--6/16--

Body image. Women.

See those two words (well, technically, one is a phrase, but you get the picture)? Those are two (okay, three) good, solid words. Now, what miffs me about these two words is this.

WHY MUST THEY ALWAYS HAVE A NEGATIVE WORD IN BETWEEN THEM WHEN THEY'RE USED IN A SENTENCE?!

As a public service, I'll give you a little demo on what these two words can, and can not do together, under our "normal" (and socially acceptable) settings.

Here are some examples of what these two words can do together:

-Women have horrible body images.

-Good body image is not common in women.

-Women need to go on a diet (exercise, take Prozac, use face toner, go tanning, crimp, perm, paint their nails, get implants, buy a Wonderbra, use Nair, pluck, etc) to have a good body image.

Here are some sentences that our media and our societal taboos prohibit:

-Women have good reason to have a positive body image, just as everyone else.

-Several women actually have good body images.

-How you view your body has nothing to do with the size of your thighs.

Do I seem miffed enough yet? Because I am. Oh, I am.

I'm going to go right out on the boat, and tell you this. I'm one of those women with a good body image. I don't care what you think, I'm going to go out and say that I am one sexy momma, no matter what I do to my hair in the morning. I don't have to wear a ton of makeup to look good. I can wear a t-shirt and jeans and have my hair in a ponytail, or I can wear some eyeshadow and a Chinese dress with a slit up the side and my hair down. It doesn't matter. Either way, I still know I look good. This does not make me egoistical. This does not make me a bitch. This makes me a whole human being. And goddamn it all, can't we be that?

The TV, the magazines, the newspapers, the billboards... they all flit images across our eyes and into our minds, and we store these away. These little lies. According to the media, we must all look the same. We must all be tan and buxom and thin. And that is not right. I'm not going to go on a "fat rights" tangent. It's not healthy to be obese, and, oddly enough, in a nation so saturated in Victoria's Secret and such, we have such a high population of people who are. It's disgusting for someone to have given up on a good image so much that they just let themselves go, they let themselves get eight chins. The media just makes us feel more hopeless. However, we're not supposed to look like that "ideal," either. Some of us are rail-thin, and others have padding, and that is how it's supposed to be. Some of us are so pale, our skin is milky and blue with the run of veins clear through the delicate covering of skin, some of us are so dark our skin shines with it, a rich dark chocolate that seems to sheen black-blue. And that's just how it is, too. It's all natural, all of it. Tans on naturally pale people are unhealthy, it's your body's way of reacting to an injury. Your skin tone has more to do with your heritage than much else, and trying to be darker is like African people trying to get whiter. It's abhorrent. Be happy with your paleness. Wear SPF 55 so you don't fry to hell, and be happy. Anyone who tells you to go tanning should be seen as just as racist as someone who tells a dark person to use skin whitener.

I don't know how our perception came to be like this. I really don't know why society decided that it's the right thing to be hating and repulsed about one's own body. When someone pays us a compliment, tells us that our hair looks pretty, or that our outfit matches our eyes just so, we think a sudden crazy tangent of thoughts, wondering why he or she said that, if they had any hidden motive or meaning. We don't want to be egoistical. We don't want to be pretty. So we brush it off, tell them "Oh, not really," or "You should see how I usually look." We can't even accept a compliment, for goodness sakes! It's a shame. When someone tells you you're beautiful, go with it. Thank her, compliment her back. Don't tell her that she is lying!

I'm virtually certain that bad body image is common in males, as well. But it seems more prevalent in females. Perhaps we are just louder about it. I just know that when I go down the "health and beauty" aisle in a store, there are two boxes of "grey remover" for men. The rest is targeted to women. And not just what we call "girly girls." Every woman. There's no care paid to how you identify yourself--lesbian, bisexual, or even if you consider yourself quite a bit male. You're still targeted. You're still called a selfish trollop if you call yourself pretty/sexy.

Listen, girls. I'm talking to you, right now. Look at yourself in the mirror. No, not like that. Look at yourself, really look, because all you're looking at is a model superimposed over your own image, with several NFL-esque circles and xs showing the game plan to make your face fit that one. And until you break the game up, you're going to keep on hating yourself.

Have a nice night, and remember: you're the most beautiful girl in the world.