We have it from no less an authority than Cheryl Strayed
that, after four decades of feminism women are not comfortable with their
bodies.
Being a good blogger and best-selling memoirist Strayed is
as qualified as anyone else to opine on the subject:
But
rather what’s on the other side of the
tiny gigantic revolution in which I move from loathing to loving my own skin? What
fruits would that particular liberation bear?
We
don’t know—as a culture, as a gender, as individuals, you and I. The fact that
we don’t know is feminism’s one true failure. We claimed the agency, we granted
ourselves the authority, we gathered the accolades, but we never stopped
worrying about how our asses looked in our jeans.
Strayed does not go quite as far as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his fellow congregants at the Church of the Liberal Pieties.
She does not blame it on the fashion industry and the images of perfectly
slim females that grace the pages of the fashion press.
One does not know whether Strayed would support Bloomberg’s
new effort to use advertising to improve girls’ self-esteem. Ads are going to appear
at bus stops and in subway stations all over New York. It’s going to have a
girl telling other girls: “I’m beautiful the way I am.”
Bloomberg failed to ban the Big Gulp, but he did succeed in
filling the streets of New York with shiny new rent-a-bikes, the kind that will
help you to metabolize New York’s air pollution faster. He also banished smoke
from New York’s bars. One suspects that
he sees the female self-esteem campaign as his last hurrah.
Truth be told Bloomberg has been a good mayor. His successor
will surely make us miss him.
Yet, Bloomberg has often compromised his credibility and his
prestige by embracing trendy leftist causes. Apparently, he has drunk too
deeply of behavioral economics and believes that government must nudge people
in the right direction in order to help them to improve their conduct and their lives.
Yet, the new campaign ignores the fact, as all the research
has shown, that self-esteemist solutions tend to aggravate, not to solve, problems.
I recently posted on the topic in detail, here and here.
Telling a child that he is brilliant no matter what he does
will make him underperform. It will sap his initiative by making him believe that
he does not have to work hard to achieve great results.
Telling a child that he is a hard worker will instill the
value of perseverance and make it more likely that he will rise to a difficult
or challenging task.
Admittedly, Bloomberg’s campaign will include fitness and nutritional
counseling, but isn’t it clear that when you tell girls that they are beautiful
the way they are, they will first know you are lying to them, and second they will come
away thinking that they need not do anything special to make themselves look
beautiful.
Any husband can try this at home. He can tell his wife she
looks beautiful after she has put together just the right outfit and created just
the right look to go out to dinner or a party. Or he can tell her she looks
beautiful when she is lying around the house, her hair unkempt, her makeup
fading, in a tee shirt and sweat pants. True enough, she might look beautiful
to him no matter what, but if she has made no effort to look her best she will
immediately think that he is either patronizing her or wants something from
her.
Women like to read fashion magazines. Women study fashion
magazines for the newest look. They work at fashioning their appearance. Women apply
what they have learned from these magazines. They spend a considerable amount
of time and effort and money putting themselves together in order to look their
best. Often they follow fitness and diet regimens to improve their appearance.
A man who fails to notice the amount of effort a woman puts
in to looking her best is being insensitive. A man who thinks that a woman is
beautiful no matter what she does is simply not telling the truth.
When a man compliments a woman on her appearance he is
rewarding her for the work she put into creating her look. Woe be unto him if he
fails to notice.
What’s all about, then? Obviously, feminists are shifting
the blame. They do not want to take responsibility for feminism has wrought, so
they blame fashion magazines.
For over four decades feminists have been telling women that
they are victims of male sexism, that they are victims of sexual abuse and
sexual violence and that they are being systematically oppressed by men the
world over.
Is there anything about the message that would make a woman feel
good about being a woman? After all, a woman is attractive if she likes being a woman. Perhaps we should be encouraging women to look at fashion magazines and not to feel guilty about working to look their best.
4 comments:
Telling someone they are beautiful the way they are allows me to excuse the way I am.
It's very hard to accept that they don't know this when they create these messages.
What? Sexist? I thought all men in the fashion biz were gay! They hate women too? OY!
2 of my Bete Noirs.
1. Govt. Nannyism at all levels. I'm a smoker. I saw the trend begin in the 80s, and predicted it would grow worse. People laughed.
2. Media & fashion industries' pernicious promotion of young women who are anatomical freaks to begin with, and are forced into anorexia on top of that.
They die regularly, and ruin their health if they don't. The Absolute Worst Role Models for impressionable young women. -- Rich Lara
"I'm a girl, and I'm beautiful just the way I am."
What crap. Keep in mind that this is coming from a man who has spent most of his career trying to convince New Yorkers that fat people are the Antichrist.
And I disagree with the idea that he has been a good mayor in general. He greenlit irresponsible development projects and refused to retire the carriage horses.
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