This is my weekend post. It's a subject near and dear to my heart so it's worth being available to read for more than one day ~
I was talking with a group of friends last night and someone said that they were tired of how mean people are to each other. Just plain mean, disrespectful and critical. Wow, that got the conversation rolling. And while we agreed that this problem is systemic throughout our society, it is particularly harsh towards women, with women participating in the bashing.
Pick up any woman's magazine that deals with fashion and beauty. The age demographic for that particular magazine doesn't matter. It looks like they are selling empowerment to women but they are actually selling insecurity.
That's right. Magazines need readers because companies pay for ads in magazines with lots of readers. And magazines need readers to keep reading. So in the guise of giving us information we can use to make us better women, they are actually telling us how crappy we are and that we need to fix this and fix that ~ oh, and by the way, the advertisers on the adjoining pages just happen to have a solution.
That wouldn't be so bad if women themselves didn't pick up the ball and run with it. They start judging themselves and each other based on the garbage that these magazines and most other forms of media feed them (I mean "The Housewives of New Jersey"~ really?)
I don't mean to get on a soap box It just makes me so sad and mad, and almost incapable of doing anything about this pervasive problem. I say almost because I do believe that I can be part of the solution not the problem. I can start by consistently believing that I am precious and valued in my Maker's eyes. I can then believe that so is everyone else around me. And if I believe that, I can treat myself and others with dignity and respect regardless of circumstances.
And I can take this message to the women I know and those I meet. I can lift them up and give them another standard by which to see themselves. We are not airbrushed, artificial Barbie dolls. Let's stop being mean, disrespectful and critical of each other, but even more specifically, of ourselves.
Share this post. Let's get a revolution started.
4 comments:
Read this today too - a nice addition to your post. I'm voting "crime syndicate." :)
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/20/opinion/la-oe-koss-aging-20100620
Oh my gosh Lori- that article made me sad- I don't want the invisibility cloak at all! I don't want to be frumpy... and at the same time I dress pretty nicely but my big magic trick is that I really try to radiate happiness, so that people don't notice my varicose veins, bulging midrift, grey hair. They hopefully just want to be with me and be excited together!
Also, the big crack up for me were all the ads in the middle of the article were for "things" to make you more beautiful! Just like in the magazines!
My maker made me serenely beautiful and I hope that's my legacy- not 4 inch platform heels, botox and fake boobs!
Ok so I read the article. Yup, anything outside of yoga pants and jeans and I'm lost. I hate malls, because they DO make me feel old, frumpy, and ugly so I stay away and don't know whats fashionable. But should that really matter in the grand scheme of my life?????
Kim's blog is all about NOT buying into this image of women the media is shoving down our throats. Its about rethinking the contemporary female model of the perpetually young, athletic, sex goddess with the perfect home and kids, who has a good paying job but minds her tongue.....she never speaks her opinions/ideas, or has discussions regarding anything outside of the mundane and common socially accepted topics.
Kim's blog is about shedding these distractions of elusive perfection, and reaching inside ourselves to find whats really of value within ourselves as women ~ cuz honeys, there's gold in that soul!
Look this world is out of balance and that is absolutely because there is a genocide, figuratively and literally, of feminine intelligence. And until we say enough is enough, we can expect more of the same ~ more violence against women- in many forms - world wide, more ugly role models for our daugters of mean, ruthless, cutthroat women, more government ownership of our reproductive organs (My God, even here in the US the Republican Party platform endorses government ownership of women's bodies! Hello???!!), more destruction of this beautiful world of ours, more injustice and more war.
We need feminine intelligence now more than ever! We need our ideas and perspective brought to the table to be analyzed and debated equally with men's! We have far more to contribute to the world than our boobs and uteruses, or being compliant to further the destructive course we are on.
Damn right I'm preaching and I'm NOT apologizing for it!! I'm pissed off!! I've been a proud feminist since I took my first breath. I remember when shows would never think to put a women in a bikini for fear of being labeled as 'sexually exploiting women'. Now, commercials show naked women (with their boobs pixelated) lap dancing some guy on normal cable channels! What the hell?
Ya know, I'm sorry that men are out of work. I'm sorry that they are confused about their social roles. I'm sorry that they feel sexually insecure. I'm sorry for all their woes. But that doesn't give them a right to rape,own,demean and dehumanize us. And corporations who sell this garbage should not be able to make mega-bucks doing it.
It IS time for a new Women's Liberation Movement!!!
Keep this blog going!
Viva La Revolution!
Kristine
Hey, hey, hey Claudia - dont knock the fake boobs! Sometimes the real ones try to kill ya! :) Yesterday I took photos at the wedding of a couple in their 50's. It reminded me as I went over the photos that we don't see images of anything other than youth with the occasional comical Betty White thrown in. I received 2 compliments at the wedding. One about my (physical) attractiveness and one about my "gentle presence." I must preferred the second. And I too had to laugh at the ad placements on the article.
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