“This Is What a Real Woman Looks Like!!”
< rant >
The statement in the title is often seen on the cover of women’s magazines, social media posts and even ads, portraying women with a fair amount of extra pounds on their bones, c-section scars, sagging boobs, and acne, celebrating what ever it is that used to be considered ugly. Everyone seems to go crazy over these type of publishings, jumping on to the bandwagon to reveal their own insecurities about their looks and hashtagging the images with body positivity tags galore, shouting that they can finally relate to a person in the cover of a women’s magazine because they look real. In the same breath these women often say that you shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone and you should be happy in your own skin.
I do agree on that comparing yourself to a celebrity, or anyone for that matter, should not be the measure of your own self worth and what you think of yourself BUT celebrating the less attractive bodies in underwear commercials is just a reversed way to compare yourself to someone else. It’s not any better, it just might give you a tiny bit of false sense of confidence in your own skin, given by an outside force, the same one that apparently made you feel bad about your body earlier by showing a supermodel in a similar ad that now has a fat and short woman on it.
It’s a marketing tactic, wake the fuck up! Do you think the big executives looking at numbers give a shit about celebrating your body? No, they have just looked at the marketing studies and seen that obesity is on the rise and they need that consumer group’s moneys.
I have acne, but do I wanna see that on a cover of a magazine, no. Why would I? It’s ugly, there is no way around it. Seeing that other people have problems with their skin does not make me feel any better about mine, nor does it make me wanna buy what you are selling, sorry.
What irks me the most about this phenomenon of celebrating the less attractive bodytypes and looks is that it’s essentially about trying to bring down people who are truly beautiful, by saying that they are unreal or their looks are unattainable. Bringing down someone else does not make your ugly ass any better. You are only maybe possibly fooling yourself for a second.
The (un)fair truth is that some women just happen to look damn fine, with their fit bodies, beautiful skin, and gorgeous features, and they are just as real as the “the real women”. If you were born with a pussy between your legs, congrats, you are a real woman. It doesn’t matter if these beautiful people wake up like that, which most of the times they don’t, or they do a hell of a lot of work to attain those amazing looks, there is no denying that those people do exist.
I think most people need a healthy dose of shaming to get back in line, instead of celebrating everything, including all that is unhealthy and ugly. I don’t see the benefit, other than for marketing purposes, in celebrating the physical attributes that are determined as ugly by any normal person, and that are often quite literally a sickness or disease. Bad skin and excessive fat is not normal, it’s not healthy, these is something wrong with you, get help, do something, or don’t, but for the love of god, don’t act like it’s okay and fun, healthy, and beautiful. Are we next going to celebrate rotten teeth and fungal ridden toenails?
I really don't understand how anyone is buying this "every body is beautiful" bullshit. If you are one those people that think everyone and everybody and everything is beautiful, go fuck yourself and please don’t pass your genes to anyone.
< / rant >
Ahh, it’s been a while since I last did a rant. Feels goooood! Now I'm gonna take my beautiful, skinny, body back to the balcony in my teenyweenystringbikini.
I love your rants, because that's what a real rant should look like 😂
My coffee is so much better when I have an Eve rant to go with it. I almost started reading while the kettle was boiling, but I waited so I could sit down with my coffee, all comfy and enjoy what I knew was going to be a good Eve rant!
I absolutely agree with all, except, I think the marketing angle is a little more insidious than that.
I don't think they are marketing 'to' people with some extra weight. I think they they KNOW the products they can get the huge margins from are fattening. The margins in sugar based and sugar boosted products are insane! (Also addictive, making repeat sales almost assured.)
But how do you increase sales with so many people thinking about their health and looks?! People will more likely limit consumption if they see a few extra pounds in the mirror in the morning and are disappointed because they want to look more like what they think is beautiful. This barrier to more sales is easy to remove. If you control what people tend think and you know the product your selling is likely going to make them gain weight if consumed at the rate they would like to sell it to them... Then lead them to think differently about fat.
"A little extra weight is good, it's natural... Now go buy another fast food snack! ;) "
I don't know about what everyone else thinks is beautiful or what's healthy for each person and all that. I just hate the head games that I believe I see being played on people by corporate driven mass media.
SO agree with this. I hate all this fake positivity, particularly because it encourages people to give up. Instead of going to the gym or whatever to shed those extra (unhealthy) pounds, they just go 'oh cool, it's okay to be fat'. Instead of seeing what you can do about your skin, you embrace it. It's wrong. And unhealthy.
Used to be, you didn't like something about hyourself, you worked to better it - what the fuck happened? Good rant, good rant. :D
I might go a little off-topic here. You often get lulled into a false sense of security as well. If you see a woman with any type of "difference" from a model, they often do say "this is what a real woman looks like". That also often gets women in the state of mind, in which they acknowledge that their insecurities have to be celebrated in order for them to be "normal" or "real", that is, however, not the case at all.
Like, for example, what if a model reads that article and thinks to herself that she isn't a real woman because she's not obese, not with C-section scars or acne, she's just normal, but because of that article, she might not feel normal.
That's my rant on the topic, thank you for the post! <3
Not at all off-topic, and I agree with you. With the celebrating some not so favourable looks, also comes that people start to demand everyone to accept their faults and regard them as beautiful, because that is what Cosmopolitan said. When nature, our biology, does not work like that.
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All beauty is unique, not even twins share the same beauty with the world, those who consume beauty, and celebrate in their satisfaction thereof, having a singular appetite all their own; variety makes for a smorgasbord. You are uniquely beautiful... Giant Hugs<3<3<3