Ha! This is a great discussion.... well, I remember so clearly being a teenaged girl with no weight problems and yet still hiding out underneath enormous, baggy, quite often hideously ugly clothes due to the fact that I lived in Brooklyn NY and had to take the subway to high school in Manhattan which meant long periods of time out in the world, in the city, on the subway. The unwarranted and creepy male attention that felt downright violent and intrusive was so overwhelming to me that I shut down completely. Barbie doll type sexuality frightened the heck out of me as a young girl - I wasn't overweight but nevertheless felt completely and utterly inadequate, rushed, hopelessly flawed, unwomanly and not pretty.
The media tramples young women with images of perfection, period - whether its weight or another issue. I remember being more shamed about matching and adorable outfits which I could never seem to put together or feel motivated to shop for, perfectly applied lipstick and coiffed hair, all of which did NOT come naturally to me and to this day I truly struggle to find my way with these issues.
Barbie and the images of these dolls and the glossy advertising makes us feel we are not able to celebrate and look for lovers who adore, admire and love us for our intelligence, our humor, our loving qualities, our souls. I still wrestle with a sense of not measuring up, every day of my life. My eye still measures and compares my "lashes" with her "lashes" when I see an ad for mascara.... now in my forties, I scan the images of celebrities at my age, Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Courteney Cox and wonder how they can still "look so young!"
It's a cultural disease.
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Ha! This is a great discussion.... well, I remember so clearly being a teenaged girl with no weight problems and yet still hiding out underneath enormous, baggy, quite often hideously ugly clothes due to the fact that I lived in Brooklyn NY and had to take the subway to high school in Manhattan which meant long periods of time out in the world, in the city, on the subway. The unwarranted and creepy male attention that felt downright violent and intrusive was so overwhelming to me that I shut down completely. Barbie doll type sexuality frightened the heck out of me as a young girl - I wasn't overweight but nevertheless felt completely and utterly inadequate, rushed, hopelessly flawed, unwomanly and not pretty.
The media tramples young women with images of perfection, period - whether its weight or another issue. I remember being more shamed about matching and adorable outfits which I could never seem to put together or feel motivated to shop for, perfectly applied lipstick and coiffed hair, all of which did NOT come naturally to me and to this day I truly struggle to find my way with these issues.
Barbie and the images of these dolls and the glossy advertising makes us feel we are not able to celebrate and look for lovers who adore, admire and love us for our intelligence, our humor, our loving qualities, our souls. I still wrestle with a sense of not measuring up, every day of my life. My eye still measures and compares my "lashes" with her "lashes" when I see an ad for mascara.... now in my forties, I scan the images of celebrities at my age, Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Courteney Cox and wonder how they can still "look so young!"
It's a cultural disease.
Thanks for bringing this out!
June 16, 2009 - 6:15pmThis Comment
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