Dove has a new campaign designed to encourage women to accept their looks and not be discouraged if they don't look like the models in advertising.
Watch this link:
This is enlightening, although for years I have known this is what happens. Even our own editing software enables us to soften our looks in our own digital photos.
On the subject of weight, though, I have a bit of a different perspective. Women have gone to extremes to lose weight or maintain it, and some women have died during liposuction or from an eating disorder. Is society at fault? Where does the blame lie? (Or is it lay? Can't get that straight.) Personally, I think if those "extreme" dieting types didn't choose weight as their obsession, they would have chosen drugs or alcohol, crime or violence (men tend to choose these outward forms of lashing out in anger). Violence against oneself is more a woman's domain, and that can come in the form of obesity (though not every obese woman is deliberately hurting herself), anorexia, or bulimia, and of course drug abuse and alcoholism. (There are more, but I won't go into every facet of violence against self--not that I am an expert.)
I think it's great when a woman, after years of feeling badly about her weight, accepts herself as a valuable human being and stops beating herself up for not being model-perfect. Excess weight doesn't have power to hinder someone from loving the "you" inside you. It's nobody's business what body shape you have.
On the other hand, I think that God actually put it in women to want to be pretty and have attractive bodies. The fact that they expend effort to attain whatever they can in that realm, in non-hurtful ways for the most part, testifies to that. It's true that "attractive" has evolved over the years and is different in different cultures. In America, women who are morbidly obese are generally not considered to be "pretty" or "attractive" to most men. I know that my husband prefers thinner women, still shapely and not so thin that her breasts are non-existent or have to be "implanted" to even be there, but much extra and he just sees her as chubby. I have about a 15 lb. range before he starts to notice (except when I am pregnant; he just wants me healthy and that usually means pretty "shapely"). It doesn't bother me, having a husband who doesn't want me 20% over my "ideal" weight, because I also don't want that and I do whatever is necessary and healthful (exercise and healthy eating) to ensure that, regardless of what he or anyone else wants! This is my personal preference. Did society put my "ideal" in me? I think God did.
When it comes to husbands, I think they love the person inside the body and they find "her" to be sexually attractive, no matter the weight. But in a non-wife, or a wife who is beyond the normal childbearing and aging weight gain, it can hinder his ability to be sexually attracted to her.
We are talking about two different things, aren't we? Are women acceptable human beings just because they aren't drop-dead airbrushed gorgeous? Of course they are. But are they sexually attractive to most men? It depends on the level of non-pretty that they possess. In Debi Pearl's book, Created to Be His Helpmeet, she said that the most attractive attribute of a woman is her smile. I think that's true, and also not being so full of herself in regards to looks that people only see her outside shell because it is so heavily guarded with cosmetics and clothes.
It's normal for a woman to want to be attractive to a man in order to get married and have children, so she does all that "stuff" so a nice man might notice her, men being made the way are and all (God made them that way, so it's not something we can "socialize" out of them).
Well, I have gone on and on, which is so like me, but all I really wanted to say is that no matter how many "campaigns" are out there telling women to accept themselves as they are, women will still want to be pretty. It's a normal part of being female (as a general rule). The extremes they go to have changed, and if the only goal of this campaign is to help women and girls to not hurt themselves in order to become what society says is pretty, then it is a good thing. I used to have an eating disorder for which I was hospitalized, so I know the "extremes" that can be involved in having a distorted body image, but I still think it's normal for women to want to be as pretty as possible (and this includes thinness--again, regional and cultural differences are present). |
