Lose Weight, Gain Body Confidence? Not Necessarily, Says Purdue Researcher Sarah Mustillo
I did not write this article. You can find the original source here.
It ain’t necessarily so what so many dieters say — that when they lose weight, they’ll gain body confidence. So concludes a new study about the lingering stigma of obesity in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. While overweight black girls did feel better about themselves when they lost weight over the course of the study, overweight white girls did not.
After analyzing 10 years of data on more than 2,000 black and white girls from the National Growth and Health Study, Purdue sociology researcher Sarah Mustillocan’t say exactly why the effects of obesity-related stigma lingered for the white girls, but not the black. That’s a subject for future study.
What the good sociologist can say: The black girls’ self-esteem bounced back when they lost weight in early adolescence. However, when the white adolescent girls lost weight, their self-esteem remained flat. What’s more, despite their lower body mass index, both groups continued to have negative body perceptions. In other words, the body image of both the black and white study subjects got stuck in time
“Despite changes in their relative body mass,” Mustillo said, “we found that obese black and white teen girls who transitioned out of obesity continued to see themselves as fat.”
I filed these intriguing findings for future reference, but I couldn’t stop wondering: What is it about our culture that makes it so darned hard for girls to have good body image? Why, in fact, does bad body image plague America’s great, multi-generational sorority?
To answer these and other questions, I decided to do what I usually do — pick the brain of this compassionate mind for illuminating insights. I am also going to make my phone interview with this body image researcher the first in a new blog series on changing bad body image for good. What follows are questions and answers from my recent long-distance chat with Mustillo.
Q. Everyone talks about body image, but what is it exactly? What’s your best working definition?
A. There are a lot of different definitions of body image. The working definition I use is an individual’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings about her body, and how they’re shaped through interactions with others and within a larger societal context.
Q. What moved you to explore body image in teen girls?
A. If the current national movement to end childhood obesity is successful, we can anticipate many young people moving from obese into the normal weight range, which will result in better physical health. I wanted to know if the same thing would happen for psychological health.
Q. What’s the story behind the study? Did you struggle with bad body image as a kid?
A. The truth is I was a skinny girl. I didn’t struggle with weight, nor did I really realize that some people wanted what I had. At the time, being thin and curvy was the ideal. I was too busy focusing on the fact that I wasn’t curvy to be happy about being thin.
Q. Your conclusion is surprising, especially for dieters who believe that if they could just lose weight, they’d gain body confidence. What surprised you most about your findings?
A. People who lose weight may gain body confidence, it just may take longer than what one might think. We only followed these girls for a short period of time. Maybe if we would have followed them for another year or two or three, we might have seen an increase. My fear is if it [gaining body confidence] doesn’t happen soon enough, people might lose the motivation to stick with it [losing weight]. What surprised me most was definitely the body-image finding — that these girls continued to see themselves as heavy. Even as their bodies were changing, their perceptions of their bodies were not changing. To me, it speaks to the fact that the ideal is truly unobtainable. Even if they were getting closer, they still saw it as out of reach.
Q. How do you understand why black girls felt better about themselves after losing weight, but not white girls? What’s the cultural difference?
A. There is evidence that black girls may be more accepting of different body sizes than white girls. At the same time, self-esteem still appeared to be tied to weight for the black girls. Because when they transitioned out of the obese range, their self-esteem improved, but their body image didn’t change very much. To me, that says there’s less of a link between body image and self-esteem among black girls than white girls. But that’s something that requires a whole lot more research to understand.
Q. You’re a sociologist. What is it about our culture that makes it so hard for women of all ages to have good body image?
A. Body image is so tied up with our overall sense of self. So when we look in the mirror and feel deficient, or look at another woman and feel “less than,” it isn’t just about body. It’s about a deeper sense of unworthiness, and that just gets expressed in the body. You know, if I look at another woman and think her hair is so much nicer than mine or whatever, pick a body part, it’s likely that she’s got nicer hair. But it’s also likely that I think that woman is better than me in other ways — nicer than me, smarter than me, a better mother than me. It’s not really about the body. It’s about a deeper sense of feeling less than, or in competition with, other people. That goes hand-in-hand with our culture emphasizing individuality, independence, and that life is a popularity contest. We’re in constant competition with each other, which encourages us to be critical of others and to be critical of ourselves.
Q. If weight loss doesn’t improve body image, what does?
A. On a fundamental level, compassion for ourselves and others, and connectedness with others, might improve body image. I try to see myself the way I see my children — beautiful, precious, incredible beings. To me, that’s self-compassion. In terms of connectedness with others, it’s helpful to remember that underneath all our physical differences, we’re all emotional beings with needs and insecurities. If we can see other people with that same sense of compassion, then that could reduce the [sense that] life is a popularity contest. But that’s hard enough for grown women to achieve, much less for teenage girls. On a more practical level for teenage girls, deemphasizing physical appearance and emphasizing other aspects of who they are helps. For example, there are studies that show girls who have a strong sense of identity in a role, like musician or athlete, have better body image because they locate more of their sense of self in that role than in what they look like.
Q. Do you think it’s really possible to significantly alter body image?
A. I do. I just don’t think it’s as simple as doing some self-help exercises and being done with it. It’s such a bigger societal issue. It needs to be addressed on several levels.
Q. What else needs to be done?
A. In a nutshell, I would like to see more work on racial differences and the cultural context of what defines ideals, how those ideals get transmitted to girls, and how that affects self-esteem. People always point to the media [as the source of white girls’ body ideals], but what about black girls? Are they getting it from the media as well, or are there other sources? Also, I’d love to see more research done on ways to combat stigma in this area — obesity — and others.
Q. What’s next for you and your research team? Are you already hard at work on a new study?
A. Of course! We are finishing a follow-up study on the same group of girls that examines parents’ and friends’ fat-labeling on mental health. In other words, the long-term effects of being told “You’re fat!” by your parents or your friends, and how that affects mental health.
Q. A recent Canadian study on body image, self-compassion and self-esteem showed what my clients have shown me — that more than self-esteem, greater self-compassion is associated with better body image. Any interest in studying the effects of self-compassion-enhancing techniques on body image?
A. I think that would be a fascinating study! I would guess that greater self-compassion is associated with better body image, and that better body image is associated with better self-esteem. I would bet that you’re right — that it starts with self-compassion and ends with feeling better about yourself.
