Body Shaming: When Will It End?

Body Snark Free Zone Sign (Photo credit: The Lingerie Addict)

Ok, so this isn’t a post about alcoholism or addiction in the sense of drugs and booze, but this is a post related to the addiction with body image of which most of us are probably unaware. I watched a video of images a young girl (or any female for that matter) are subjected to in the course of a day. The video was time warped into about a minute, but I got the idea. Apparently, if a woman isn’t either a size zero walking on a runway or built like Marilyn Monroe from yesteryear she really isn’t a woman at all.

That’s bullshit.

The most disturbing part of all this is when I read the comments on articles or Facebook posts, it is women attacking other women! WTF Ladies! Get your heads out of your fat, skinny or otherwise perfect asses and wake the hell up!

The media is destroying us with commercials, unhealthy diets and ridiculous clothing. When that doesn’t work we resort to plastic surgery. There are so many items for women to make themselves “look perfect.”

• make-up
• skin tightener
• bras that make boobs look bigger
• panties that make butts look bigger
• girdles and cinches that make waists look smaller
• high heels
• hair dye
• plastic surgery

Those are just a handful of items.

I have small boobs. I HATE my boobs. But the thought of actually having objects inserted into my breasts to make them appear bigger so I can feel like “I fit in” is disturbing on a myriad of levels. I have actually entertained the thought a number of times because even watching the news in the morning can fuck up my whole day.

Then I turn the news off and drive to work. When I get to work, I walk by the magazine rack: more images of air-brushed, photo-shopped women with heaving bosoms and blinding, perfect smiles.

Then I am at my desk. I have to go online to do some research for my job. Commence pop-up ads of “have a flat stomach in ten days” and “diet without exercise” and women with “curvy shapes.”

Fuck you.

And my email homepage? Fuggedaboutit. I was on there today and the top news articles were about actresses and other famous (or moderately famous) women ‘baring bikini bods’ or ‘rocking their curves’ or ‘so and so wows in skimpy dress.’

So this is what I, a 40 year old woman, go through on a daily basis. I cannot fathom what young women and girls go through today; what my daughters go through today. It’s disturbing to know that women cannot ‘just be.’ We can’t just be beautiful because we are who we are. We (me included) point out the flaws when someone compliments us: Thanks, but…

Or we point out the flaws in other women because their beauty makes us uncomfortable and we ‘don’t measure up.’

When did the media decide body shaming is a great idea and when did we, as the human race, buy into their crap?

I don’t know and quite frankly, I don’t think anyone knows.

What do you think?

Related articles

• Image Rant (fordgt40fencer.wordpress.com)
• Modesty. (hourglasswithclass.wordpress.com)
• Body shaming and the sexualization of the mundane (agirlwithoutborders.wordpress.com)