Or perhaps, rather than Idealism, Narrow-Mindedness.
While it is interesting to note that international sex symbol/humanitarian (note that it is consistently her body that gets her on the tabloids, not her good deeds) Angelina Jolie recently went very public about her double mastectomy (Her NYT Op-Ed is here.), which I think was quite bold, I think that the reason it made such a splash was because of the egregious societal expectation that every woman be a Victoria's Secret model -whether naturally or not- or else they're worthless. This was such a big deal because it was yet another chance for us to scrutinize the body of a well-known woman.
I saw a woman at the gym the other day and I was struggling to fine ONE non-artificial thing about her. Her eyebrows, her fingernails, her hair color, her skin color, her lip size, her breasts...not one of these features were REAL. It was obvious. And it was appalling.
When I reflect on the women whom I think are truly gorgeous, they are NOT bleached blonde, huge-busted, and so thin you can see all of their ribs. Far from it. But there is this restrictive idealism of "beauty" that is, frankly, unrealistic and baseless. There are so many things that I could discuss here, but one that has been on my mind is blondness. How many "make overs" include the ugly duckling getting her hair significantly lightened to look like straw? How many of the female Baywatch lifeguards were buxom blondes? Which of the Victoria's Secret models get the most screen time in commercials? What is the most sought-after artificial hair color in salons and drug stores nationwide? Blonde, blonde, BLONDE! It is a dying genetic trait, and yet they seem to somehow be EVERYWHERE!
Saying/thinking/feeling that being blonde somehow makes you more objectively beautiful is such a racist farse. The only people, besides those with albinism, who actually have naturally blonde hair are pretty exclusively white people of Northern European descent. And, last time I checked, white people do not have a monopoly on beauty! Can an Korean woman, for example, not be beautiful because she has silky black hair? How about a Latina with chestnut brown hair? OF COURSE THEY CAN BE BEAUTIFUL!
With that in mind, one of the stupidest things I've ever seen on TV was a "news" bit on being Latino in America where some B-list actress or news-caster was droning on and on about how proud she is to be Latina and how she really stands out from the rest of the people on TV and she really feels like she represents her people...that's great, except I was having a hard time hearing her words because I was caught up looking at her bleached-blonde hair which looked really gross with her lovely, naturally almond skin tone, as well as her blatant nose job that gave her, that's right, a decidedly Anglo-Saxon nose. COP OUT! So much for representing your people-- you're ashamed to even look like them! I was dating an Afro-Latino man at the time, and we were both seriously embarrassed by her absurdity.
Why should we all want to look the same? What is this unrealistic image that we all seem to be striving for, and where did it come from?? Can it really stem from old undertones of white supremacy? Do men really demand that women look like this? Or perhaps women subconsciously demand this of themselves and their fellow women in order to compensate for their still lagging social equality? Is it to get attention? To get promotions? I have no idea.
What could possibly be the purpose of so many of us lying our way into blonde hair? I can't even count all of the celebrity interviews (I'm embarrassed to say I've read ANY, but alas, I read dumb magazines on the elliptical...) where the big question is "What's your natural hair color?" because celebrities, particularly actors, change their hair color for playing different roles or for particular photo shoots, commercials, etc. 9 times out of 10 comes this silly answer: "I'm not sure...but when I was a kid I was a tow head blond so I still consider myself blond."
You're not sure?? Take a 2 second look at your dark roots and I think its pretty obvious what your natural hair color is-- and it sure ain't blonde. So why are you ashamed to admit it?!
(*As a point of clarification, I don't care if you color or highlight your hair. I really don't. But I do have a problem with someone thinking something is inherently better or more beautiful about someone else's hair color, versus their own. I especially have a problem with people lying about their color because they think something is characteristically undesirable about what they naturally have. That is what I think is really sad.)
And its not just celebrities, I've heard this same B.S. from honestly dozens of my girlfriends. Once in my past life I even hosted a Mary Kay Party and I had to submit to the representative in advance all of the guests' hair/skin/eye colors so she could bring the appropriate makeup colors that would look the most natural on each of us. One woman who is, I'm not kidding, decidedly brunette- and I would even characterize her hair as dark brown- responded COMPLETELY SERIOUSLY that she was "blonde." I called her out, laughing my head off, and her defense was of course, "I AM blond! When I was a kid my hair was totally blond! In the summer after a beach vacation, there are some blond highlights in my hair!"
