that you're only heralding white feminism. You don't even know what feminism of non-white, non-Western countries would be. This is something to save for a different rant, because I don't want to get off the topic of the article itself.

Here's looking at you, Amy!

Back to Ms. Glass, I really enjoyed this paragraph. It made me laugh and make sort of a sobbing noise simultaneously:

"I hear women talk about how 'hard' it is to raise kids and manage a household all the time. I never hear men talk about this. It’s because women secretly like to talk about how hard managing a household is so they don’t have to explain their lack of real accomplishments. Men don’t care to 'manage a household.' They aren’t conditioned to think stupid things like that are 'important.'"

Of all the comparisons she could have made to men, I feel this one came up very short. Men complain about their jobs all the time, and if they don't complain about managing a household and raising children it's because they are too busy doing what THEY like to do...but they still complain about it. I really don't think the stem cause is that they are lamenting a lack of real accomplishment. You'd be surprised how many women feel very accomplished because they have raised children successfully. Every human complains because it is CATHARTIC (i.e. it feels good) to complain and rant and cry about things when the stress is too much.

Yes, raising a family is stressful and yes, having a career is stressful, and so we bitch and moan and spout all kinds of nonsense but at the end of the day we all do it! Follow the statement to its logical conclusion and you'll find the wo/man who has their successful career bitching and moaning "so they don't have to explain their lack of real accomplishments." You bitch and moan too, and apparently you have nothing to bitch and moan about except how other people are living their lives. How accomplished is that?

With the defense article, Ms. Glass did address the fact that she was too harsh in the first, saying that women who truly have no other ambitions than to raise a family and be a good mother should feel free and not ashamed. She then goes onto say that many women probably do not make this choice as freely as feminists would like. That's fair. I believe that girls and women should be more educated as to what their choices are. The only thing I will ask is how to do define that line of enough education to make the decision? In an ideal world, how much education does a woman need before you will give her the freedom to make the choice to become a good mother without judgment from you?

The very last thing she addresses on the topic is that most of the women who commented on the original post were raging enough to say that she would end up old and alone. Perhaps she will. Perhaps she won't. I'm not sure she cares about the opinions of people she apparently "looks down upon." I also felt it was just a defense mechanism and harsh, and Ms. Glass did not have to take up the presumption that "women only have children so they will not be lonely." A cruel and low blow from a woman who is supposed to be a "feminist."

This also pertains to having children.