Real women, real bodies
So Dove has been doing their Campaign for Real Beauty for over a year now. Some feminists, like Christine at Ms. Musings, celebrated it as a revolutionary step. Some, like Winter at Mind the Gap, aren't so sure. Me, I'm glad to see women who are closer to average size represented in advertising. I'm glad to see women of color represented as both 'regular' women (read: not Other) and as beautiful. I'm glad that not all these women are stick-thin, six-foot blondes from whatever planet Victoria's Secret models come from.
I'm even more glad to see Shape of a Mother, where women bravely show pictures of their pregnant and postpartum bellies. One mother notes:
I was talking to a friend about this site and mentioned letting my 4 year old daughter see it. My friend joked that I shouldn't scare her about pregnancy yet, but I really believe that if these images are there in her brain now - even just subconsiously as she walks through the room when I have the site up - if these images are there, maybe, just maybe, she will have a better idea of what "normal" is. Maybe it won't be so painful to her to look in a mirror. Perhaps she will have a better idea of what she really looks like. I want both of my children to know what women, and people in general, truly look like. I want them to know normal.
Amen, Mama! We know that the average American woman is about 5'4" and a size 14, but today's models and actresses are typically size 4 or below. When we turn on the TV, go to the movies, or read magazines, most of us are looking at women who are half our size - which they can achieve because for them, it's a full-time job to look that way. For the vast majority of us who have other jobs, it's important to remember that they spend as much time on exercise, facials, manicures, etc, as we do at our jobs. And they spend more money on health and beauty than most of us make in a year. So it's vital that we have images of what regular women, just plain folks, look like. Kudos to these moms for showing us their bodies and being honest about what they think about them.