Teen Girl Petitions Seventeen Magazine to Stop Airbrushing Models | Yahoo
[TW: discussion of eating disorders]
eleven days ago, eighth-grader Julia Blume started a petition asking Seventeen to feature one photo shoot a month where the models had not been digitally retouched. her petition at Change.org has gotten more than 27,000 signatures, and the fourteen-year-old is gaining national attention as a young activist.
you can check out (and sign) julia’s petition here.SIGNAL BOOST
Source: powerpussysays
Q:I don't understand why women are SO opiniated about feminism, I'm a women and I don't understand why you have to make it into such a big deal. Yes its a problem in other places but you're not effected and by getting married you think it's somehow diminishing your rights because of his last name? make no sense. seriously
Anonymous
1) I was asked why I, myself, don’t want to get married. I shared my opinion. How is that opinionated? Should I not care?
2) Are you honestly saying that just because something isn’t a problem that affects you (which by the way, it does) that it’s not worth caring about? Should you not care about an African woman having her genitals mutilated because she’s in Africa instead of next door? Should you not care that a woman in Pakistan has her face burnt with acid because she’s in Pakistan and that’s far away and doesn’t concern you? How close does a woman have to live to you in order for her to matter? Does she have to live in your state, or is just living in your country okay?
3) Sorry to break it to you, but gender inequality does affect you, whether you acknowledge it or not. And it does it in a whole host of ways, so instead of writing a novel, let’s just choose one — rape. 1 in every 6 women is the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. Compare that number to 1 in every 33 men. 98% percent of rapists are male. I make this point not to demonize men, but to point out that yes, gender inequality does affect women in the U.S. and while I pray you never have to experience it yourself, one out of every 6 women in your life will — or already has.
4) Taking a man’s name doesn’t effect your civil rights now — but at one time it did. And you can object to something based on what it symbolizes and its history rather than the fact that it has legal implications to your rights.
5) No one is saying you have to be a feminist. I’m not. I just hope that you do some research on your own and learn about what’s actually going on in the world, because I think if you did, you’d be more “opinionated” too.
Depression, Poor Body Image Result From Negative Talk About Weight
This article comes from medicalnewstoday.com
A new study, published online in the National Communication Association’sJournal of Applied Communication Research, reveals that conversations in which individuals perceive themselves as being fat may be damaging to their mental health. ‘Fat talk’, i.e. ritualistic conversations about one’s own or other peoples’ bodies, can result in decreased body self-esteem and higher levels of depression.
Leading author, Analisa Arroyo, a Ph.D. student in communication at the University of Arizona in Tucson declared:
“These results suggest that expressing weight-related concerns, which is common especially among women, has negative effects. We found that fat talk predicts changes in depression, body satisfaction, and perceived pressure to be thin across time.”
Arroyo and Jake Harwood, Ph.D., professor of communication at the University of Arizona, collaborated on two surveys that involved undergraduate student volunteers at the university in order to establish whether ‘fat talk’ was a cause or outcome of body weight concerns and mental health issues.
Their first study involved 33 women and 24 men, who were almost 21 years old on average, and who were asked to respond to a series of online questionnaires over a 3-week period. The surveys contained questions regarding their body satisfaction and how they perceived pressure from society to be thin, their level of depression and self-esteem, as well as how often they engaged in ‘fat talk’.
The researchers defined ‘fat talk’ as comments about what the participants’ eating and exercise habits should be, their concerns of becoming overweight, how they perceived their own weight and shape, as well as how they engaged in making comparisons with other people with regard to these issues.
The findings revealed that overall, regardless of the participants’ sex or body mass index, the more frequently someone participated in ‘fat talk’, the lower their body satisfaction became and the higher their level of depression became after three weeks. A statistical evaluation showed that regardless of the fact that the first study was unsupported, the second study did show evidence that body weight concerns and mental health issues were indeed a result of ‘fat talk’. The second, larger study involved 85 women and 26 men who were 21 years old on average, and consisted of a 2-week series of online questionnaires. However, during this larger study, the researchers distinguished between ‘talking’ ‘fat talk’ and ‘listening’ to it.
The result demonstrated that low body satisfaction had a substantial impact on talking more ‘fat talk’ and talking ‘fat talk’ subsequently substantially led to higher depression over time and greater perceived pressure to be thin. In contrast, the outcome revealed that listening to ‘fat talk’ was neither a cause, nor a consequence, of body weight and mental health issues.
According to Arroyo, the latter outcome is very interesting, as it contradicts published media effects research, which demonstrates that exposure to listening to media messages can impact a person’s body image.
Arroyo concluded:
“Interpersonally. However, this is not happening. It is the act of engaging in fat talk, rather than passively being exposed to it, that has these negative effects.”
The study, “Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Engaging in Fat Talk” will be published in May’s 2012 print issue of the Journal of Applied Communication Research.
Source: th3skinny
Weight loss doesn’t determine girls’ self-esteem boost
By CHRISTY HUNTER Features Editor purdueexponent.org (view original article here)
“If I could just lose weight, I know I’d be happier.”
At some point in their lives, many young women have turned this thought over and over in their minds. But according to the research of Sarah Mustillo, an associate professor of sociology, this misconception has statistically been proven false.
Mustillo’s study examined the effects of weight loss on the self-esteem of 2,200 girls. Researchers followed the mix of black and white girls for 10 years, starting around the age of 10.
To measure weight loss, researchers kept track of the girls’ body mass index, a formula which uses height and weight to gauge physical health. To measure self-esteem, they tested body image discrepancy, a tool that compares the girls’ vision of their own bodies to their visions of the “ideal” body.
What Mustillo found is that white girls who were overweight at the age of 10 continued to see themselves as fat into their later teens, despite their BMIs proving otherwise. This persistent belief of being “fat” is why Mustillo hypothesizes the girls’ self-esteem didn’t improve.
“It’s like this image they’ve internalized of themselves,” she said. “So that was the same for black and white girls. They still continued to feel like they didn’t have the ideal body because the distance between how they rated themselves and what they rated as the ideal stayed the same.”
Alexis Holt, a freshman in the College of Health and Human Sciences, can attest to this personally.
In middle school, Holt considered herself to be “really overweight” at 200 pounds. After changing her eating habits, such as substituting four sodas a day for water, she lost 50 pounds in high school.
