This started out to be a book review. Someone gave me a book that looked interesting, and I thought I’d write it up for others to read. Light, frothy, and amusing, it’s the kind of book I sometimes enjoy.
Only 50 pages in, I began to notice a disturbing thing. All the women were thin (or battling to be thin), driven, and desperate. They enjoyed nothing about themselves. A character was derided for having a figure flaw (one that can’t be changed with surgery or lifestyle changes), anyone who gained weight was a bad person, and all of a sudden I wasn’t liking this book so much. What had started out to be amusing was now making me sick to my stomach.
And it started me thinking. I decided to scrap the review and write about this thing that really bothered me.
Why do women do this to themselves? Why is there such a push to be thin, to be perfect, to not have any visible flaws? What the hell is that all about?
So I did some research. I read some books, I watched some movies, I talked to my daughter and her friends. And then I found out something really disturbing.
It’s starting young, this obsession with physical beauty. Every single one of the teenage girls that I spoke with knew at least one person with an eating disorder. Most of them knew more than one person with either bulimia or anorexia nervosa. Further research revealed that the mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old. And a study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover.
I watched a DVD by Nova Dying to Be Thin
I looked at magazines, both fashion and otherwise, I paid attention to women on television and movies, I read and read and read. The news wasn’t all bad: German magazine Brigitte said they would no longer shoot professional models in the interest of their demographic. [And then Karl Lagerfield (may he and Chanel rot in hell forever) said in response: "No one wants to see curvy women. You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly."]
Dove has a real beauty campaign that is designed to make young girls love their bodies and their looks as they really are, and not some sick idealization that some eejit has dreamed up and bombarded us with.
Glamour magazine did a nude photo shoot of a plus sized model, and the response was so overwhelmingly positive that they’re doing another one, and it, too, is designed to make women love their bodies as they are.
But there are only a few good examples. Just a few, in a deluge of millions of bad ones.
I’m not a beautiful woman. Never have been. I’m neither thin nor svelte, I’ve got a big ass even when I’m thin, I’ve got disproportionately large hands and feet, my teeth aren’t as white as snow … I could go on and on. I got flaws, baby. There ain’t no hidin’ em.
Here’s a picture, to prove it. It’s a pretty honest one, too. It was taken on vacation, after a long day of walking up and down the hills in San Francisco, and there’s not a scrap of make-up left on my face. Take a good, long look.
See how my whole face squinches up when I smile? Notice the nearly-imperceptible eyebrows? The dead-white skin, the big nose, the big teeth?
Yet … I like what I see when I look in the mirror.
A couple of years ago, when a box at work fell from a top shelf onto my nose, they sent me to a plastic surgeon to have a consult. It was really to make sure I wasn’t going to have any further sinus problems, but he seemed more concerned with my appearance. He told me he could fix that ‘huge bump’ on my nose and my overlarge nostrils, and while he was at it, he could get rid of all those wrinkles around my eyes. We could even work it so that the company’s insurance company would pay for most of it, and my insurance might take care of the rest.
Well. I was pissed. I told him that those weren’t wrinkles, they were laugh lines, and I’d worked damned hard to put those there. I’d be keeping them, thanks, and the bump on my nose, too. Which, by the way, wasn’t huge and had been there my entire life and I kinda liked.
I fumed for weeks over that, and I admit I did a lot of staring in the mirror for a while. Eventually I shrugged it off and went back to liking the way that I looked again.
When I smile, people smile back. Complete strangers strike up conversations with me – sometimes very interesting ones – and I’ve never had a problem getting a date in my life. For my 40th birthday, a group of friends took me to a small bar with a postage stamp dance floor and a three piece band that played a huge mix of content. The place was filled with people from their 20’s to their 60’s. I left with 7 or 8 phone numbers, and one of my friends (who is a catalog model, and very, very attractive – and yes, she deserves the very, very ) was kinda miffed. She couldn’t understand why she sat by herself half the night and you couldn’t drag me off the dance floor. I danced with Goth boys, scruffy bikers, old men, young men, handsome men, not-so-handsome men … you get the picture. I never sat out, even once. She didn’t mean to be rude, but she really couldn’t understand. She’d bought into the whole idea that you can’t be really attractive unless you’re thin and beautiful.
It’s not true.