Well, friend, you're not a kid anymore. And I've seen you in the summer...your hair is brown year-round.
Nice try.
I could not understand the reason for her denial and why she was literally grabbing at straws to try to identify herself as something she's not. Its frustrating and confusing, especially because I think her hair is absolutely beautiful. I would kill for her volume and natural waviness. But apparently, it just wasn't good enough for her to accept and her wishful-thinking became more real to her than what was plainly reflected in the mirror.
The frustration I feel about this ridiculously common situation is described excellently by someone I respect immensely: Tina Fey.
She discussed this subject with her characteristic wit in her memoir Bossy Pants, as follows:
"Let's talk about the hair. Why do I call it 'yellow' hair and not 'blond' bair? because I'm sure everybody calls my hair 'brown.' When I read fairy tales to my daughter I always change the word 'blond' to 'yellow,' because I don't want her to think that blond hair is somehow better.
"My daughter has a reversible doll: Sleeping Beauty on one side and Snow White on the other. I would always set it on her bed with the Snow White side out and she would toddle up to it and flip the skirt over to Sleeping Beauty. I would flip it back and say, 'Snow White is so pretty.' She would yell, 'No!' and flip it back. I did this experiment so frequently and consistently that I should have applied for government funding. The result was always the same. When I asked her why she didn't like Snow White, she told me, 'I don't like her hair.' Not even three years old, she knew that yellow hair is king. And let's admit it, yellow hair does have magic powers. You could put a blond wig on a water heater and some dude would try to **** it. Snow White is better looking. I hate to stir trouble among princesses, but take away the hair and Sleeping Beauty is actually a little beat."
She continues:
"...I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have:
- Caucasian blue eyes
- full Spanish lips
- a classic button nose
- hairless Asian skin with a California tan
- a Jamaican dance hall ass
- long Swedish legs
- small Japanese feet
- the abs of a lesbian gym owner
- the hips of a nine-year-old boy
- the arms of Michelle Obama
- and doll tits.
"Even the Yellowhairs who were once on top can now be found squatting to a Rihanna song in a class called Gary's Glutes Camp in an attempt to reverse-engineer a butt. These are dark times. Back in my Wildwood days with Janet [you'll have to read the whole book to know what she's referring to here, and I highly recommend that you do!], you were either blessed with a beautiful body or not. And if you were not, you could just chill out and learn a trade. Now if you're not 'hot,' you are expected to work on it until you are. It's like when you renovate a house and you're legally required to leave just one of the original walls standing. If you don't have a good body, you'd better starve the body you have down to a neutral shape, then bolt on some breast implants, replace your teeth, dye your skin orange, inject your lips, sew on some hair, and call yourself Playmate of the year."
Long quote, but it is golden. (or should I say, yellow?) I relish every word. She emphasized that this is a global problem, and I agree.
My feeling is that if you're going through the effort of making a doll that wears your particular Eastern religious garb, why does the doll still need to have the racial indicia of the ever-elusive Western ideal? Why can't a young Muslim girl have a doll that dresses like her and looks like her and is considered beautiful (and marketable)?
Speaking of dolls, my attention was recently drawn to the doll company of my childhood, American Girl, when I read I great post by another blogger named Alexandra Petri regarding their apparent change in direction from focusing on fictitious American female historical figures to decidedly upper class modern girls of today. From their website:
Every year, American Girl introduces a brand-new character with a story about finding success in the face of challenges today. From making friends to overcoming mistakes and more, each Girl of the Year discovers something new about herself and the world around her.
This doesn't seem bad on the surface, but look at the trend that this blogger picked up-- as she so perfectly analyzed:
"Here
is the story of McKenna, the 2012
American Girl of the year: 'Ten-year-old McKenna Brooks has always
excelled in school and in gymnastics. So when her grades suddenly fall, McKenna
begins to doubt herself. With the help of a new friend, McKenna learns to focus
on her strengths to overcome her challenges, one step at a time. But just as
she begins to shine in school, McKenna is sidelined with a gymnastics injury.
Will McKenna be able to springboard to success again?'
"Maybe,
as the Atlantic
piece suggests, this is because Mattel now owns the American Girl dolls and
is reshaping the brand in response to consumer demand.
"Maybe
we get the dolls we deserve. After all, the redirection has been to shape them
in our own image. You can wear what Saige (yes, SAIGE) is wearing. Saige, in turn, will
have no more adventure than is readily available to you. You can indulge in a
spa day! A spa day, with Saige. No more trekking across the prairie or dealing
with wartime rationing.