Holt was showered with many positive comments from her friends and family. To her surprise, however, she never felt the confidence or urge to show herself off like she expected.
“After I lost the 50 pounds, I felt better about myself, but every time I looked in the mirror, I still felt the 200 pounds,” she said. “I was expecting to, you know, be really confident and be like, ‘Oh, look at me.’ But I never did.”
Mustillo hopes her research will help address these lingering self-image issues by demonstrating the importance of mental health in weight loss interventions. Citing programs such as Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, she said many interventions don’t focus enough on this.
“There’s been less attention paid to the emotional health impact of being overweight and living in this stigmatizing condition where you experience rejection and discrimination,” she said. “I wish that all of this emphasis we have on fighting childhood obesity would add a mental health component.”
Annie Mahon, the Student Wellness Office’s nutrition education program coordinator, agrees.
She said obesity interventions tend to neglect mental health, and they don’t address it “nearly as much as it needs to be.”
“’Eat more fruits and vegetables; drink more milk.’ (People) know this already,” Mahon said. “But the question is why they don’t do it, and the why they don’t do it is often related to mental health.”
Mustillo said a lack of consideration for emotional health may help explain why it’s so hard for people to keep weight off once they’ve lost it.
“If you continue to see yourself as fat, and you continue to feel bad, to me, I think that would remove some of the incentive to keep the weight off and keep working hard,” Mustillo said.
Vintage weight-gain ads.
The lesson to be learned? Society may (always) have a constrained view of what’s attractive, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy into it.
Live in the body that makes you happy and healthy and forget what society tells you about how you should look.
<3
Source: th3skinny
So do what makes you happy and healthy and forget the rest.
(via imgonnamakeachange)
Source: feminishblog
5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women
(Hey everyone — Ruby here. I feel like I have to put a little “disclaimer” before the following article, so listen up. First, keep in mind that the article below comes from cracked.com — not exactly the most PC website in the world, so there are likely to be a few things in it that you find offensive. Secondly, this article isn’t meant to portray the way that all men act. It’s simply pointing out the harmful stereotypes that men grow up with. Just as society tells women how they should think and act from a very young age, it does the same for men. I like this article because it points out some of the harmful stereotypes that men are taught and helps to explain why some men (and some women, too) act the way they do as adults.)
If you’re not the type to keep up with ugly, soul-killing political controversies, let me catch you up: A while back, hugely popular political commentator Rush Limbaugh lost a bunch of advertisers because he publicly called a college girl a slut and a prostitute after she suggested that health insurance plans should cover birth control. But he’s paid to say outrageous things. If you really want to feel all dead inside, you need to listen to what the regular folk were saying.
For instance, on crazy political message board FreeRepublic.com, posters referred to the girl in the above-referenced story (Sandra Fluke) as a “Nasty, disease-ridden plodding uterus, an utter skank crack-ho filthy whore, a prostitute slutbag juice-receptacle” and a “Sperm-burpin’ gutter slut,” and said she “… is so encrusted and used, that I had to throw out my flat-panel TV because her appearance on my TV infected it with AIDS, gonorrhea and syphilis.” There are many, many more worse comments collected here and here and here.
Now go to the front page of any mostly male discussion site like Reddit.com and see how many inches you can browse before finding several thousand men bemoaning how all women are gold-digging whores (7,500 upvotes) and how crazy and irrational women are (9,659 upvotes) and how horrible and gross and fat women are (4,000 upvotes). Or browse the “Men’s Rights” section and seeweird fantasies about alpha males defeating all the hot women who try to control them with their vaginas.
This current of white-hot rage has to come as a surprise to some of you, because we tend to think “sexism” is being dismissive toward women, or paying them lower salaries — we don’t think of it as frenzied “burn the witch!” hatred. Yet occasionally something like this Limbaugh thing will come along to prick that balloon, and out it pours. Like it’s always waiting there, a millimeter below the surface.
Why? Well, you see …
#5. We Were Told That Society Owed Us a Hot Girl
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Does it seem like men feel kind of entitled to sex? Does it seem like we react to rejection with the maturity of a child being denied a toy?
Well, you have to keep in mind that what we learn as kids is really hard to deprogram as an adult. And what we learned as kids is that we males are each owed, and will eventually be awarded, a beautiful woman.
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“Surprise! Just a little something for graduation.”
We were told this by every movie, TV show, novel, comic book, video game and song we encountered. When the Karate Kid wins the tournament, his prize is a trophy and Elisabeth Shue. Neo saves the world and is awarded Trinity. Marty McFly gets his dream girl, John McClane gets his ex-wife back, Keanu “Speed” Reeves gets Sandra Bullock, Shia LaBeouf gets Megan Fox in Transformers, Iron Man gets Pepper Potts, the hero in Avatar gets the hottest Na’vi, Shrek gets Fiona, Bill Murray gets Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters, Frodo gets Sam, WALL-E gets EVE … and so on.
Hell, at the end of An Officer and a Gentleman, Richard Gere walks into the lady’s workplace and just carries her out like he’s picking up a suit at the dry cleaner.
“I’ll take the one in brown flannel. I don’t need a bag.”
And then we have Star Wars, where Luke starts out getting Princess Leia (in The Empire Strikes Back), but then as Han Solo became a fan favorite, George Lucas realized he had to award her to him instead (forcing him to write the “She’s secretly Luke’s sister” thing into Return of the Jedi, even though it meant adding the weird incest vibe to Empire). With Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling played with the convention by having the beautiful girl get awarded to the sidekick character Ron, but she made it a central conflict in the story that Ron is constantly worried that, since Harry is the main character, Hermione will be awarded to him instead.
In each case, the woman has no say in this — compatibility doesn’t matter, prior relationships don’t matter, nothing else factors in. If the hero accomplishes his goals, he is awarded his favorite female. Yes, there will be dialogue that maybe makes it sound like the woman is having doubts, and she will make noises like she is making the decision on her own. But we, as the audience, know that in the end the hero will “get the girl,” just as we know that at the end of the month we’re going to “get our paycheck.” Failure to award either is breaking a societal contract. The girl can say what she wants, but we all know that at the end, she will wind up with the hero, whether she knows it or not.
“Wait right there. I need to go defeat my demons and realize the strength was in me all along.”