True beauty is not simply what’s on the surface. When you feel good about yourself and who you are, when you carry yourself with confidence and self-acceptance, that makes you beautiful. Beauty is in the mind, not in the body.
So why do I have confidence in myself and my attractiveness, even though I’m not classically beautiful, you might ask. The truth is, I didn’t always. My teenage years were spent in an agony of self-hate. I dieted, I exercised, I did things that were bad for my body and my soul. But as I grew older, I learned to love myself. Part of the reason is because I had a daughter, and I wanted her to think herself beautiful (which she is, and she does). I realized that I couldn’t teach her to love herself while I hated myself. So I stopped hating myself. It wasn’t easy, but it was simple.
All around the world, women are alternately starving and gorging, obsessing and hating and striving to remove that which ultimately makes us female: our bodies and our curves.
Stop, I say. Stop. Celebrate your femininity. Say it out loud, right now: I have breasts. I have an ass. I’m supposed to. I’m a woman.
Do you think yourself beautiful? If not, here are some things that I did that can help you accomplish this:
Listen to your body. Eat healthy food, and eat when you are hungry.
Be realistic about the size and shape you are likely to be. If you’re not meant to be a size 6, don’t try to be one.
Exercise regularly in an enjoyable way, regardless of size. Don’t try to spot reduce, because there’s no such a damned thing. Exercise for fun and to make yourself more strong.
Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Accept that some things about you are beautiful. When you look in the mirror, pick out something that you like. Do you have beautiful skin? What about a pretty smile? Are your legs strong? Do you have shapely hands? Do the same thing internally. Perhaps you’re a good organizer. Maybe you’re a great friend.
And speaking of friends: Ask for support and encouragement from your friends and family when life is stressful. If you don’t have a good back-up system, you need to get one. It doesn’t have to be a traditional one: a lot of my friends are online and we’ve never met, but they are just as important to my well-being as the friends I meet for dinner and drinks.
Decide how you want to spend your time – pursuing the “perfect body” or enjoying your life.
Love yourself, and make it easier for others to love you, too.
ps If you want to know how to dress for your size and shape, watch What Not To Wear
pps Karl Lagerfield, kiss my fat ass.
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[...] original post here: True Beauty Posted in Fashion and Beauty | Tags: and-otherwise, art-beauty, both-fashion, japan-fashion, [...]
I love you, Barb. Just had to say that.
You are absolutely right.
I don’t see why some girls are determined to look absolutely perfect when it’s clear that you can look all around you and find odd looking, homely, happy people married everywhere you go. And more power to them!
I’m thin, freckled, blotchy skin, long bumpy nose, pointy chin, bubble butt, bubble gut, chicken legs,twisted spine, big feet…. and my hubby gets likened to Shrek or the Thing from Fantastic Four on occasion. But you know what? He calls me beautiful, I think he’s awesome, and our daughter has been hailed as adorable since day one. There’s someone for everyone. Hell, sometimes there’s more than one for everyone. I know some scary looking people that have been married 3,4,5 times (my FIL is one, my SIL who looks like my FIL in a wig is another- she’s got 4 kids, too, so if she can get laid, anybody can!). I seriously doubt they’re being married (or divorced) for their looks. Work on the perfection of your character, people- your goals, your manners, your lifestyle- and stop worrying about plastic surgeons, makeup, and The Hollywood Diet (or whatever one is popular now, I can’t keep up).
I love you, too. And I think you’re beautiful.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Barbara and Brian Gryphon, lyricalb. lyricalb said: Retweeting @bibliotweeting: Celebrate your True Beauty: http://barbsbookshelf.com/?p=427 [...]
I was watching a news program the other day and they were talking about “plus sized” models and said they were going to interview one. She came out and I was stunned. I was even more stunned when they said she was a size 10. Since when did size 10 become “plus sized”. I’ve always admired Emme and the other pioneers of true plus sized modeling for showing fashion watchers you can be stylish and happy and successful without being a size 0, whatever that is.
My best friend’s sister died from complications of Anorexia. It’s sad that anyone has to die this way and sad that girls younger and younger are getting into that mindset. I saw a little girl no more than 5 in the grocery the other day being offered a cookie by the bakery lady. The little girl says “oh no, I can’t eat that. I’ll get fat.”