"But
is it choice or marketing? Maybe if they made more of an effort to sell us on
history, we’d buy it.
"You
grow up with your dolls and through your dolls (or action figures, or stuffed
animals, or whatever is your drug of choice). You use them to navigate
miniature worlds. Limiting the range of their canonical adventures to the
present-day, first-world problems of these little girls who are Just Like You
is a big mistake. Sure, maybe you picked your first American Girl doll because
she resembled you – actually
a lot has been written on this – but the whole point was to give you
an entry point to history. Felicity or Samantha or Addy reminded you that, during
the Civil War and the Revolutionary War and all the fascinating important times
of history, there were Girls Almost But Not Quite Like You. You could see
yourself in history! You could engage with the biggest moments of the past!
"In 'Meet Addy,' 'Addy and her mother make a terrifying journey north, holding fast
to their dream that the war will end and one day, their family will be together
again in freedom.' That’s the Civil War, mind you. In 'Meet
Molly,' 'World War Two turns Molly’s family upside down. While her father
is away, war threatens to break out on the McIntires’ home front, too.'
"Contrast
what Saige
is facing: 'Saige Copeland loves spending time on her grandma’s ranch,
riding horses and painting. Her school made the tough choice to cut art
classes, which means she’s lost her favorite subject. So when her grandma
decides to organize a "save the arts” fundraiser and parade to benefit the
school, Saige jumps on board. She begins training her grandma’s beautiful
horse, Picasso, for his appearance in the parade. Then her grandma is injured
in an accident, and she wonders what she can do to help. Can she ride Picasso
in the parade and make her grandma proud? Can Saige still raise money to
protect the arts at school?'
"OH
GOD! NOT THE ARTS BUDGET! THAT’S LIKE WORLD WAR II AND SLAVERY ALL ROLLED INTO
ONE!
"...Now
— actual stories are being replaced with bland, featureless faces. The My
American Girls have spawned a series of books where you fill in the blanks of
her adventures. For instance, in 'Bound For Snow,' 'Readers can imagine
themselves as the main character of this interactive story, a girl who loves to
be outside in wintertime.' Yes, what a stretch of the imagination it is to
pretend to be a girl who loves to be outside in wintertime.
"'She’s teaching
Honey the golden retriever how to pull a dog sled, but the pup just doesn’t
seem to be getting the hang of it.' How tough to put yourself in her shoes. A
golden retriever? But you’ve got a chocolate
Lab! What a great exercise.
"There’s
also 'Braving The Lake' — in which, spoiler alert, 'Readers can imagine
themselves as the main character, a girl who loves swimming at the pool but is
terrified of the lake.' (Remember when Addy escaped from ACTUAL SLAVERY?)
"Dolls
Just Like Us. Is this really what we want? The image is embarrassing —
privileged, comfortable, with idiotic-sounding names and few problems that a
bake sale wouldn’t solve. Life comes to them in manageable, small bites,
pre-chewed. No big adventures. No high stakes. All the rough edges are sanded
off and the Real Dangers excluded. It’s about as much fun as walking around in
a life vest.
"Yes,
I know there are plenty worse toys out there. Still, it pangs. These dolls were
once a stand-out.
"Of
course, that’s history. We’ve moved past that."
One of the most disappointing things about not making an effort to involve our girls in history, is that history is teeming
with brilliant female role models WHO WERE REAL PEOPLE! The conundrum
is, now that traditional gender roles are evolving and women arguably
have more freedom now than at any other point in the history of the
world, it is only now in modern Western society that we are building
these insurmountable barriers for ourselves that emphasize exactly the
things that the feminist revolution is NOT about- namely being objectified because of our sex and not being valued for our intelligence and abilities, but only being valued for our looks.
I
recently researched an amazing woman from recent history who has made
it into far too few textbooks and classroom discussions, particularly if
we want to teach our young ladies about their marvelous capabilities.
PART 2- Real Heroes
Now SHE was a real hero! I could not believe that I had never heard of her. She's like the definition of Bad Ass! In fact, there's a humorous little piece written about her from a goofy little website called Bad Ass of the Week. It summarizes her accomplishments in a very unique way ;)
"Freedom is the only thing worth living
for. While I was doing that work,
I used to think it didn't matter if I died, because without freedom there was no point in living."
I used to think it didn't matter if I died, because without freedom there was no point in living."
