The Beginning...

The Beginning...

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Our Bodies Part 2

Our Bodies Part 2

The idea that youth = beauty only exists to those no longer ‘young’ because the girls at my youth group don’t think they are beautiful, and that idea of ‘youth’ is becoming younger and younger. A girl I work with literally cried when she turned 23 because Taylor Swift’s song 22 no longer applied to her and that meant that she was old. Artists don’t sing about 23+ year olds anymore.

Cupcakes or Scones by Hollie McNish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaL2tN-M6s4 – a great spoken word poem about aging.

Girls need to know what women look like, what they will look like. Hell I need to know what women look like, what I will look like. And I need to see if from women who know how beautiful they are and who are proud of what they look like. There are many projects that are trying to make that possible, tastefully. This is one of those projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJbmRN_YFi0 – a short video introducing a photography book.

I think with a decrease in photo shopped pictures that don’t represent true perfection and an increase in access to a tasteful representation of what true beauty is we can change how we view ourselves. By valuing the differences and beauty that our bodies are we can fight our self-loathing. We need to support this movement and fight against the lies we are fed in the media. We need to recognize how much this effects our lives, and how much we can increase our happiness and how good we feel about ourselves and how good our daughter feel about themselves. And to do that we need to act.

Some ideas on what we can do

1.    1   Stop the self-hate-
For different people this means different things. At the very start we need to change how we talk about and think about our bodies. Stop using negative language to describe ourselves. For me that means stop pinching my stomach and saying ‘porky porkypine.’
2.    2   Stop the hate of other women-
Stop using negative language to describe other women’s bodies. We can build each other up so well, why do we constantly instead choose to rip each other down instead?
3.   3    Limit the lies we take in-
Avoid media that offers up the unrealistic idea of perfection and beauty.
4.   4    Increase the amount of truth we see-
Truly look at what women really look like, embrace the differences you see. A women with stretch marks on her stomach and extra skin because of childbearing earned those stripes those are her mamastripes and we should all be proud that she has those, they are medal of honour.  A woman with curves or no curves or extra curves- each is beautiful and should be celebrated. You should be celebrated.
Look at art, new and old.
5.    5   Support the movement-
For some that might mean taking in the media that comes along with it. For other it is being a model, for others supporting time and skills, others, monetary contributes and for others that outspoken voice that gets people motivated and informed. And for all sharing it with one another, sharing how beautiful we really are, how perfect our bodies really are.

I don’t usually ask for comments and links to similar ideas on this blog from readers. But I would love to know what you think about this; how you think we can change how we look at ourselves and one another. Please leave positive helpful comments below. 

No comments:

Post a Comment