My Own Personal Consciousness-Raising

**Disclaimer: This is pretty lengthy.  Last week following our discussion in class about cosmetic surgery and body image, I sat down to write a blog post.  And then I kept writing. And writing.  After completing the following essay I ended up sharing what I had written with a few of my friends. It felt incredibly liberating to relate our experiences and discuss these issues so openly with one another. (In fact, it reminded me very much of the "consciousness-raising" of second-wave feminism.)  Through my writing I made some major realizations about how the media portrayal of women, body image, and self-esteem have affected my own life and the lives of those around me.  Here are those realizations. 

Our discussion about plastic surgery and body image in class last week really got me thinking about my own experiences.   Although I do not at all support the idea of cosmetic surgery for purposes that are not medically necessary, I do understand why it is such a popular industry in modern American society.  Television, music, radio advertisements, magazines, etc. all contribute to the promotion of idealized and unrealistic body images.  We are persistently bombarded by such images in such a way that they are unavoidable unless you basically live under a rock.  If a woman wants to empower herself or have a solid sense of self-esteem, the media is of absolutely no help.   And as part of a cruel and seemingly inescapable cycle, without a sense of self-worth it is nearly impossible to disregard the countless idealized, photo-shopped fairytale pictures we see every day. Consequently, it is difficult for girls to see that there is much more to being a woman than exploitation of sexuality.  Such circumstances contribute to an unrealistically two-dimensional perspective of the human condition, particularly the female condition.

Unfortunately, conquering this stigma and creating personal self-worth is more easily said than done.  Where do we find this self-esteem if we are virtually trained by society not to have any? Essentially from birth we are surrounded by images of the “perfect” woman; we grow up learning what is typically “feminine” and “masculine”, the princesses in the Disney movies we watch and many of the dolls we play with as girls are slender but curvy with impossibly huge eyes, lush hair and tiny waists.  Likewise, boys see all of these images and are taught to expect the same in real women.  We are shown these ideals and they are instilled within us without us even noticing that it’s happening.  I grew up in a very gender-equal nuclear family.  My parents certainly had a positive impact on my perspective in regards to feminism and gender equality.  But even when the most important people in my life supported equality I was not immune to the images of the media.  All American children are exposed to the objectification of women in the media and surrounded by sexualized images from such an early age; many of us don’t understand the implicated misogyny in much of what we’ve been shown our whole lives until we are college students or older; often, until after damage has already been done.

My story isn’t an exceptionally unique one.  I remember a time when I never worried about the inherent shape my body, when I didn’t ever feel self-conscious and never compared my own body to my peers’ and the women in the advertisements.  In all honesty it’s hard to recall the exact feeling because it has so long since disappeared. Something changed. 

Around fifth or sixth grade, I don’t remember the day, the month or the reason, but my self-contentment deflated.  The pins and needles of comparison, the urge to seek approval for the way I looked, materialized in my life and the lives of the girls around me.  I hid my insecurities within my own mind for the most part, but truthfully they infiltrated my life rapidly.  I found myself constantly thinking I was fat even when I was not overweight; I began to long for a different body, as did many of the other girls around me.  I heard others make self-deprecating comments and I followed suit. We were still children in many ways when the phenomenon of self-loathing began. I suddenly despised many things about myself that before I had never noticed; I was unable to shake these insecurities and I didn’t understand why.  Suddenly, the women in the advertisements mattered.  What previously had been a subliminal memorandum became a conscious comparison.  In writing this, I am not denying that there are some societal physical standards for the idealized male, but those parameters are not nearly as critical, specific, or present in the media as they are for young women.  In society we consider the abundance of emotional self-doubt to be a normal part of female adolescence.  It’s not.  Of course, there are hormonal changes that occur in both boys and girls around this age, but not nearly to the extent in which these insecurities manifest.  That is the fault of society.

In high school, I learned to respect myself more due to emotional maturation and with the help of both male and female friends who shared my passions and opinions. This being said, the insecurities never entirely faded.  In fact, for many girls these problems worsen with age.  I’m now almost 19 years old and I don’t really know what it feels like to truly and wholeheartedly love my body.   I would love to say that now that I identify as a feminist I am entirely appreciative of my body, but this is not the case.  With every self-deprecating remark, every sexualized music video, every airbrushed advertisement I’ve seen, the insecurities have had such a long time to ferment that it is impossible to not feel saddened by them at times.  But I’m working on it, I’m trying-- to discourage negative thinking in both myself and every woman I know.  As a feminist I realize the consequences of media idealization and sincerely support healthy body image for women. I hope that my daily actions work toward a world where girls aren’t challenged by this impossible image of beauty; because I see the internal struggle that all of this garbage causes- in both the women around me and myself.
            There are obviously varying degrees of body image problems and low self-esteem; it’s like a spectrum ranging from minor insecurities to all-out self-hatred.  I’ve witnessed high school friends skip meals to lose weight, but also the guilt-ridden binge eating of those who felt that their “ideal” image was unattainable, that it was a hopeless cause.  Both of these things are extremely detrimental to the emotional, physical and intellectual growth of girls and women.  I’ve known girls who’ve engaged in self-harm, and although there are many contributing factors to depression, the pressure on women to fit an often-unachievable standard of beauty certainly isn’t helping.  But how can we end this cycle?  We are literally trained by society that not only is beauty the most important aspect of a woman, but also covertly ingrained with the message that this “beauty” is imminently unattainable.

I don’t have some sort of miracle solution to this problem, but I think we can start by reviewing a few aspects of our own lives.  We can begin by refusing to participate in the criticism of other women’s bodies, whether those women are movie stars, friends or strangers.  We can also work to increase awareness about mental and emotional health, and how harmful media images can be.  Perhaps most importantly we can learn to refrain from self-deprecating behavior; the most accessible way to begin shifting our society is to love ourselves. I dream of a world where girls and women don’t remember the “changing point” in fifth or sixth grade when they started to hate their bodies only because of the natural changes that occur.  Our bodies change over time.  This shouldn’t cause us unexplainable emotional strife.  I truly believe a society can exist in which women are taught to love their bodies and treasure their other qualities so that there is no realization of self-hated in adolescence or any other time in their lives. 

I believe that it is nearly unfeasible to reach one’s full potential if one does not feel confident in his or her own skin.  As women, to break glass ceilings and bulldoze prejudice we must feel strong.  We are so much more than our bodies, but they are the vessels in which we carry our thoughts, our inspirations and our feelings.  I aspire for a world where we are guided to love each and every part of ourselves regardless of shape or weight, a world where the cosmetic surgery industry is all but obsolete.