And,
"I don’t see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.”
That's sure a heck of a lot more insightful than, How can I get the labrador puppy to get the hang of pulling the dog sled before Winter Break is over?!
From Ms. Wake's BBC Eulogy after her death in 2011, at the age of 98(!):
Mrs
Wake was one of the most highly decorated Allied secret agents of World War II.
Born
in New Zealand but raised in Australia, she is credited with helping hundreds
of Allied personnel escape from occupied France.
The
German Gestapo named her the "White Mouse" because she was so
elusive.
Okay- she's officially the COOLEST person ever!
In
the war, she was credited with saving the lives of hundreds of Allied soldiers
and downed airmen between 1940 and 1943 by escorting them through occupied
France to safety in Spain.
She
helped establish communication lines between the British military and the
French Resistance in 1944 that were deemed crucial to weakening German strength
in France in advance of the Allied invasion.
By
her own account she once killed a German sentry with her bare hands, and
ordered the execution of a woman she believed to be a German spy.
“I
was not a very nice person,” Ms. Wake told an Australian newspaper in 2001.
“And it didn’t put me off my breakfast.”
Ms.
Wake received so many medals for her wartime service, she said, that she lived
out her old age on the proceeds from their sale.
She
was given the George Medal, Britain’s second-highest civilian honor, and the
Medal of Freedom, the United States’ second-highest. France gave her the Legion
d’Honneur, the highest military honor it bestows.
She
once described herself — as a young woman — as someone who loved nothing more
than “a good drink” and handsome men, “especially French men.”
The
German military described her as “la souris blanche,” or “the white mouse,” for
her ability to elude capture.
Between
1940 and 1944 she had close calls but always managed to give her pursuers the
slip, her biographer, Peter FitzSimons, said Monday in a radio interview in
Australia.
In
film documentaries and in her 1985 autobiography, “The White Mouse,” Ms. Wake
said she underwent a kind of personal metamorphosis during the war, from the
fun-loving girl of her youth to the Resistance fighter she became.
It
began, she said, with a visit to Vienna in the mid-1930s as a freelance
journalist. There, she saw roving Nazi gangs randomly beating Jewish men and
women in the streets.
Those
attacks made her promise herself that “if ever the opportunity arose, I would
do everything I could” to stop the Nazi movement, she said. “My hatred of the
Nazis was very, very deep.”
The
opportunity arose.
...She
became a courier and then an escort for Allied soldiers and refugees trying to
leave the country.
...In
1943, when occupation authorities became aware of her activities, she fled
France. Her husband, who stayed behind, was later arrested and executed.
Ms.
Wake found her way to England and was accepted for training by the British Special
Operations Executive, or S.O.E., an intelligence group working with the
French Resistance. In April 1944, when she was 31, she was among 39 women and
430 men who were parachuted into France to help with preparations for D-Day.
There
she collected night parachute drops of weapons and ammunition and hid them in
storage caches for the advancing allied armies, set up wireless communication
with England and harassed the enemy.
“I
was never afraid,” she said. “I was too busy to be afraid.”
She
did not have affairs, she insisted in a 1987 Australian documentary. “And
in my old age, I regret it,” she said. “But you see, if I had accommodated one
man, the word would have spread around, and I would have had to accommodate the
whole damn lot!”
What a firecracker! I would so love to have her over for dinner and hear stories from her life!
Oh, and she was beautiful.
And brunette :)
Well, we're not still fighting the Nazis for the preservation of freedom and diverse humankind. But it seems like we are fighting ourselves over nearly the same things- for the freedom to be a brunette for crying out loud; for the respect of good, smart, capable people who are deemed ugly, overweight, big-nosed, freckled, or whatever! It seems to me that in today's society, we focus more on looks than on character; more on resume bullet points than on integrity and courage. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Being coddled and sheltered from life and made to conform to some false reality is not making anyone better, it is just making us the same. The same, fake, boring, soul-less, selfish, entitled lemmings. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh. But I believe life is to be lived and appreciated and made your own, not to be spent trying to adapt yourself to someone else's unreliably subjective vision of "perfection."
PART 3- Taking a Stand
One photographer/mother recently realized the absence of decent female role models and the over-emphasis on wanting to be the stunning Disney princess with a cush lifestyle in a castle.
