To get this straight at the very start of this- this is going to be a little different from what I usually post, but then again, maybe it actually isn’t. This belongs into the category “fledging or coming off age”, but it’s an issue far beyond the process of just that. This is about what is going on out there these days. This is about something I feel passionate about, about something I think I have the right to a say in. It’s about something I personally struggle with, something that a lot of people struggle with, something too may struggle with, in my opinion. I am talking about body image issues, body shaming, and anything that is only vaguely related to it.
Body shaming isn’t “new”. Most think that it is, but it isn’t. It has always been there. It’s been there ten years ago, when I was eight years old in third grade and was picked at for being chubbier than others. It was there when I was in seventh grade and was chosen last for group activities in sports. It has always been there. It’s been there from the first posters and ads on tv, from the first fashion shows. So no, body image issues aren’t new, but body shaming is worse than ever before, primarily because of the media. It was bad back then, but today it’s getting worse and worse every single day and it pains me so much to write this and I think I actually have to stop writing for a second, because I can’t even see what I’m typing through the tears of anger and downright grief that are burning in my eyes.
I feel endlessly emotional about this topic. Every single time I re-watch “Killing us softly” by Kilbourne Jean I can’t hold back tears and by now I’ve seen it at least five times. The difference between then and now is that today there are body images wherever you look. They are everywhere, but what’s fatal is that most times, people all look the same in them and they have been actively manipulated. They simply are not real. They teach us a perfection that in reality does not exist or simply cannot be achieved. I used to tell myself, like most people still do, These images have no effect on me. and that is the absolute worst mistake one can do, the biggest lie one can tell oneself, one can believe, because no matter what you think or how sure you are about your shape and size, when you see those images you experience them and they effect you, even when you don’t think they do. So because there is no way around taking in those images the only thing we can do is to make them change. This change is going to be a hell of a fight, I know that, but I hope that some day I can look at a billboard and think Wow, this woman is a fighter. I wish I’d get to know her. instead of Wow, this woman’s body is perfect. I wish I’d look like her. We need representatives of all kinds of body types in ads, on tv, on the internet, in the model industry. We need this change. We need it in order to move something, to make a change. We need to see what is real, we need it in order to accept our bodies and the imperfections we see in them. But how did we get to this point? How is it possible we got carried so far away from the representation of reality in the media?
For starters, photoshop. That’s what got us here and that’s where we are right now and we’re stuck. Right at this point. Everywhere we look we see unreal images of inexistent perfection and all over the world real people suffer to reach that perfection, a perfection that doesn’t even exist. But how are they, how are we, to know? Who is going to tell us if what they are sharing, what they are spreading throughout the whole world, is real or actually the product of an hour-long session behind a screen? There are only a handful of people who do. Who share what is going on, who raise awareness, but that awareness should have been raised years ago. That awareness still doesn’t reach enough people out there. It doesn’t make up for all the lives lost due to body shaming. It simply doesn’t and I don’t even think we have yet reached the top of this, I think this is still becoming bigger, becoming worse every day. We should have started to act on this long ago, but we haven’t or maybe I should rather say we haven’t done enough, because I know, things are moving. They have to, but for the first time I feel like something is actually changing and maybe we can turn things around. Maybe it’s us, this generation right here. Maybe we have to finally pick up the pieces and save the ones after us. Because when I look at my thirteen year old sister my heart stops beating and some days all I can feel when I look at her is fear. Fear of what society, what the media, is already doing to her and what is still to come. When I was thirteen I played with stuffed animals, I watched Disney movies all day, if I could, I ran around the house with her, play-pretending anything. I gave a damn about what I wore, I didn’t even know what I weighted and I washed my hair once a week. I was never one of the popular kids, especially not at that time, but I was okay. Whatever, I was just a kid, I didn’t know a thing, but that, that’s what’s changing and that’s the worst part. Because that generation is suffering. With the amount of media there is so much social pressure, I would never be able to handle it, but they do. They have to. Those teenage years are hard on everyone, no matter which generation they are a part of, but it’s getting harder and most times no-one even realizes. People give a damn about it. People say it’s their fault, sharing everything and anything on the internet, putting themselves out there like that, but it’s not. It’s what they have to do, because if they don’t, they’re out-casts, they don’t even exist. It’s what they are influenced by every single day. Those generations grew up or are still growing up looking at the unreal images of inexistent perfection of strangers from all over the world thinking that’s what real life is and imitate that, striving to reach what it seems like other already have. And that’s what’s most toxic about this, because if we aren’t able to stop this, those young people are going to wreck themselves about it and it’s going to end badly, it already is ending badly in a lot of cases.
So if not for ourselves, we need to make something change for those people and I’m willing to, I’m going to try my best and if I have to, I’m willing to stand in the streets naked, if that means something is going to change for them. I’m willing, I’m trying, to share that I am imperfect, that imperfection is real and the most beautiful thing about a human body there will ever be. I have been willing to share photos of my back, raising awareness on scoliosis, because that’s what it is. That’s imperfection. I have a curved spine. I won’t be able to unsee how crooked I stand when I look in the mirror, how one of my waists is smaller than the other, how rounded my back is due to bad posture. I won’t be able to unsee that my breasts aren’t the same size, that my knees have a strange shape, that I do have a tummy, that four years ago my hair thinned out and will never be as thick as it used to be, that I have, dark, visible hair all over my arms or that my skin actually has pores and isn’t clear. I am aware of all of this. Some days more aware than others, some days some imperfections bug me more and some less. But usually, I am the only one who sees them and in the future I am going to keep quite about them. I will not complain, but praise them, because if we want to change something, this is where each and everyone could start. By spreading love about ones insecurities, because there is at least one person out there who your body is similar to and if you keep calling out it’s imperfections, or the things you see as those, you make that one other person aware of them too and that’s the worst thing we could possibly do. So if I could I would turn back time and erase every single negative comment I made about my body in my sisters presence. I really wish I could do that. Because that girl has seen me naked and has told me I am beautiful without hesitating, has told me, she wished she’d look like me. I just wish I could have shown her how to be proud of her body, but I was too focused on myself, we all were, and we will have to look out for our daughter and sons. We will have to move focus away from us, because society is going to be just as hard on them, maybe harder. It’s about us now if we can make a change about that, no matter how small in the start.
For example, this is a start. Spreading this will be a start. Just talking about body shaming and body image issues will be a start. Being real and honest on any social platforms will be a start. Dealing with the influence of the media on the body in schools or simply reading about it for oneself will be a start. Anything is better than what we are doing now, because yes, we are stuck and if we don’t make a change, if we maintain silence about this, it will stay this way, if not get worse, and we can’t just let that happen, not for the sake of us nor the sake of all the generations after and still to come.
[I apologize if this did not make any sense. All I did was ramble on about something I feel passionate about, hoping that someone somewhere someday cares about this, listens up about this. If you feel the need to share this, I very much welcome you to do so.
All the love, Anna xx]
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