Recently, a new movie was announced that is a parody. In a recent trailer (link here), the dwarfs watch snow white undress. This alone awful as it is a movie aimed towards kids and they have two guys watching her strip. That is misogynistic and completely unacceptable. Anyhow, as she undresses she takes off her shoes, which supposedly show who she is on the inside whom is supposed to be beautiful- aka thin. As she takes off her shoes, her true form is shown; which is heavier and short.The tag line for this movie is "What if snow white were no longer beautiful,,," This implies that who she is on the inside is not good enough and that somehow being heavier and short is ugly. This is full on BODY SHAMING as we are socialized with the idea the fat = ugly even from a young age. This Disney classic is being put to shame.
The implications of this movie are absolutely disgusting and although the writers of the movie probably didn't intend for it to be viewed this way, it is just another example of how our society associates fat with ugly subconsciously. This is the reason so many people, specifically girls, struggle so much with self image and the reason that over 30 million people have an eating disorder. I can't begin to describe my disappointment with this movie and hope that they will pull the movie and will not release it.
Another issue of feminism that many feminists don't address are the societal pressures of men. Because feminism is the equality of both sexes, not just the equality of women, the equality of men must also addressed. Most of the time we address the fact that barbie's are impractical; such as her proportions making her 5'9", size 3 shoe, and be so skinny she would have to walk on all fours. Rarely do we address that male action figures also distort the male figure, such as the "he man action figure". Not only does society objectifies the male body in not only action figures but advertisements as well as TV and movies. 26% of men are concerned with excess body fat and 18% are concerned with their waistline.
Males should be able to look up the word 'man' without a ridiculously impractical image that is unreachable. The connotations of 'manliness' shouldn't be that you have to be tough, you can't be gay, you can't cry, you have to be protective, You shouldn't have to feel like less of a man because you aren't tall even though it is genetically a part of you. No one should have to live up to the standards of being a "manly man" or a "real man". Any person who identifies as a man is a "real man", and it shouldn't be shrunk to the definition of a few words.
megan xx
As a girl, I constantly feel that I must comply to social
standards. These standards are practically unreachable yet we still expect
every girl to meet them. There is a constant need and pressure to get
everything right. To get the perfect grades because they determine the rest of
your life and your whole future. The belief that every move you make right now
will either make or break your future. There are so many conceptions of what
you’re supposed to be even though we
know we will never reach them, we still strive and put those standards above
all else. We’re taught that we are only as good as what we can do and that we
must control everything. We must control our weight, our grade, and even our
appearance.
Research shows that 82% of women are openly unhappy with their
weight, and the average teenage girl spends 65 minutes changing her appearance every
day. These unreachable beauty standards and the need to be perfect are the
reason that 95% of the 24 million suicides are of ages 12-25, and that suicide
is the 2nd leading cause of deaths in ages 10-24 with over 5,000
attempts a day in solely the United States.
There’s the fact that women’s bodies are sexualized and used to
sell things such as hamburgers, which is demonstrated in the ads I inserted
into this post, yet breast feeding in public is still
seen as taboo and looked down upon. In 2013, over 700 bills that regulate a
woman’s body were proposed as compared to the zero for a man. Magazines and advertisements are photo shopped to
show a sexualized image that is impractical and unreachable.
We were made to believe our identity is solely a number on a
scale, but our value cannot be defined by a picture, but for one second imagine
what our world would be like if these societal messages weren’t projected to
women. What would happen if our image wasn’t based on what’s on the outside but
instead our intrinsic value. What would happen if we could rise above the
status quo and not be defined as who we are on the outside. If we could live
our lives without so much judgement and comparison that makes us believe we
need to pretend to be someone that we are not just because we do not fit a
certain standard of beauty. I hope we can live in a world where we can look in
the mirror and not see everything we are not, but everything we are and
everything we can be. A world where we don’t compare ourselves to each other
and how we need to be better than someone else and instead focus on being
better than who you were yesterday.
megan xx
fem·i·nism
/feməˌnizəm/
noun
a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
The words 'feminism' and 'feminist' have many negative connotations that are given to them through the actions of people with the wrong intention. As stated in the common proverb, "one bad apple spoils the bunch". Unfortunately those who engage in activities that advocate the rights of one race above all others are the bad apples to which I refer. Another common misconception of feminism is that feminists wish for the female sex to be superior.
Both of these fallacies are often associated with feminism and often endorsed by people who refer to themselves as "feminists" giving those who truly want equality in both men and women. This does not mean that all women must have the same ideologies. It does not mean that women have to be single parents or can't be stay at home mothers because it is not empowering, it means that women should be allowed to make the decision of what they want to be without the socialistic pressures that are common today.
One aspect of true feminism is the double standard. A double standard is "a rule or principle that is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups." For example, when a female sleeps around she is looked down upon as a 'slut' even by fellow women, although men are congratulated for doing the same thing and called a stud. I believe women and men are at fault for this. At my school you hear girls looking down upon each other and calling them 'hoes' and 'sluts'. We tear each other down and I believe changing this is what needs to happen before we can expect men to do the same. We live in a world where women treat each other as competition. Until women can empower each other as apposed to tearing each other down, we can't expect anyone else to do the same. We first must advocate choice and not just one person's ideologies. We must support each other in any endeavors that we choose to pursue. Stop the notion that being a feminist requires you to follow one path and learn to support everyone in their decisions and create a world in which men and women can be treated equally.
megan xx
