Sober Thread: Body Image in the Media

really?
Then why are the clothes sold off the rack designed for women lacking breasts, hips, and thighs?
Because as a woman endowed with an ass and thighs and shoulders (though not really boobs), I can assure you, women's clothing is designed for women without hips, curves, or the things you're saying men look at.

Without spending a small fortune in tailoring, a woman with they type of body you're saying men enjoy will have a VERY difficult time finding clothing.

 

Couldn't this be more of an economical decision? It's also hard for lean, muscular men to find clothes that fit properly even though that's the ideal look, but most men aren't lean and muscular so clothing companies don't cater to them.

 

OK but is "You don't have to be skinny like a runway model, you just have to be skinny like Megan Fox or the really skinny girl in that H&M ad" meaningfully different in message?

 

It's ridiculously easy for men to find clothing that fits across a range of body types - until a man starts having a real ass and some beefy thighs and heavy shoulders. I know men have issues with finding clothing, I'm not saying they don't, but because of the VAST differences in women's body shapes (due to genetics AND excess weight and whatever else crazy crap women do to themselves) women have much more difficulty finding clothes. There are clothes everywhere, but clothes that fit, clothes that aren't designed for women with little to no muscle...yeah. That's difficult. Exceptionally difficult.

 

For what it's worth, half the time the clothes don't even fit the models that are modeling them.

 

Cosmetic products, not procedures. Lipstick, eyeliner, eye shadow, spackle, etc. Make-up et al is $8 billion worth of "normalcy".

 

Those things have been a part of human culture for millennia though. Women and men throughout the ages have used cosmetics to enhance appearance and show social status.

 

So here's a difficult question: what would you like that number to be? SHOULD it be $0? Ladies are free to do what they please, after all.

 

I think if a picture of a stranger makes you feel "empowered", or whatever the opposite of that is, you're an idiot. That lady in the picture doesn't give a shit about you or your body issues. The weird gay Italian who hired her doesn't either - he just wants to sell bikinis. (He's the same guy who hired the anorexic chicks too, by the way - "yay - your clavicle actually looks like a clothes hanger").

And as it stands, I don't mind models being held up as physical aspirations for women (now that bulimia is kind of on the out). Tempering expectations is something adults need to be able to do. Will you ever look like Chrissy Teigan? No. But go to the gym and stop putting garbage in your face anyway. Will I ever be as awesome as Tim Kennedy or as funny as Louis CK? No. But I work on it, and I don't lose any sleep over the deficiency.

 

...

 

All I'm saying is, altering some aspect of their appearance, whether highlighting a feature or disguising a perceived flaw, is the norm. Either way, it seems women just don't feel "pretty enough" without it...to the tune of $8 billion a year in the US alone. I'm just curious as to what drives those feelings. "Societal definition (media/marketing portrayal) of beauty?" "Not doing it would make me appear less pretty in comparison to those who do, so therefore I must."? "I'm a hag--thank God for Estee Lauder!"? "It enhances my beauty and that makes me feel good."?

 

I'm in the "it enhances my beauty and makes me feel good" club. Seriously, you guys may think it is a racket and I am a Stepford Wife programmed to feel that I must be perfectly made up at all times. Frankly, maybe I am, but I love makeup and love playing around with it. I get strangely excited when I find a new lip gloss. I don't find it annoying that I have to spend 5 minutes each morning applying it. I pity you guys that you will never know the joy of learning how to do a smoky eye. I do feel comfortable being bare faced when the occasion calls for it, I don't insist on full make up to hit the gym or the grocery store, but for most days, yep, I am going to have on make up.

 

Instead of arguing the points you're making, let me just ask some questions. What do you think, if anything, should be done about this? Should the state pay for therapy for every ugly duckling? Should we start glorifying marginally attractive people? We can debate the effects of air brushed beauty in the media all day, but the results are just something society has to accept.

For shits and giggles though, I agree the media does have an impact. I just think it's slightly exaggerated and I'm not all that sympathetic towards the 'victims'. Removing all those images might help, but it wouldn't come anywhere near solving the problem either.

 

I think part of the difference is that men are never told that being attractive is a necessary step to being a good man. We're taught (and see in practice) that we can be respected, admired, etc. without being physically attractive. Intelligence, personality, skill, etc. are seen as acceptable enough. No one says, "Sure, Einstein was smart, but kind of an uggo, right?" Whereas women are told that if they aren't as attractive as they could possibly be (or couldn't possibly be) it is an irredeemable failing.

