why i am angry

[ursako]

I find myself rather spectacularly disgruntled with the world these days. The causes are many: someone I know and love is suffering from an eating disorder. I'm tired of the sordid lives and deaths of starlets being 'news'. My trainer has dictated for me a strict diet of shredded wheat, beef, mustard greens and takeout Indian. I don't own any

Comments

[wendolen]

I don't argue with the notion that men are also being more and more objectified these days.

But two wrongs don't make a right, and no feminist would celebrate that. (Well, I think we're in agreement on that; I post this not to argue with you, but to hopefully head off people who'll try to drag the conversation in that direction.)

As for the rest of your post... I am so fucking glad I was homeschooled between the ages of 8 and 14. I dodged most of that indoctrination, and I was extremely lucky to do so.

[ursako]

But two wrongs don't make a right, and no feminist would celebrate that.

Word. Above a certain baseline of basic hygene and bodily health, people of any gender should be able to look however they damn well please.

[wendolen]

Do it at night.

BTW...

[wendolen]

Just last night I read a nice definition of beauty, which is true in a timeless sort of way, but it's not exactly profitable...

"Tazendra, for her part, had in no wise lost the beauty that she had traded on so heavily in days gone by. If her face showed a few more lines, these were nevertheless concentrated around her eyes and mouth, and made her seem more amiable than ever -- and amiability, as everyone knows, is one of the hallmarks of beauty. [1] Her form showed the signs of one who rode on horseback every day, and engaged in all manner of exercise besides, and, as what we call beauty is neither more nor less than the attributes of nobility combined with those of a good constitution, the Baroness was still in the full flower of her appearance."

(From Stephen Brust's Five Hundred Years After, which is a mannerist fantasy modeled on Dumas's Twenty Years After.)

[1] Often confused with sexual availability by people defining beauty these days, I'm afraid.

[lobsterbox]

Word, yo. The beauty myth, like the patriarchy, ultimately hurts everyone. I gave up long ago on seeing anyone like me represented in the media. I do have the skinny thing down, but that doesn't get you entirely off the hook, as you noted. I have the "gross" habit of not leaving hair where it should be (those crazy bitches who shave their heads! yikes!) and leaving it where we're told not too (I prefer to think of the area below the belt as "ironically retro"). I feel like I'm okay dismissing alot of this media as crap, but of course a) who's to say how much I've absorbed and internalized in my less reflective youth and b)there are other people out there soaking this up and going out having skewed images of what they or their mate should look like

[str1]

"In other words, I'm freaking out. Just a little. But damn if I'll sit back and shut up. Damn if I'll let it pass

[wendolen]

If people would turn away from being spoonfed images of Baldy McMouseketeer for two seconds, maybe they'd see how ridiculous the whole thing is. All of that shit just makes no difference, and it turns perfectly normal people into trainwrecks by trying to conform.

Please don't forget that people like Britney Spears are not immune to this -- if anything, they're getting it worse than anyone else. (And she's certainly been demonstrating the second sentence amply for years now.)

[str1]

I realize that people like her aren't immune and that the stress of such celebrity can cause people to ultimately do harm to themselves, whether it be turning to drugs or overworking to the point of a nervous breakdown. Some people rebound, but others can't seem to stop until they've completely destroyed their lives, which is a tragic thing turned farcical by the mobs that eat misfortune up.

I wish I had the link handy, but earlier today, I read an AP article on CNN.com in which the AP explained their rationale for blackballing any and all reports on Paris Hilton for a full week. When word leaked out about the experiment, the response to the move was overwhelmingly positive, despite the inevitable group of critics who complained about selective censorship. Maybe if more news services were more vigilant in this regard and spent more time reporting news that actually mattered, things would get better.

[wendolen]

I actually read that piece today. The line from it that stuck with me the most was where they described her as having "a beauty with a "downmarket" appeal." Ouch!

What an insult to everyone downmarket!

But seriously... I wish the AP hadn't suspended their ban. They should extend it to Anna Nicole Smith (yes, she's beyond help, but we aren't) and Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, to start.