And now you see the problem. From birth we’re taught that we’re owed a beautiful girl. We all think of ourselves as the hero of our own story, and we all (whether we admit it or not) think we’re heroes for just getting through our day.
So it’s very frustrating, and I mean frustrating to the point of violence, when we don’t get what we’re owed. A contract has been broken. These women, by exercising their own choices, are denying it to us. It’s why every Nice Guy is shocked to find that buying gifts for a girl and doing her favors won’t win him sex. It’s why we go to “slut” and “whore” as our default insults — we’re not mad that women enjoy sex. We’re mad that women are distributing to other people the sex that they owed us.
Yes, the women in these stories are being portrayed as wonderful and beautiful and perfect. But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.
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“Careful, you’ll make my tie smell like whore, ‘friend.’”
Which brings us to the next problem …
#4. We’re Trained from Birth to See You as Decoration
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I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with putting a pretty girl on the cover of a magazine or posing her next to a shiny new car. The pretty girl gets a good job, men want her, women want to be her, everybody is happy. Right?
The problem is that it goes way deeper than that.
“Brought to you by the American Corn Farmers Association.”
From my experience, if there is a fundamental difference between male and female sexuality, it’s this: There are actual occasions where women aren’t thinking about sex. Here, let me show you an extreme example. I’m going to quote a Free Republic thread again, because I quite frankly can’t stop reading them. These are some comments they made about a female public figure, and I want you to guess who it is:
“Her face is so ugly you can smash it into some dough and make gorilla cookies.”
“So fugly, I’d say ‘don’t even look’!!!”
“At least Medusa was modestly attractive by comparison.”
“This person is disgusting and I would never trust ‘it’s’ opinion on ANYTHING!”
Have you guessed? They’re talking about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.
Via Wikipedia
A woman who didn’t just graduate from Harvard Law — she became the fucking dean.
Yes, even in that setting, when judging a female for a position on the highest court in the land, our instinct is still to judge her suitability as a sex partner. It’s the first thing we notice. And you could just write that off as a bunch of douches being shallow, but then you have to realize how all of society has conformed to this. Forget about objectification in the media or fashion industry — go to a diner, they’ve got the pretty girl waiting tables. Go to a department store, they’ll have a pretty girl selling you pants.
See, that’s the difference. With men, there are some scenarios where it stops mattering how he looks. With women, it always matters. In a comedy movie, the male wacky sidekick can be the chubby Zach Galifianakis or the nearly deformed Steve Buscemi. But if the female wacky sidekick isn’t attractive, like the overweight Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, then every scene needs to be about how ugly and fat and mannish she is. That has to be the core of her character.
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“You mean there’s other things in the world besides food? Surely you jest.”
Her role in society or level of accomplishment doesn’t matter. Even if she’s a damned candidate for the Supreme Court, the female always has a dual role: to function as a person, and to act as decor.
And we get pissed if she doesn’t do her job. Check out any article about a female celebrity who has gained weight. Here’s literally the first one I found on Google, a blog post about how fat Christina Aguilera has gotten. Check the comments:
“fuck her! I have a full-time job, go to grad school full-time, cook at home every night and still find time to get my ass to the gym. lazy ass fat bitch …”
Don’t get me wrong — if it’s a male celebrity in the article, you’ll get lots of people making fun of his fatness. If it’s a female, you get anger.
Getty
That’s her, two months ago, by the way. How dare that fucking bitch?
She owes it to us to be pretty. That’s the social contract as we’ve understood it from the time we were toddlers.
And it’s a no-win situation. We hate you if you’re ugly; if you’re pretty, then …
#3. We Think You’re Conspiring With Our Boners to Ruin Us
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… aka, Why Do You Think the Garden of Eden Story Has a Snake?
First, you need to understand something about the unique love/hate relationship men have with their penises.
Do you remember that story about police having to free a guy who got his dick stuck while humping a pool filter? Or that other guy who got stuck humping a park bench, or the other guy who got stuck humping a picnic table? Or that judge who got caught jerking off while on the bench listening to testimony?
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“Do me a solid and bring that one chick with the huge boobs back up to testify.”
You see this type of story come up a lot — check your local police blotter. And they all have something in common: They’re all guys.
Seriously, do a Google search for “masturbating in public library.” Notice something in common with all of those stories? They’re all dudes. Obviously I’m not saying women don’t pleasure themselves (every single study would prove me a liar); I’m saying that men are far, far more likely to engage in extremely high-risk masturbation in public. They’re more likely to do it at work, and they’re more likely to do it in situations where they could go to jail.
No, it’s not some rare, weird exhibitionist fetish, either. It’s that they can’t even wait the couple of hours it’d take to do it safely at home.
It’s why we refer to the IT guy as “cockblocker.”
It makes absolutely no sense. All calculation of risk goes out the window. Why?
It’s because, in males more so than females, the sex drive is completely detached from the rest of the personality. The part of the male brain that worries about job security or money or social reputation or legal consequences has almost no veto power over the sex drive. You’ve heard guys say they were “thinking with their dick” or “I was thinking with the little brain” or “I took an order from Captain Bonerhelmet.” That’s what they’re referring to.
Science doesn’t seem to totally understand why the “base urges” part of the brain reacts differently in men. Maybe it’s just a matter of having 10 times as much testosterone in their system, or maybe society has trained us to be like this, or maybe we’re all spoiled children. My theory is that evolution needs males who will stay horny even in times of crisis or distress, and thus cuts off the brain’s ability to tamp down those urges. Whatever — nailing down the cause isn’t the point. The point is that a man can be giving the eulogy at his own grandmother’s funeral, and if there is a girl in the front row showing cleavage, he will be imagining himself pressing those boobs in his face, with his own dead grandmother not five feet away.
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“And that’s why I know that grandma is boobing down on our cleavage today in this titties time.”
When that happens, when we get that boner at the funeral, we get mad at the girl showing the cleavage. Because we, ourselves, our own rational personality that knows right from wrong and appropriate from inappropriate, knows this is a bad place to get a boner. So it comes off like cleavage girl is conspiring with our penis to screw us over.
Is that a crazy thing to think? Yep! That’s why it’s so frustrating, especially if you don’t have a whole lot of emotional maturity, and grew up with male role models who had even less.
