What is a "Real" Woman?

I spent a portion of my day today when I wasn't working on things at the office, thinking about what defines a real woman.  Most of my musing was brought about by this facebook post, where users were discussing that exact topic in the comments section.  Most of the comments were down-to-earth and well-meaning, but I think a few people there totally let the meaning fly over their heads and crash into the mountainside behind them.

To me, a real woman isn't a personality genre so much as a physical genre, and to say you are a real woman means that you are not trying in vain to conform yourself to the "norm" that our society and the media want you to believe is the "right and true."  The idea of being a real woman means that you have found an inner peace within yourself (you might liken it to a zen, of sorts,) and have determined yourself to break down those social barriers that were put up in the first place.  Much like a bull in a china shop, those walls have to come tumbling down if you ever want to make peace with yourself and begin to fully love who you are as a person, regardless of your age, size, color, creed, sexuality, or otherwise.  This is important, not only because it teaches tolerance of yourself as well as others, but it means that this idea can be used not only for "Adipositivity", but for everything else under the sun, as well. 

In order to fully understand what those social barriers are, we must look at how the rest of the world perceives them, try to understand the reasoning behind their ideals, and make the case for why they aren't what reality is.  There's a bit of history, some science and lots of learning this time, so come to class with your thinking caps on.  Let's get started. :)




1.  FIRST CONCEPT OF IDEAL BEAUTY
Before we even attempt to discuss our modern-day preferences in regards to beauty, we must understand the first recorded ideal theory of beauty - the golden ratio.  It wasn't even applied to human beauty, really, until the Renaissance, when art and science invaded everyone's daily life, and the whole meaning of what is beautiful really changed.

Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man displays the use of Golden Ratio in the human body.

The golden ratio was an idea borne of the marriage of mathematics and beauty.  Pre-Socratic scholars such as Pythagoras (you may remember him from the Pythagorean Theorem, by chance?) wanted to have a scientific reasoning behind why certain things at certain ratios seemed more attractive.  During their studies and theory-crafting, the golden ratio emerged, and it was incorporated into architecture and art.  During the renaissance period, this idea was rediscovered, and women began searching for that ideal form of beauty quite fiercely.  Prior to this (the Gothic Period), however, these ideas were considered sinful.  More on this subject (as well as the rest of the history of "beauty", for those of you who are a bit TL;DR today) can be found here. 

2. BEAUTY IN THE HUMAN FORM
Remember the Theory of Evolution?  Well, there's a Theory of Attractiveness...  The cousin of Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, determined that if he progressively layered images of the faces of criminals and vegetarians, the composite image was more attractive than the individuals.  He had originally completed the study to determine whether the two groups had any identifying facial features that could be applied to their classifications of either being a criminal or a vegetarian. This meant that, as a species, we are more genetically predisposition-ed to be attracted to average features; and it makes sense because if we weren't attracted to something that has a historically successful track record when it comes to survival of the fittest, then our offspring may not be able to survive.  Unfortunately, what this also means is that we now have a standard for comparison... and we all know what happens next...

3. WHEN SOCIETY (and media) DICTATES BEAUTY
Now that we have a standard idea of what is beautiful, we can now begin to resent others for it... Wait... that's not what I wanted to say at all... What I meant was that, as long as we have a standardized idea of ideal beauty, we will begin to hate ourselves when we cannot make ourselves meet that set of criteria.  As a species, we are very analytical and critical of ourselves and others, which makes for a mountain of issues when it comes to how the media and society portrays what they believe to be the "ideal".

The Gibson Girl was one of the earliest-known representations of modern beauty.

Let's take the Gibson Girl, for example.  She was purportedly a member of high society, always well-dressed, equal to men, very buxom, and strikingly beautiful.  Her image was plastered all over EVERYTHING.  Her silhouette could ONLY be achieved by wearing a swan-bill corset, which not everyone could afford (although it was a fashion staple during the 19th and early 20th centuries,) and yet she didn't exist.  She was a creation, by artist Charles Dana Gibson, who used many models to create this lovely lady; and as much as we'd like to think that she was not an inspiration to women, she actually was!  She didn't participate in any suffrage movements, and she was quite often depicted as being dominant over her male counterparts.  Gibson stated on many occasions, however, that he felt his Gibson Girl represented all American women.  I'd like to see a fat one.  After the Victorian age, when we were just starting to get over World War 1 and into World War 2 (and beyond), the American public began to lose sight of the Gibson Girl and move on to more... curvaceous ideals...

