Tyra Banks, celebrity and former supermodel, was photographed at her post-modeling weight and received a lot of ugly publicity, full of disparaging comments about her body. Despite a life of fame for the beauty of her body, she told the world that the fat comments hurt her feelings. Maybe because of a life of accolades for her beauty, Tyra was able to shift gears quickly from feeling hurt to feeling angry.
She embarked on a campaign called “So What!” to challenge women’s self-hatred about their bodies. Rather than limit her argument to why women should love their bodies, she also argues that even if there are aspects of our bodies we don’t adore, we can claim “so what!”
This shouldn’t be such a revolutionary idea, but it is. 80% of American women look in the mirror within the first few minutes of waking up and are disappointed with what they see. There are at least two troubling elements to this statistic. Firstly, that 80% of women are unhappy with how they look. That is a significant majority. And secondly, that given their disappointment with their appearance, they chose to start each day with a reminder of their disappointment.
If it isn’t bad enough that millions of American women start their day with a feeling of disappointment, it doesn’t end there. They then go on to judge the success of their day based on their ability to restrict their food intake, berating themselves with shame if they betray their weight-loss diet. This, despite what other accomplishments their day may have held. Then, by the end of the day, these women, whether powerful company CEO’s, or mothers successfully raising strong, happy children, go on to judge their success or failure as a person, not on their lives’ work, not on their personhood, but on their weight.
Sound extreme? Take a closer look at women’s magazines: with their endless articles about weight loss and self-esteem, weaving them together, convincing us that increased self-esteem is intrinsically linked to weight loss. Listen to women eating together: their endless commentary excusing and explaining what they are and are not going to eat. Peer into your own internal dialogue: how often do you degrade versus compliment your appearance?
Women judging their bodies is hardly a new thing. But weren’t we supposed to have "come a long way " already?
Maybe like Tyra, we too are ready to turn our despair about our bodies from feeling hurt to feeling angry.
After years of efforts to try to support a public dialogue about ways to help women let go of body hatred, I never imagined Tyra Banks would be a major player, nor a “so what” attitude be the desired outcome. Both, however, are unexpected treats that I am happy to support.
By: Karen L. Smith, MSS, LCSW
http://www.fullliving.com/tyrabanks.html
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