LJ Idol Season 8: Week 32; Open Topic
"That fat broad oughtta give it up right now. She’s ugly as hell and needs to eat a rice cake or two. No more cheeseburgers for you, young heifer...” The morning show DJ laughed, finding his joke to be hilarious.
"She's possibly one of the best singers we've seen in our lifetime. She has perfect pitch and a vocal range that we haven’t seen in years...” His loyal female sidekick piped in.
"What's it matter when she looks like a cow? But Katy Perry? Now that girl is something special. Wow...”
"Since when is singing about getting drunk and sleeping with multiple men considered something special?” The sidekick laughed, trying to feign offense.
"Hey now, I didn’t say she was a talented songwriter. Have you seen the cans on her? She's effing hot." The radio announcer was getting wound up, “Speaking of hot women, don’t forget to come out this Saturday for our Double D-cember beauty pageant and wet t-shirt contest supported by our friends at Princess Cosmetic Surgery.”
"What an appropriate sponsor, “ the woman chuckled at the irony.
"Well, what can I say... The plastic surgery industry is in very good shape here in Southern California. Which means there’s still hope for all the fat, ugly girls in the world.”
I change the channel every time I hear something like this. Which is often. My stomach churns with disgust as women are talked about as merely being artwork put on this planet to look good and to please men. The feminist in me wants to fight back, be outraged... And while I’m outraged, I also feel contempt for myself.
A commercial for Princess Cosmetic Surgery comes on, and for a brief second I really wish I had the $10,000 for the lipo/tummy tuck deal... I’d do anything, even risk my own life by having surgery, to fit the ideals that are blasted from every media outlet these days.
While I try hard to fight it and avoid it at all costs, the media’s message has gotten through to me loud and clear.
"You’re not fat, you’re just big boned!”
I’m not sure why parents think a phrase like that soothes their daughter’s self esteem issues. I'd heard it from my aunts, my grandparents... Everyone. It’s not my fault that I don’t look like the girl on TV, my body just isn’t made that way.
At least if I were just fat, I could lose the weight. Can’t fix those big bones, now can we? Great, thanks for telling me I’m screwed for life.
On top of my big bones, I had a round face and misshapen head that I hated, as well as wild, unruly red hair in a family of natural blondes. Clairol failed me in every way. Instead of the glossy blonde hair on the package, my hair would turn out somewhere between orange and yellow, not a natural color nor one anyone would strive for.
"Dangit! Why can’t I have hair like the girls on the cover of Cosmo?”
I was a red-headed step-child. Isn’t there a phrase insinuating I be abused? Because staring at myself in the mirror, I often felt that I deserved to be because I didn’t measure up to what society expected of me as a woman.
Look at the cover of any magazine that caters primarily to women - Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire... What do you see? A cover model with a perfect body and perfect hair wearing designer clothes (or hardly any clothing at all) with headlines boasting "What Every Man Secretly Desires In Bed” or "The 10 Outfits Men Want To See You In” or "The 5 Freakiest Sex Positions That Your Man Will Love!” .
It’s hard to miss the message they’re sending women, isn’t it? I feel bludgeoned to death with the message, and yet again, I hear it loud and clear. It sticks in my brain and I can’t get it out of there.
"You’re the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever seen”.
Beautiful words written by my high school boyfriend. To another girl. I’ve never been that gorgeous, no one has ever uttered such words to me. And I knew why it was, and I set out to fix it.
Kneeling before the toilet bowl once again, I cursed myself. At 17, I discovered I didn't have a gag reflex, and I hated myself even more for being defective. I felt hopeless to fix it and all I ever wanted was to not be disgusting. All I ever wanted was to be desired, to be sexy.
My boyfriend didn’t want me. Even at 17, we had a lousy sex life because I was gross. I was disgusting to look at. My naked body did nothing for him, and honestly? I couldn’t blame him. I still don’t blame anyone for it. I blame only myself for not being beautiful enough for him. Even as he cheated on me, I blamed myself. If only I were pretty enough, thin enough, he wouldn’t need to sleep with other girls.
It was all my fault.
I’m 29 years old and some things have changed, but the overall message has stayed the same.
It’s not just the beauty magazines or Hollywood, it’s the radio DJ’s and everyday men who pound it into our skulls; in order to be truly desirable, truly sexy, we need a body like Scarlett Johansson or a face like Jessica Alba. Otherwise, regardless of our talents or intelligence, we don’t really have much to offer them.
Advertisements tell us we need to look pretty in our swimsuits, to make our bodies bikini ready for vacation with our spouses. Spouses who should love us for who we are, mind you.
Lean Cuisine is marketed to women not as a means to eat healthy but simply to lose weight. If the point was nutrition, processed and packaged foods wouldn’t be the way to go. Fad diets all focus on one thing, which is how the fat is distributed upon our bodies with guarantees like "Lose the belly fat in 60 days or your money back!” Such a thing is not scientifically possible, but it makes for a good gimmick. The diets offers that which many women desire most, the often unobtainable flat tummy which isn’t suited for every body type anyway.
Yet many of us buy into the fantasy day after day. And for what?
Because that’s how society defines our worth. To be beautiful is to be desired, and to be desired means you’ve succeeded as a woman. Or so that’s the message being sent out women, young or old.
Try as I might to remind myself that the message is wrong, that my worth isn’t defined by my pants size, I always fail to believe it. Right now, as my clothes are fitting a bit tighter from enjoying peanut butter cupcakes and delicious food with my amazing boyfriend, I worry. I look down and think I look pregnant with my pudgy belly I can’t seem to get rid of regardless of how many hours I work out. I’ve starved myself, I’ve restricted my calories, I’ve been a size 2 and still felt like a whale... I’ve suffered from eating disorders my entire life. I've been successful in so many other ways, I've completed graduate school, landed my dream job, and yet, I feel like a failure. I constantly worry that I've failed in the one thing I’ve been taught to want most in this world.
I’ve failed to be a desirable woman.
(For the visually and hearing impaired: The above video is from a "pageant" hosted by one of our local radio stations where women wear lingerie and swimsuits and display "talent" such as putting their entire fists in their mouth and taking shots from their boobs. All for the honor of being crowned Miss Double D-Cember. While the beginning is a fictionalized conversation, it's based on many I've heard on the radio over the years. The pageant mentioned in that section and the above video are both real.)
The above entry is for week 32 of
therealljidol. Please swing by the group and check out the other entries this week. We are now at the Top 21 and everyone left has shown ridiculous talent in order to make it this far. So I'd highly recommend stopping by and spreading the love around.Oh and I promise, I'm not a man-hater. Just ask my boyfriend :)