No, this doesn’t excuse anything. Obviously, “She was asking for it!” is still a bullshit rape defense. All I’m saying is when you see guys actually get annoyed or angry at the sight of a girl showing too much skin, or if you see them eager to degrade or humiliate the girls at the strip club, this is why. It’s probably why some Muslims make their women cover themselves head to toe.
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“Where’s your eye drape? You trying to get us arrested?”
And in the Bible, it’s Eve who tempts Adam to sin … by conspiring with a snake.
Every male reading this is going to think I’m belaboring the obvious (after all, the world is full of comedy bits like this one about how hot girls are almost demonic in their ability to control males against their will). But I have never explained this to a woman who didn’t look at me like I was insisting that all men are secretly werewolves.
But even this isn’t the thing that makes us angriest …
#2. We Feel Like Manhood Was Stolen from Us at Some Point
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You know how every comedy has that stock character of the womanizing, amoral guy who just says what he thinks all the time, and cares only about himself? Joey in Friends, Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men, Sterling Archer in Archer, Gob in Arrested Development, Ashton Kutcher’s character in That ’70s Show, Michael in our Web series, the title character in my books?
Guys love that character because he’s doing what, on some level, we all wish we could do. It’s also why you have all of these ad campaigns desperately appealing to males who fear that they’ve lost their masculinity (“If you use a competitor’s product, we’re going to have to take away your Man Card!”)
See, every single male can remember the first time, when he was 5 or 6 years old, he showed his penis to a stranger and everybody started freaking the hell out. He can remember the first time he got in trouble for hitting somebody, for peeing in public, for trying to jump off some high object or set something on fire. All of the core male urges, all the suggestions whispered to us by Darth Penis, all of it gets us in trouble.
And, when we get nostalgic for the past, we always dress it up in some ridiculous fantasy like 300, where everybody is shirtless and screaming and hacking things with swords. We are fed this idea that at one time, this is how the world was — all of these impulses that have been getting us grounded and sent to detention from kindergarten on used to be not only allowed, but celebrated.
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“No, just hold on. I’m gonna ramp you over that car.”
And then at some point, women took it all away.
A once-great world of heroes and strength and warriors and cigars and crude jokes has been replaced by this world of grumpy female supervisors looming over our cubicle to hand us a memo about sending off-color jokes via email. Yes, that entire narrative is a grossly skewed and self-serving version of how society actually evolved. It doesn’t matter.
The result is a combination of frustration and humiliation and powerlessness that makes us want to get it back in the only way we know how: with petty, immature acts of meanness.
Photos.com
“Now, maybe next time you’ll remember who has the dick in this business.”
#1. We Feel Powerless
Photos.com
I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. I haven’t been one in a long time. So as a result, it’s not easy for me to describe what it’s like to be a man, because I don’t know what you’re using for context. I’m going to do my best:
Did you ever watch old cartoons where a character is starving on a desert island, and when another character approaches, he’s so hungry that he imagines the other character as a talking piece of food?
Via TV Tropes
Third panel omitted due to graphic content.
It’s like that for most men, most of the time. We’re starving, and all women are various types of food. Only instead of food, it’s sex. And we’re trying to conduct our everyday business around the fact that we’re trying to renew our driver’s license with a talking pair of boobs. So, from about age 13 on, around 90 percent of our energy and discipline is devoted to overcoming this, to behave like civilized human beings and not like stray dogs in a meat market. One where instead of eating the meat, they want to hump it.
Right now I’m reading a book from mega-selling fantasy author George R. R. Martin. The following is a passage where he is writing from the point of view of a woman — always a tough thing for men to do. The girl is on her way to a key confrontation, and the narrator describes it thusly:
“When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest …”
That’s written from the woman’s point of view. Yes, when a male writes a female, he assumes that she spends every moment thinking about the size of her breasts and what they are doing. “Janet walked her boobs across the city square. ‘I can see them staring at my boobs,’ she thought, boobily.” He assumes that women are thinking of themselves the same way we think of them.
Do you see what I’m getting at? Go look outside. See those cars driving by? Every car being driven by a man was designed and built and bought and sold with you in mind. The only reason why small, fuel-efficient or electric cars don’t dominate the roads is because we want to look cool in our cars, to impress you.
Photos.com
We also assume you have the taste of a pimp.
Go look at a city skyline. All those skyscrapers? We built those to impress you, too. All those sports you see on TV? All of those guys learned to play purely because in school, playing sports gets you laid. All the music you hear on the radio? All of those guys learned to sing and play guitar because as a teenager, they figured out that absolutely nothing gets women out of their pants faster. It’s the same reason all of the actors got into acting.
All those wars we fight? Sure, at the upper levels, in the halls of political power, they have some complicated reasons for wanting some piece of land or access to some resource. But on the ground? Well, let me ask you this — historically, when an army takes over a city, what happens to the women there?
It’s all about you. All of it. All of civilization.
Photos.com
Nope. Can’t see a single symbolic thing about this illustration.
So where you see a world in which males dominate the boards of the Fortune 500, and own Congress, and sit at the head of all but a handful of the world’s nations, men see themselves as utterly helpless. Because all of those powerful people only became powerful because they heard that women like power.
This is really the heart of it, right here. This is why no amount of male domination will ever be enough, why no level of control or privilege or female submission will ever satisfy us. We can put you under a burqa, we can force you out of the workplace — it won’t matter. You’re still all we think about, and that gives you power over us. And we resent you for it.
Photos.com
“Now you squat down and crap your pants, or you never touch these boobs again.”
All of the most bitter disputes work like this, by the way: Both sides think they’re the powerless party. It’s why tipping servers is such a bitter topic among some people — the server feels like the customer has all of the power (because their entire income comes from tips), and the customer feels like the server has all the power (because they can deny them food and drink and ruin their one night out). It’s why the richest people in the world can talk like they’re besieged victims, and mean it. It’s why the male leaders of the most powerful and richest church in the world can talk like they’re being made martyrs due to women asking for birth control. And mean it.
Which brings us back to where we started. If you add all of this together, you get a world where this woman can testify before Congress about her friend suffering from ovarian cysts …
Via Wikipedia
… and a male political cartoonist will draw her like this:
Via Sorry, ladies.
David Wong is the Senior Editor of Cracked.com and the author of John Dies at the End and the even more ridiculously titled sequel This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch it, available for pre-order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell’s, etc.