 

I was thinking this as well.
Our daughters are told, from the time they're newborns "Who's my pretty girl!" "Look at my pretty girl!"
When they're toddlers, they're told how cute they are.
And so on.
Instead of teaching our daughters to place their value in being pretty, we need to teach them to value themselves for who they are and what they can do. Their talents, their skills, dreams, and ambitions. Their work.

That will go a long way.




For the males questioning make up - it's FUN.
I was a beauty blogger for several years. That shit was fun. Changing the landscape of my face using makeup and contouring and accentuating and just playing with it...that was FUN. I don't wear makeup necessarily because it makes me "look better*", I wear it because it's fun. My day to day makeup is more out loud than my formal, professional makeup. My day to day has orange and green and purple and blue and colors and stripes and I love it. My formal makeup is all about contour and highlight and looking like me, but better.
it's interesting. For me at least. I'm not wearing it because i'm hiding behind it...I'm wearing it because it's fun.




*I do concede to wearing a tinted moisturizer, mascara, and brow gel on a daily basis, otherwise, I can look somewhat sallow.

 

That's a tricky question, because it essentially boils down to 'how can we overcome some of the negative facets of human nature?', and at this point in time it's difficult to put the genie back in the lamp.

That said, off the top of my head:
1. Raze the current 'education' system to the ground and replace it with something that focuses on creating analytic, media literate citizens instead of obedient consumers. (see - <a class="postlink" href="http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/StopStealingDreamsSCREEN.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/StopSt ... SCREEN.pdf</a>)
2. Ban digital manipulation of images used in advertising/porn.
3. Dramatically reduce the amount of advertising allowed in public spaces. (Times Square might be the most depressing place on Earth).
4. Dramatically increase the exposure of female scientists, theologians, astronauts, whatthefuckevers. Here in Australia the women that get the most press are the wives of prominent sports 'heroes'. Same old narrative; women, if you look good enough, you can get a high status man. Fuck that. How about some focus on women who actually get shit done?
5. This is a contentious one. I have huge, huge problems with the plastic surgery industry and think that 99 times out of 100 it is A Bad Thing. Some of this is cultural; virtually every country in the world feels less positive about plastic surgery than the US. Some of it is reading the psych profiles of people who get plastic surgery. Ugh. (I mistrust a fair amount of psychology, but jump on google scholar and search for 'psychological profile cosmetic surgery' if you're just feeling a little too upbeat today). At the same time, I support the rights of people to do stupid shit to themselves if they want to. Seems only fair. It would require a gigantic cultural shift, but I'd love to know what would happen if you outlawed plastic surgery for people who's physical appearance is directly related to their career. You could use the same argument that people run now for athletes and steroids; that is, people shouldn't have to undergo potentially dangerous treatments to compete at the highest levels of their profession. Sure, it would probably be about as effective as the anti-doping laws now, but at least there would be a stigma attached to it and you would hopefully see a reversal in the trend of teenagers getting plastic surgery.

Yes, I sympathize with Magneto, why do you ask?

 

I’m not denying that there is a warped standard of beauty that is influencing clothing. My point is that it is coming from the media and celebrities, not anorexic models. Chances are that those clothes off the rack didn’t debut on a runway model. The sickly thin models I’m talking about are hired for high-end fashion shows. They aren’t associated with the things you would find at the mall, which is why I’m saying it’s unfair to hold them accountable. I think it’s more suitable to blame the media and celebrities that are defining the standards of beauty.

High-end fashion designers see themselves as artists. They are looking for a blank canvas that directs all attention to their work and models go to ridiculous lengths to become this. Models are not pursuing beauty, they are competing against other girls to get a gig and remain employed. Again, this is why I don’t like blaming them for body issues that women have. I’ve heard girls at work mention things they like about celebrities, but they have never been jealous of or appreciated something about a model.

Celebrities are in a constant pursuit of beauty and are always in our face, so when companies start pulling their strings to sell clothing, make-up, etc, we get a situation where they can define what beauty is. That’s the problem and the intent of my last post was to direct frustrations at the right source.

