I don't want to start getting all feminist here but this one had me thinking:
I am a healthy, active and happy 26-year-old woman, surrounded by other seemingly healthy and happy women. We should be in the prime of our young lives: embarking on careers, travelling, falling in love, thinking about the future, fearful of buying a house, partying too hard, working too hard — but loving it all. And yet this year two 26-year-old women in my extended circle have died before their time. Too young. Too unnecessary.
In a nutshell - body image, eating disorder, unlucky, dead. These were the extremes but there's a lot happening in between. Why do girls do it? Why do they concern themselves with an unrealistic ideal dictated to them by the media, fashion and peer pressure? Why are they doing it younger and younger? Why is the unreasonableness seemingly getting worse and worse, as with alcoholics?
If the girls over here can be an indicator - it's one third for the boys, one third for the appreciation of other women and one third for their own self-confidence. For myself, it's basically because I'm with girls who care so much about appearance that it can affect relations and for my own pride that I watch how I look.
The test is when I'm with the guys but even here I think I'd still dress smartly, if not sartorially or fashionably. But die of an eating disorder? Well, someone is going to have to explain this one to me. It doesn't compute.
I find it hard to understand too...
ReplyDeleteIt is very sad though- so many lives wasted.
ReplyDeleteJames, the body images that are pushed at women all the time MAKE them do it. You never feel you are thin enough, you see, and once you are very thin, you are terrified of putting any weight on. Nearly all top models are on drugs of some kind - how else could they be so thin? People like Jane Fonda and Pattie Boyd admit to having done it too. And women are judged on their appearance in a way that men never will be. You can have a face like the back of a bus but society thinks that's OK as long as you're THIN. The situation is not helped by gay male fashion designers who design clothes that only look good on women who do not look like women because they admit they want the clothes to look "as if they are on a hanger" as a feminine curve could spoil the look. Have you ever heard such crap?! So when you have anorexia, you really don't care if you die because you would rather die than not be THIN.
ReplyDeleteWelshcakes - I'm glad you said that. I held back on mentioning the gay mafia again but I've seen first hand what they do to girls and girls have no defences against this sort of pressure.
ReplyDeleteThere must be some way we can [and I do it all the time at uni] reinforce how beautiful girls with curves are. Another thing I like to do is compliment girls with glasses. And I mean it too.