For more from David, check out 9 Types of Job that Will Destroy Your Soul and 6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying.
Source: cracked.com
Source: feminishblog
Q:I was convinced that all feminism stood for was being some angry woman yelling at men for being men and getting their panties in a twist over everything. Until I found your blog. You have made me realize that what I thought feminism was was a total load of crap. As a kid in high school, I don't think I've ever been so aware of such serious issues before. Thank you.
Anonymous
This makes me so happy. The entire “feminazi” characterization of what feminism is is SOOOOOOO off and I wish more men and women could understand that feminism isn’t a dirty word — and it doesn’t even need to mean the same thing to everyone! You can look any way you want and be a feminist. You can belong to any political party. You can work in any profession — it really, at its core, is just about making the world a better place for women (and men!)
Q:Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?
Anonymous
I do.
The reason I consider myself a feminist is pretty simple.
1) I recognize that men and women are not given equal worth and respect by society.
2) I have a problem with that.
A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not “Crazy”
From the Huffington Post: You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already!
Sound familiar?
If you’re a woman, it probably does.
Do you ever hear any of these comments from your spouse, partner, boss, friends, colleagues, or relatives after you have expressed frustration, sadness, or anger about something they have done or said?
When someone says these things to you, it’s not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling — that’s inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, “Calm down, you’re overreacting,” after you just addressed someone else’s bad behavior, is emotional manipulation, pure and simple.
And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It’s patently false and unfair.
I think it’s time to separate inconsiderate behavior from emotional manipulation, and we need to use a word not found in our normal vocabulary.
I want to introduce a helpful term to identify these reactions: gaslighting.
Gaslighting is a term often used by mental health professionals (I am not one) to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they’re crazy.
The term comes from the 1944 MGM film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Bergman’s husband in the film, played by Charles Boyer, wants to get his hands on her jewelry. He realizes he can accomplish this by having her certified as insane and hauled off to a mental institution. To pull of this task, he intentionally sets the gaslights in their home to flicker off and on, and every time Bergman’s character reacts to it, he tells her she’s just seeing things. In this setting, a gaslighter is someone who presents false information to alter the victim’s perception of him or herself.
Today, when the term is referenced, it’s usually because the perpetrator says things like, “You’re so stupid,” or “No one will ever want you,” to the victim. This is an intentional, pre-meditated form of gaslighting, much like the actions of Charles Boyer’s character in Gaslight, where he strategically plots to confuse Ingrid Bergman’s character into believing herself unhinged.
The form of gaslighting I’m addressing is not always pre-mediated or intentional, which makes it worse, because it means all of us, especially women, have dealt with it at one time or another.
Those who engage in gaslighting create a reaction — whether it’s anger, frustration, sadness — in the person they are dealing with. Then, when that person reacts, the gaslighter makes them feel uncomfortable and insecure by behaving as if their feelings aren’t rational or normal.
My friend Anna (all names changed to protect privacy) is married to a man who feels it necessary to make random and unprompted comments about her weight. Whenever she gets upset or frustrated with his insensitive comments, he responds in the same, defeating way, “You’re so sensitive. I’m just joking.”
My friend Abbie works for a man who finds a way, almost daily, to unnecessarily shoot down her performance and her work product. Comments like, “Can’t you do something right?” or “Why did I hire you?” are regular occurrences for her. Her boss has no problem firing people (he does it regularly), so you wouldn’t know from these comments that Abbie has worked for him for six years. But every time she stands up for herself and says, “It doesn’t help me when you say these things,” she gets the same reaction: “Relax; you’re overreacting.”
Abbie thinks her boss is just being a jerk in these moments, but the truth is, he is making those comments to manipulate her into thinking her reactions are out of whack. And it’s exactly that kind manipulation that has left her feeling guilty about being sensitive, and as a result, she has not left her job.
But gaslighting can be as simple as someone smiling and saying something like, “You’re so sensitive,” to somebody else. Such a comment may seem innocuous enough, but in that moment, the speaker is making a judgment about how someone else should feel.
While dealing with gaslighting isn’t a universal truth for women, we all certainly know plenty of women who encounter it at work, home, or in personal relationships.
And the act of gaslighting does not simply affect women who are not quite sure of themselves. Even vocal, confident, assertive women are vulnerable to gaslighting.
Why?
Because women bare the brunt of our neurosis. It is much easier for us to place our emotional burdens on the shoulders of our wives, our female friends, our girlfriends, our female employees, our female colleagues, than for us to impose them on the shoulders of men.
It’s a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. We continue to burden women because they don’t refuse our burdens as easily. It’s the ultimate cowardice.
Whether gaslighting is conscious or not, it produces the same result: It renders some women emotionally mute.
These women aren’t able to clearly express to their spouses that what is said or done to them is hurtful. They can’t tell their boss that his behavior is disrespectful and prevents them from doing their best work. They can’t tell their parents that, when they are being critical, they are doing more harm than good.
When these women receive any sort of push back to their reactions, they often brush it off by saying, “Forget it, it’s okay.”
That “forget it” isn’t just about dismissing a thought, it is about self-dismissal. It’s heartbreaking.
No wonder some women are unconsciously passive aggressive when expressing anger, sadness, or frustration. For years, they have been subjected to so much gaslighting that they can no longer express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them.
They say, “I’m sorry,” before giving their opinion. In an email or text message, they place a smiley face next to a serious question or concern, thereby reducing the impact of having to express their true feelings.
You know how it looks: “You’re late :)”
These are the same women who stay in relationships they don’t belong in, who don’t follow their dreams, who withdraw from the kind of life they want to live.
Since I have embarked on this feminist self-exploration in my life and in the lives of the women I know, this concept of women as “crazy” has really emerged as a major issue in society at large and an equally major frustration for the women in my life, in general.
From the way women are portrayed on reality shows, to how we condition boys and girls to see women, we have come to accept the idea that women are unbalanced, irrational individuals, especially in times of anger and frustration.
Just the other day, on a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a flight attendant who had come to recognize me from my many trips asked me what I did for a living. When I told her that I write mainly about women, she immediately laughed and asked, “Oh, about how crazy we are?”
Her gut reaction to my work made me really depressed. While she made her response in jest, her question nonetheless makes visible a pattern of sexist commentary that travels through all facets of society on how men view women, which also greatly impacts how women may view themselves.