 

Actually, most of this is incorrect. Commercial models, even fit models, are generally the same girls as runway models. Girls do runway for the exposure, hoping to get picked up by the jobs where they can get real money. Mall brands or high street brands still use these models for fit and for their ads. Their target demographic may be for women in their twenties or forties or whatever, but they're using a sixteen year old as their fit model. It is much, much easier to mass produce clothing that doesn't account for boobs or hips or different body shapes, so they fit it to a straight body and maybe adjust it for some allowances for curves but they don't really focus their attention on that. A dress that's available in sizes 0-16 is going to have a much worse fit in the 16 because they just don't give a shit about trying because it would be harder and cost more.

I don't have a problem with super thin models on the runways because it is more about showcasing the clothes and there's only one of each item of clothing at that point so you might as well make it small and easy when it's so ridiculously expensive to make. Plus, most women don't see the images from the runways. But, almost all women see those same images in ads or magazines, so at that point I think there should be a more diverse range of models. I don't like blaming the girls themselves either - it's not them setting the standards. But I do think the people who set those standards - casting agents, editors, designers etc - should have responsibility to show a wide range of beauty, because their whole jobs are about what deciding what beautiful is and people turn to them for that answer.

It's been very frustrating to read people be so dismissive of the idea of someone being affected by the lack of diversity in the media. It's an issue that has serious consequences, that causes people to have serious psychological issues. If you've never been affected by it, then you're very lucky and uncommon (and male). It can be really hard to never see an image of what is considered beautiful that you can relate to. I consider it one of my biggest feats of my adolescence to overcome that mindset and to stop wanting to have straight blonde hair or to look like the models in the magazines and focus on my ideal version of what I can actually look like. (Not to say that people who don't overcome this are immature or anything.) Even so, I still get down now and then since I consume SO much media that rarely represents girls that look like me. I can't help but get excited when I see an image and think "Hey, I look like that. Not as good as that, but that's okay. You're still saying the idea of me is acceptable and that feels good." I like seeing my spirit animal Kat Dennings get a sexy photoshoot or, even though she irritates me, someone like Lea Michelle being heralded as hot for a change. I've discovered that I have very old-fashioned looks, so when I look at fashion images from, say, the teens through 40s a lot of the models have much more similar features to me than what's in magazines now. I don't care, it's awesome. I love looking at those photos and thinking about how much pipe I would've laid if only I had been born a few decades earlier.

Is that kind of silly? On a surface level, yeah. But it's just how it is. Yeah, it's a small thing, but can't a magazine give me tips for how to manage curly hair without the first step being "Number one: Curl your hair"? I keep the magazine industry afloat, damnit, I want the favor returned by helping me figure out how to wear coats with my boobs so that I don't look a hundred pounds heavier. And I do really appreciate when magazines or ads make an effort to show different shapes and sizes, especially when it's not this special event that's surrounded by patting themselves on the back for putting that fattie on their pages. I don't expect or even want Vogue to do it because they're fucking Vogue, but for Nylon or H&M ads that are for us commoners and aren't so much about aspiration and fantasy?Yes, please. Because "real people" are their audience and their customers and I think that should be acknowledged and catered to.

Overall, though, I think the media is moving in the right direction. There's a lot more diversity in the images we're seeing now than even a decade ago. I think there's much more effort to incorporate different ethnicities and body types and gender-bendy things. Even with supermodels, the traits that make them famous have tended to be what would be considered their flaws but are celebrated for that instead. There's still a cookie-cutter idea of what beautiful is, but that image is not at all as pervasive as what it once was and I do think there's this goal to exploring a lot of different types of beauty. It's just not totally there yet.

 

Audrey, you remind me of my ex girlfriend who had a background in Women’s Studies and Race and Gender Issues. I liked arguing with her about these things and ended up learning a lot. This quote made me smile and I agree 100% as it is a point she hammered into me:

I am of mixed descent (Indian, Spanish, and French) and have never met anyone quite like me or identified with anyone in the media. When I was little I definitely felt different and maybe even down about it at times, but I fortunately got over it and ‘found myself’ at a fairly early age. However, this caused me to forget about those feelings and not consider the possibility of others having them. It’s not silly or weak to feel like an outsider when you are constantly reminded that you are different. An ex brought this to my attention before and I have not forgotten it since.