Cruel female objectification in the check-out line
Last edited Fri Jun 29, 2012, 09:41 PM - Edit history (1)
I object strenuously to the promotion of a lanky 14 year-old boy with breast implants as the only "correct" female body type. I object to it in Maxim. I object to it in Cosmo. But if people want to say, "This is beautiful," then that's their business whether I agree or not.
Where I draw the line, however, is the jubilant derision of those who fail to meet that ideal and, sad to say, that derision is generally offered up as entertainment for women.
Supermarket tabloids and some women's magazines feature round-ups of who is fat. "10 worst beach bodies!" exclaims the cover. There are arrows and close-ups to the offending fat. Horror is expressed that some actress had the nerve to step outdoors in such a condition. Needless to say, none of these women singled out for censure are morbidly obese. They typically have a little bit of a belly and enough flesh on their butt and thighs to cause some line, crease, dimple or bulge... some deviation from featurelessness.
Over the years I have spent a lot of time with cable news on in the background. Most viewers of daytime news are women and there is a certain kind of daytime "style" story that comes up occasionally, usually prefaced with, "The internet is abuzz about..."
It seems that some celebrity has had an unflattering picture taken.
A few years back there was a beach picture of Jennifer Love Hewitt with a big butt. It was, indeed, impressive. I found, as the story rolled around each hour, that I was liking the picture more and more. But they kept telling me it was the worst thing in recorded history.
Maybe so... but it was also rather sexy. The same body in tights, rather than a bikini that appears to have been made from discarded inner tubes, would break a few male necks as we swiveled to follow it down the street.
Do I need to seek counseling because my first impulse was not to stone this woman?
"My home-boys try to warn me..."
Yes, this is above Ms. Hewitt's usual weight as an actress and beauty-product spokes-model, but you don't have to be a deviant to find some appeal in the picture. It became a big media rhubarb, leading to this People story:
Anyway, today I find myself once again cast as a pervert outside all human norms, thanks to FindLaw, of all things. FindLaw inexplicably has a link to a DailyMail (UK tabloid) expose of Jersey Shore's J-Woww.
That's not a good look: Jersey Shore's JWoww steps out in very
unflattering see-through leggings to walk her dog
http://legalnews.findlaw.com/article/067f87S3w29c4?q=Jersey+Shore+(TV+series)
Bear in mind, this is how she dared dress to walk her dog. Not to speak to the UN... to walk her dog.
Now I ask, in all seriousness, how many heterosexual men glancing at this picture will have, as their initial reaction, "My god... how tragic! I must tear out my eyes."
Oops. Sorry wrong picture... here's the one I was looking for...
Oh, the humanity!
Seriously... WTF? This is J-Woww, a woman whose entire celebrity persona is as sexy over-ripe shore-trash. She is not the next Audrey Hepburn, and never has been.
I find J-Woww's body quite distasteful, but not from this angle. She has absurd breast implants... the kind one winces and turns away from. Really vulgar, deforming, grotesque instances of surgical mutilation.
But nobody complains about her front, which is actually inhuman. Bit I am informed that her backside (which seems pretty cute to me) is in egregiously poor taste to show-off, and one of the signs of the apocalypse.
"Becky, look at her butt. Gross. It's so... feminine."
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Absurditties"
Sorry, someone had to say it 
In seriousness, I agree with this post 100%. I would also add the flip-side to this phenomenon: the demonizing of naturally-thin women as not "real".
groups have different body shapes; for example, as my dear late mother often stated:
Irish lasses, they have no asses!
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She found it on www.somedaymelissa.com, a site raising awareness about eating disorders.
it's sickening all this tearing of people, particularly women, apart because a body part is a little too much this or a little too little of something else.
Men don't escape this, either. It's just not as often. Who hasn't seen the David Hasselhoff or Val Kilmer or Bruce Jenner pics?