As far as I am concerned, the epidemic of gaslighting is part of the struggle against the obstacles of inequality that women constantly face. Acts of gaslighting steal their most powerful tool: their voice. This is something we do to women every day, in many different ways.
I don’t think this idea that women are “crazy,” is based in some sort of massive conspiracy. Rather, I believe it’s connected to the slow and steady drumbeat of women being undermined and dismissed, on a daily basis. And gaslighting is one of many reasons why we are dealing with this public construction of women as “crazy.”
I recognize that I’ve been guilty of gaslighting my women friends in the past (but never my male friends—surprise, surprise). It’s shameful, but I’m glad I realized that I did it on occasion and put a stop to it.
While I take total responsibility for my actions, I do believe that I, along with many men, am a byproduct of our conditioning. It’s about the general insight our conditioning gives us into admitting fault and exposing any emotion.
When we are discouraged in our youth and early adulthood from expressing emotion, it causes many of us to remain steadfast in our refusal to express regret when we see someone in pain from our actions.
When I was writing this piece, I was reminded of one of my favorite Gloria Steinem quotes, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”
So for many of us, it’s first about unlearning how to flicker those gaslights and learning how to acknowledge and understand the feelings, opinions, and positions of the women in our lives.
But isn’t the issue of gaslighting ultimately about whether we are conditioned to believe that women’s opinions don’t hold as much weight as ours? That what women have to say, what they feel, isn’t quite as legitimate?
People have been reblogging this like crazy today, so I thought I’d put it up on my blog again.
(via shiisa)
Source: The Huffington Post
NO, CATCALLING IS NOT A COMPLIMENT, AND HERE’S WHY
by Julia Gazdag
Disclaimer: This article discusses a mature topic. Our 13-year-old and younger readers are encouraged to read this with an adult.
Halfway through high school, I transferred to an all-girl school and for the first six months, I refused to wear the cliché girls’ school uniform skirt and sweater. I figured that, for once, I wouldn’t get catcalled from every car that drove by on my walk home, because awkwardly fitting khaki pants and oversize grey sweaters were sure to render me invisible. Turns out, you can pretty much walk around in a giant potato sack; as long as you’re a girl, creepsters will still do their thing. Whoop-de-doo.
“But it’s just harmless flattery, why do you have to be such a Feminazi about a guy trying to pay you a compliment, Julia?” Well, me, I’m glad we asked us that. It’s not flattery, actually – it’s harassment. Street harassment, to use the official term. And the thing about street harassment is that it is not meant to be a compliment, but, in fact, an aggressive assertion of male dominance by dehumanizing and hypersexualizing someone. Fun fact: street harassment is not reserved just for women! It’s now available to all members of the LGBTQ community, too! Oh, yeah, about the Feminazi thing? Me standing up for my rights and personal safety don’t warrant a label trying to arbitrarily draw a comparison between my empowerment in the face of social inequality and the German National Socialist Workers Party responsible for the largest genocide Europe has seen since the Crusades. You do sound like an idiot when you use the term, though, so thank you for identifying yourself! I can now avoid future interaction with you.
Here’s what’s up: aside from it being obnoxious and demeaning, a holler – heck, so much as a whistle – leads me to think that the person emitting these brilliant National Geographic re-enactments sees me as little more than a walking blow-up doll. Verbal assault is assault nonetheless, and in a country with a one in four rape rate among women, when someone hollers “Bring them ____ over here, girl!”, all I hear is, “My face likes mace!” Staying defensive rather than offensive is the golden ticket of avoiding a confrontation, but the second a stranger addresses me aggressively and sexually, he is a threat and I have no qualms acting accordingly.
And why should I? Everywhere I go, I am constantly being told that I have less of a choice in my sex life than a man does. I’m not talking about dating or romantic things (though those are all lovely). Let’s take that can of face mace for example: where can I get one to defend myself in case I need to? Where can I buy a taser? Or so much as a rape whistle? It’s certainly not in the local drugstore, where I have to buy a diaphragm at the pharmacy, which I can only get to by walking past the colorful condom display spanning three shelves. So what I’m being told is basically that for me to protect myself from sexual predators I have to go to a specialty store (did you know you can get pepper spray at the shooting range?), and to practice safe sex, I have to go through a pharmacist. While a man almost never has to worry about being violated simply because he’s walking home alone (almost all women have a defensive strategy for walking alone; almost no men do), he can lift one of dozens of varieties of condoms off the shelf and saunter on up to the self-checkout if he wants to, because he’s a man! He can do what he wants!
And so, with his sense of sexual entitlement and my good reason to think he views my sole purpose as being dominated, a “compliment” hollered down the block about any part of my anatomy is a clear and intentional threat indeed. Most of us have lost track of the etymology of the word “vagina”, but its original meaning is a sheath for a sword. Now, I don’t know about y’all, but my lady-part has many uses and neither it, nor any other part of me serves to function as a place for anyone to keep anything. Visitors are allowed, but only with a valid permit. And while culturally, the original meaning of the clinical term for the most female of anatomies is not well known these days, the sentiment behind it lingers in the whistles and calls of the adult male a**hole. The idea that a simple holler can potentially turn more serious and dangerous is pretty logical. It also has precedent in an alarming number of cases of violent assault against women. In fact, enjoy this info-graphic that I got from not-me.org – it makes this theory easy to understand and has stick figures!:
While that chart does not include the not-as-rare-as-you’d-like-to-think occasional post-rape murder, it’s also important to note that according to an FBI estimate only one in four rapes is reported, and of those, only 0.35% are incarcerated. That’s less than half a person. A woman’s risk of assault is increased the further down the economic ladder she is.
Here’s another infographic (also from not-me.org and also featuring stick figures), explaining the 3 A’s of street harrasment disruption, a way to non-violently defend yourself:
I really love what the ladies (and gents!) are doing at Hollaback, a website dedicated to ending street harassment. This is an immensely serious and concern-worthy issue, and they bring a barrel of empowerment to the table. Hollaback has great resources for self-defense, as well as a space to share stories and pictures of aggressors. The more humiliating and unacceptable we make street harassment, the less people will feel free to engage in it. The site has branches in 45 cities (in 16 countries), so I encourage everyone to check it out! Should you feel you need it, a lot of cities also have van services to drive women home safely. I personally never go home at night before checking to make sure everyone has a ride, whatever their gender – mugging is no joke, either – and encourage everyone to be generous with their wheels too!