In her own words from her blog post just this month:
"So my amazing daughter, Emma,
turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative
inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young
girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95%
of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like
a Disney Princess. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Disney Princesses, from their
beautiful dresses, perfect hair, gorgeous voices and most with ideal love
stories in the mix you can’t help but become entranced with the characters. But
it got me thinking, they’re just characters, a writers tale of a princess (most
before 1998)…an unrealistic fantasy for most girls (Yay Kate Middleton!).
It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better.
It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better.
"My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a
country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even
President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the
value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now
have everything. We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was
her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who
have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over
the world……..so let’s set aside the Barbie Dolls and the Disney Princesses for
just a moment, and let’s show our girls the REAL women they can be."
Here's some of her lovely photographs, including replicas of iconic photographs of Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Earheart:
Hallelujah for mothers and other caretakers, teachers, and nurturers who dare to think outside of the box. Even though I am Anglo-Saxon in every sense of the word, my mom got me a Black cabbage patch doll as a toddler, and I can never thank her enough for doing that. I loved that baby doll more than anything and I think that learning to love things and people who are different from you is an excellent first step in breaking free of the implicit biases and baseless standards of Western beauty.
PART 4- We Can Do It!
I came across this AMAZING story of young women in Africa inventing a...wait for it...Urine-powered generator! What the?? Brilliant! What is the one thing that there will always be an abundance of so long as humans exist, that will likely not be subject to corrupt market pricing or supply & demand, cannot be hogged by war lords, comes from a renewable source, takes literally no electric or other power to create, is recycled, and is absolutely FREE...your pee. Whoa. [mind blown.]
These creative your ladies were highlighted by an organization I greatly appreciate called The Girl Effect (Also they have a great graphic designer; I love all their stuff: )
The original article from the Global Press Institute and written by Temitayo Olofinlua on February 8, 2013, including the following excerpts:
"LAGOS,
NIGERIA – When teenager Adebola Duro-Aina read a story online during July 2012
about nine members of a family dying from a generator’s carbon monoxide fumes,
she says she thought about what she could do to provide a safer energy
alternative.
"I
was sad about how people died while trying to provide electricity for
themselves, trying to make their living better," Adebola says from the
chemistry laboratory of Doregos Private Academy, a junior and senior secondary
school in Lagos, a city on Nigeria’s southwestern coast...
"Adebola
says that when the next academic year began during September 2012, she enlisted
three friends, Oluwatoyin Faleke, Eniola Bello and Abiola Akindele, all
students between 14 and 15 years old in her science class. They decided to
design a generator that ran off an alternative fuel that wouldn’t harm users.
"With
the help of their teachers, the girls worked on the project after school for
months, Adebola says. They finished constructing a urine-powered generator in
time for the Maker Faire Africa, an annual pan-African conference of
handicrafters, which took place in Lagos during November 2012.
"Four
teenage girls invented the urine-powered generator as a safer and more
sustainable solution to Nigeria’s failing electricity system. The after-school
project sparked interest nationally and internationally after its exhibit at
Maker Faire Africa. Although Nigeria’s electricity levels peaked during
December 2012, Nigerians says that service is still unreliable. The girls hope
to partner with larger companies to produce the alternative generator on a mass
scale, although some say it’s too bulky, expensive and unrealistic to solve
Nigeria’s electricity challenges.
Only
50 percent of Nigerians had access to electricity during 2009, according to the
U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent statistics and analysis
group. This left approximately 76 million people without electricity.
There
were power outages for about 46 days per year, lasting on average almost six
hours, during 2007 and 2008, according to the World Bank.
Adebola
and her friends wanted to manufacture a generator that would use alternative
energy sources, she says. [And to combat their country's on-going fuel scarcity and rationing.]
And they did it; so proud of them!
May ingenuity and integrity become more important for our girls than their hair color or bra size- I can only pray. And for the sake of my brilliant baby niece, I do pray for this, and I'm already planning on ways to help her see her full potential as a human being, as a woman, and as a world citizen.
Let's bolster our young women by fostering their development of positive internal attributes and hopefully make a change in the implicit racism, objectification of women, materialism, and vanity that is sweeping the globe.
Next time you see a little girl, don't just tell her, "I like your dress, its so pretty," ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, or what her favorite subject in school is. Teach her about great role models and, most importantly, BE a role model. Children watch ever so closely; let them catch you in acts of humanity.
---
Dedicated to Gwendolyn Ruth & Chelsie Eleanor, two beautiful women with the power to change the world. I hope to be worthy of their admiration.
Originally published on scatterthesunshine.blogspot.com in May 2013.
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