Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Five not so feminist things fifty years after feminism

It's now about 50 years after the start of feminism according to someone I heard on the radio the other day. After hearing this I've been thinking about what sort of things you're average 1957 feminist would not have imagined being around in 2007. I thought of at least five.

  • Playboy stickers & clothes: That the magazine exists is one thing but that young women where playboy clothes, have stickers on there cars or covers on there mobile phones and aspire to be associated with it is another.
  • Breast Implants: In the sixties women used to burn bras. bras that made a woman's breasts appear unnaturally larger round and sit unnaturally higher. Now women can have breast implants so their breasts can do this all by themselves without the need for a bra.
  • Aging female newsreaders being sacked for looking too old: All of the commercial stations in Australia have done this in the last year.
  • Porn stars becoming personalities: Recently I had a seventeen year old girl tell me her friend's name was Jordan and asked me if I thought she looked just like the porn star Jordan. I had to admit, to her amazement, that I didn't know what the porn star Jordan looked like.

As much as many women have lots of freedoms in the west. I'm constantly meeting women who are forever worrying about how they look. Not only spending way more money than male counterparts on clothes, hair and make up but way more time worrying about how attractive they look and way more time feeling like they are incredibly unattractive. It seems that as models get thinner and more airbrushed even the most fit and healthy women I know feel ugly. So here's my quick recipe for any woman who feels ugly.

  • Read the Naomi Wolf's the Beauty Myth
  • Don't use make up, you are beautiful naturally
  • Don't consider cosmetic surgery
  • Don't worry that your stomach is bigger and your breasts sit lower than when you were 18. When your partner says your still beautiful he actually means it.
  • Don't buy beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
  • Remember there are three billion women in the world who don't look like supermodels and only eight who do.
The females I know who don't care about every minute wrinkle or slight blemish have a confidence which makes them far more attractive than any bit of plastic surgery ever could. I know so many good women who do so much in the world and yet still manage to spend buckets of money and time on fashion and beauty products. I can but only think how great they could be without feeling the need to conform to our societies beauty myths.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's when i see you write stuff like this which makes me so joyful to be your wife.

Chris said...

Thanks Georgous :)