I don’t want to forgo giving all the gentlemen out there the props they deserve, mind you. A few years ago I was walking down 4th Ave in New York, when a man who was walking past stopped me. A middle aged guy who seemed possibly homeless, he asked me politely if he could compliment me. I said yes, he could, and he told me that he thought I looked really lovely. I thanked him, he thanked me, and we both went on our way. He was polite, respectful and seemed to genuinely want to say something nice to me without expecting anything in return. I was stunned. That hadn’t happened to me before, and it hasn’t happened since. And so, in honor of this gentleman, and all the fine fellows who treat a lady like a lady, I’d like to beat a dead meme one last time and share with you this fun little video I found on Hollaback’s blog:
sourceSource: hellogiggles.com
You Are Not Ugly, So Don’t Make Those ‘Am I Ugly?’ Videos
(from margaretcho.com)
You’re not ugly.
Not in the least, so don’t make those videos. Take them down if they are up. You don’t need people to tell you how beautiful you are on there. You don’t need to put yourself in the position to be judged that way. You are better than that, and you deserve the very best in life. If I could come through this screen and tell you and show you and bolster you and buoy you up and raise you high above all the bad sh*t you are going through, so that your spirit is free and you feel like you are flying, I would. I’d give anything if I could find a way to show you how lovely and perfect you are. If you’d believe me when I say that you are amazing, that you are the only you in the world, and that that makes you special and precious and holy, truly one of a kind, it would make me the happiest.
I thought I was so ugly for so long, and I wasted so much of my life on this dumb notion. I punished myself and avoided my reflection in mirrors and any windows. I would see myself reflected back, and I would look away, trying to pretend I didn’t exist, because I hated myself so much. I hated the way I looked, and it started early on. My father found a school project from first grade where I had written on a photo of myself that I looked like a flat-faced mummy. Firstly, how does a kid that young know what a flat-faced mummy is? Secondly, I cry at my own self-judgement, and thirdly, I was such a cute kid. Imagine my face, and then miniaturize it in your mind until the age of 6. I know, f***ing adorable.
One day I looked at myself and thought: Sh*t, this is it. This is what I look like. No amount of self-hatred is going to change my appearance. I am who I am. I am stuck with this, and I have to love it, or else I am going to die early from my own suffering and idea that I got shortchanged in the looks department.
Why go through life feeling cheated? It does nothing but make you bitter. I don’t want to be bitter. I want to be better. I want you to be better. I don’t want you to waste all those years like I did. I didn’t get to the point of feeling really good about myself until my 40s. That was pretty much 40 years of uninterrupted self-loathing that I had no need for. I never got to enjoy my youth; I was a gorgeous kid, and I missed it because I hated myself for no reason. I am kicking myself because I missed out on so much happiness because I had this idea that I was ugly that I couldn’t shake, partly because others — people who had their own issues with self-hatred and took it out on me — supported it. I don’t want you to miss out on a minute of your fantastic lives.
Let’s just say that I am right and you are beautiful, end of story. I have so much love for you, and I want your lives to be richer, happier, and better than mine. I want to make these mistakes so that you don’t have to, like on a group ride where the leader rides ahead and can alert you to the potholes and other dangers on the road. I am just pointing them out to you because I have been there. I know this place, this life, and I have some advice. I hope you take it.
Source: margaretcho.com
Go “Barefaced and Beautiful” for eating disorders awareness
Did you know that bout 25% of women begin wearing makeup at age 13 or earlier? Or that half of all women associate a “bare face” with feeling unattractive and insecure? This news, recently released by the The Renfrew Center Foundation comes with a challenge: go without makeup for a day in order to start a dialogue about healthy body image and inner beauty. What better week to do that than next week, which is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
The survey that uncovered these atstouding results was conducted online found:
· Women Wear Makeup for Both Physical and Psychological Reasons
Almost half (44%) of women wear makeup to hide flaws in their skin. They also cited emotional responses, with 48 percent noting that they wear makeup because they like the way they look with it and 32 percent agreeing that it makes them feel good. Eleven percent said they wear makeup because it is a societal norm.
· Wearing Makeup is Not Just for Adults
Of women who wear makeup, almost half started wearing it between the ages of 14 and 16 (51%), yet more than a quarter of women began using it between the ages of 11 and 13 (27%).
· Almost Half of Women Have Negative Feelings When They Don’t Wear Makeup
Forty-four percent of women have negative feelings when they are not wearing makeup, reporting feeling unattractive (16%), self-conscious (14%) and naked/as though something is missing (14%). Only three percent of women said going without makeup made them feel more attractive.
“Wearing makeup to enhance one’s appearance is normal in our society and often a right of passage for young women,” said Adrienne Ressler, National Training Director for the Renfrew Center Foundation and a renowned body image expert. “There is concern, however, when makeup no longer becomes a tool for enhancement but, rather, a security blanket that conceals negative feelings about one’s self-image and self-esteem. For many individuals, these feelings may set the stage for addictions or patterns of disordered eating to develop.”
During National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 26 – March 3), The Renfrew Center Foundation is sponsoring a national campaign, titled Barefaced & Beautiful, Without & Within (www.renfrew.org). Through the campaign, Renfrew will encourage women nationwide to go without makeup for a day in order to start a dialogue about healthy body image and inner beauty.
“In this age of toddler beauty pageants, digital retouching, celebrity worship, and other unrealistic cultural messages about beauty, there are definite challenges to developing a positive body image; challenges that put women at risk for eating disorders and other self destructive behaviors,” said Ressler. “Our hope is that through Barefaced & Beautiful, Without & Within, we will promote greater understanding that real beauty and self-esteem truly begins from within.”
To show your support for Barefaced & Beautiful, Without & Within, The Renfrew Center Foundation is asking for women to go without makeup on Monday, February 27th and promote their participation through their social media networks by tweeting a photo or changing their Facebook profile picture to one of their natural self. To learn about participating inBarefaced & Beautiful, Without & Within, please go to www.renfrew.org.
The Renfrew Center offers residential treatment for eating disorders in Philadelphia, as well as day treatment and intensive outpatient services in Radnor and Mt. Laurel.
Source: examiner.com
