This essay caused me to have mixed feelings. After I read the title and I started reading the first few pages, I was appalled and offended and contemplated on not finishing reading the essay period because I don't want to read any kind of woman's reactions to what they feel when they see an attractive muscular man. I decided to continue reading and got really upset because basically my opinion is - How about we just stop putting men and women on display altogether. Why do we have to follow by putting man on display just because women are? Why did that start in the first place. Women, nor men are "objects" to be put on display and gawked out and I find offense to that. It pisses me off that men are in ads naked looking at a pair of his boxers! Before Playboy, there wasn't any kind of pictures of naked men and women. Now, we see naked men and women in ADS that EVERYONE (even very young children) can see - why?
As I continue reading I have feelings where I agree with her and am happy that I've read the rest of this essay. It starts on page 205 with the sentence, "...beauty remains a rerequisite for female success. In fact, in an era characterized by some as "post feminist," beauty seems to count more than it ever did before, and the standards for achieving it have become more stringent, mor rigorous, than ever. We live in an empired ruled not by kings or even presidents, but by images. The tight buns, the perfect skin, the firm breasts, the long, muscled legs, the bulgeless, sagless bodies are everywhere. Beautiful women, everywhere, telling the rest of us how to stand, how to swing our hair, how slim we must be." It continues on and on for the rest of the essay. I completely agree with her that our society is definitely ruled, by IMAGES - IMAGES!!!! What in the world? What has society come to that we aren't actually ruled by Kings or Queens, that we are ruled by "illusion, generated with body doubles, computers, artful retouching" These ads are basically telling us this is how you need to look.
Further in the essay, it upsets me still because she makes a very wrong comment, "...all women suffer over their bodies." That is a very stereotypical statement that she needs to change to MOST women suffer over their bodies. The reason I say this is because myself and several people I know DO NOT suffer over our bodies. I rarely wear makeup, I don't worry about my weight, I don't always brush my hair when I leave the house and I am PERFECTLY happy with every body part that God gave me. Maybe I'm just lucky and don't have to worry about all that stuff or maybe I haven't gotten caught up in all the advertisements and celebrity do's and don'ts with fashinon and such. By the way, those richy fashion shows - who wears that crap anyway? And what really upsets me is when they say certain celebrities are "the "fat one"" like in her essay Janeane Garofalo, Alicia Silverstone, Kate Winslet - that is so wrong and THAT is why there are so many eating disorders in this nation because everyone wants to be perfect because no one judges the person by the inside - their personalities and kindness, respect and courtesy - no, people are judged by HOW THEY LOOK! That RAGES me because I have met some really wonderful people and if I had been any other stuck up snobby person in this nation, I wouldn't have given these people the light of day, but because I have, I have found good people that are respectful and courteous and such.
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