During the 40s and 50s, most advertisements had something to do with full-figured women.  Curves were everywhere.  Then again, most of their bodies were covered up, and women still wore undergarments like long-line bras or flattering briefs.  We still do today, but our society at large tends to want to ogle more skin and less fabric, and our rolls tend to stick out more.

Pinup girls were seen most often than not as very buxom, curvy women, thick-thighed and healthy.  Due to the style of fashion and the overwhelming desire for modesty, bikinis didn't usually exist, and a lot was left to the imagination.  There was a desire for someone that showed those types of curves (and there still is, to a point now) because it showed fertility and health.
Marilyn Monroe is probably one of the most well-known voluptuous models. (OK, well maybe Betty Page is quite possibly more well known?)  Saying her name evokes feelings of beauty, sexuality and femininity more-so than any other that could come to mind.  She was active as a model and actress well into the 60s before her untimely death, but it was another name that ultimately changed how the media and society thinks of us.

Twiggy was the first supermodel to express what would ultimately become the norm in the fashion and beauty industries.  She was (and still is, 40 years later) very pretty, despite being very androgynous.  Her legs were a mile long, and she was incredibly thin.  It is my personal belief that a lot of the issues we have today stem from where fashion went after this point, but I don't directly blame Twiggy or those who discovered her for the dysfunction that is the media's predisposition on size.  There were plenty of models in the 60s and early 70s that still fit the molds set before her, and there continue to be today, but one can't help but think that Twiggy was the Pandora's Box of size-ism.  The trend of rail-thin, waiflike, and anorexic models (Twiggy was not anorexic) has continued up to today, although many countries and companies are beginning to ban their use all together, not just because it's unhealthy being so small (the same can be said for the extremely overweight,)  but because many have died trying to meet the demands of the fashion designers, whose clothing is ever-increasingly shrinking and prompting the modeling agencies to demand smaller women (and men) to model their clothing.

Yes, the picture above depicts real models and actresses.  At least one of them is no longer with us.  Anorexia Nervosa kills so many, and while there have been success stories regarding curing this horrible condition, the fact remains that until we change our distorted views on what is beautiful, this type of negative imagery will continue to exist in mainstream media.  It can almost be said that if you want to be the perfect woman in the eyes of the media, you should try your hardest to not exist... and that's what the images above show us is most definitely happening.  Women are starving themselves to the point of where they are almost nothing, and that is a damn shame.  The Health at Every Size movement clearly shows that you don't have to be a certain size to be healthy, let alone beautiful, and being that small clearly shows (based on the track record so far!) that there comes a point where you will die from dieting.

The video above shows how the media is distorting the images of women in the public eye.  It shows how the media wants you to be, not how you should see yourself.  There is no way that any of us can reach that level of perfection, no matter how hard we try.  Everyone is unique and everyone has flaws.  EVERY ONE OF YOU IS A REAL WOMAN, and you are loved.  A real woman is who you ARE, right now at this very moment.  You can break through these barriers.  Once you do, you'll come to love yourself so much more and feel so much better about yourself.

Please comment and share your stories below.  I'd absolutely love to read them.

LINKBOMBS!

http://www.iwillnotdiet.com(really cute blog with some really nice entries)
http://www.squidoo.com/influence-of-media-on-children
http://www.patricedickey.com/media/life-coach-articles/radical-forgiveness (this could really be applied to everything, not just what's written in the article)
http://www.ejc.net/magazine/article/body_dysmorphic_disorder_does_media_play_a_role/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/human-biology/body-dysmorphic-disorder3.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/shortcuts/2011/dec/07/fashion-industry-fake-women-bodies
http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/02/14/20120214arizona-bill-takes-aim-airbrushed-women-ads.html
https://www.msu.edu/~devrie69/mediasurvey06/airbrushing.htm