So parents, watch what you say to your little girls. It affects them early.
The average size for American women is a 16. If that’s the average, how can a 10 be plus-sized? :bonks all idiots on the head:
And by the way, it’s not men who want us to be that teeny-tiny size: I just read a study that had men pick their ideal sized women from pictures of figures without faces, and it was a size 12. Women, when showed the same pictures, picked the size 6.
Yay for this post, Barb! This is a subject that gets me worked up too! As you know, I’ve recently lost a lot of weight (117 lbs as of last Monday), and I did it for health reasons. My skin is loose in my belly area now, my arms have “wings” and my boobs have shrunk and withered like balloons with the air sucked out of them. But I still feel beautiful.
I struggle with how to raise my daughters to believe in their own beauty. Of my 7 kids, five are girls. And I know that their friends and tv and magazines – every outside influence can undermine what I am trying to teach them. I want them to love themselves at any size. I want them to realize that what they see in magazines isn’t even REAL, let alone some ideal to try and attain.
So far, I think I’m doing a pretty good job. My girls are confident in who they are. But it is a constant battle against the media.
By the way, I was also one of those teenage girls who loathed herself and her appearance. And it’s one of the reasons I married someone completely wrong for me the first time ’round, someone who had no respect for women or for me. Thank goodness I outgrew that stage of my life and developed the confidence in myself to eventually meet my forever-husband!
And Barb, you are GORGEOUS! Inside and out.
Love you!
“See how my whole face squinches up when I smile? Notice the nearly-imperceptible eyebrows? The dead-white skin, the big nose, the big teeth?”
To be honest no. I see a glowing,happy,beautiful woman that makes me smile. I see a face reacting like it should, showing signs of pleasure and it’s very attractive.
One of the latest trends that I find freaky and not desirable at all is the “over-white” teeth thing. If you are an adult with teeth whiter than a baby there is some sort of problem. It might just be that you lived an incredibly boring life or you may suffer from vanity but it certainly isn’t normal for your teeth to glow more than the polar ice-caps.
I am a lover of natural beauty in all it’s forms (including the polar ice-caps)I have no problems with enhancements (make-up,tattoo’s etc)but I do have a problem with societies that support the erosion of self-esteem, the destruction of lives that is created when a child/teen feels inadequate and spirals into depression because there is so much focus on the ‘ideal appearance’. It’s normal for a teen (not tween) to worry about their appearance. Physically/mentally/emotionally it’s probably the hardest time of their life but for society to actively encourage this self-doubt and help it grow angers me beyond description and now they are focusing on the pre-pubescent.
Perhaps I am the only one but it also seems to me nowadays that sexual attractiveness and beauty are now deemed inter-changeable terms? As if they share the same qualities. That if you fall into the “now” designation of beauty you must be sexually attractive and vice versa? This I think is the ultimate torture for young people. To be filled with so much passion and yet to be forced to feel undesirable.
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Kudos! I LOVE this post! It made me cry…. it made me smile…
And no way is a 10 plus sized! I look back at my high school photos. I was a size 12….. and I was soooo thin… my arms look like sticks….
There’s only one sentence in that post I would disagree with:
“I’m not a beautiful woman.” You are one of the most beautiful women, inside and out, I’ve ever seen.
We are not a world of cookie cutter people. There are people of all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds. What people, especially women and teen girls, need to realize is what they see on tv, in magazines and on the big screen isn’t real. Years ago, there was a magazine piece with Jami Lee Curtis. They wanted her all polished for the front cover. She agreed with one stipulation: They had to put the before picture in also. They had to show what she looked like before the makeup artists got ahold of her and before the graphic designer finished with the photo. Even after high-paid, talented makeup artists were through with her, beautiful actress Jami Lee Curtis wasn’t “good enough” for the front cover. A graphic artist touched up the photos: lighter here, skinnier there, smoother here.
I’ve said it before, I’ll said it again: Bravo, Barb, bravo!
I can’t believe no one has asked yet, so I will……what was the name of the book? I realize you didn’t mention it and assume it was because you didn’t really want to say something bad about it. However, I would love to know, if you are willing to tell me. I would like to make sure neither myself nor my daughter read it.
I just came across this blog post again. I know I commented on it a while ago, but I just felt the need to comment again.
Barb, you are so CUTE!