Beauty Redefined

My hope:  That you always feel like this about yourself.

I've always thought my husband was a bigger feminist than I.  When he talked about the media's objectification of women, I nodded my head and said, "Uh-huh."  And then we had a lot of girls and I started listening more closely.

Last night we saw a commercial on t.v.  It was for a new and improved hair product that promised all my dreams would come true.  "Ooooh," I said, watching that perfectly smooth and long hair swish back and forth.  Gregor observed my reaction and said, "See, you see that and react the same way I react to an image of a huge, juicy cheeseburger."  Which made me laugh.  And pause at the truth of those words.  Because at the back of my mind I was thinking, "I want that hair product that is going to make all my dreams come true!"

Have you ever walked by a women's magazine and felt depressed?

Do you look into store windows just so you can see your hair, then criticize the way you look in that shirt?

Do you know there are more magazines for women than there have ever been?  And most all of them feature the same kind of girl?

Did you know many magazines "white wash" dark-skinned girls so they will look more "white"?

Have you ever watched a movie and wished to look like that actress?  Haven't we all?

Have you ever thrown up to be skinnier?

Have you had breast implants to look more like a Barbie?

Do you need a positive comment on your appearance to make you feel better for the day?

Have you ever cried because your daughter says she feels ugly?

Do you know most girls will actually eat worse, not better, because of the images around them?

Haven't you see the statistics?  We are more obese than ever.

And more unhappier than ever.

When you cross the street do you pull at your clothes, look at the ground, or wonder what you look like from behind?  Or do you look around the street and see the beauty around you?

Did you know it is a given that every single cover on a magazine will be air brushed?

Did you know it is common practice for every magazine cover to be digitally enhanced in some way?

Do you notice it is hard to escape the constant images targeted at our brains?  The media surrounds us 24 hours a day in the form of internet images, magazines, posters, movies and television shows, talk shows, and commercials.

Because of these lies we don't even need the media to objectify for us.  We do it to ourselves now.

Don't you agree that these "profit-driven ideals" are a lie?

Did you know that these profit-driven ideals are completely based on the amount of money advertisers can make?

Did you know it's not true that women would rather see something unattainable?

How many times has Oprah been mocked for weight gain?

How many celebrities have been photographed as they really look and called "ugly"?

How many new mothers and old mothers feel terrible about their stretch marks?

Don't you think this unattainable comparison stunts our progress in every possible way?

Don't you think it's distracting to everything that's more important?

Don't you think everything is more important?

Listen to this great podcast at The Power of Moms.  Check out Beauty Redefined.  You can like them on Facebook too.  Twin sisters about to graduate with their doctorate degrees, began this site after studying the effects of media on girls.  They are fantastic.  The emphasis is our soul, not the outer appearance.  It's on being fit to feel good, not to to fit into skinny jeans.


It is awesome to be fit.

It it not awesome when you quit the track team because someone calls you fat while wearing the school uniform.

It is sad when you cry because you have small breasts (hey, you can be mad at your genetics for only so long.)  Didn't you notice those female Olympians?  Oh kinship!  They weren't stuffing anything down those sports bras.  And they weren't hanging their head in shame about it.

But what if you aren't an Olympian?  Or even particularly athletic.


I've never run in the Olympics, but as a small child I felt something great about myself when I ran.  I still feel it out there on the road.  And that's why I keep doing it.  It's not my mile time.  That's gotten slower.  No, it's that feeling.  It's like knowing God loves me.  It's knowing he loves you too.  So we push on, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, like "boats against the current..." constantly fighting against the feeling that we're never quite beautiful enough.

Last weekend I went swimming with a friend.  She made a comment about wishing she looked like me on the bottom.  Meanwhile I was looking at her wishing I could look like her on top.  So we are looking at each other wishing we looked like each other.  Seriously.

I've decided I love my stretch marks.  They represent everything that is more important.

Put down the heavy eyeliner, the Spanx, the tenth hair product.

What did you do for someone else today?

Who are you really?

"When the most powerful companies in the world profit off of teaching you that your body – specifically your enhanced, bound, posed, surgically and digitally altered parts of your body – are your only source of “empowerment,” they are lying to you."  -Beauty Redefined

Are you mad?

I am.