{"id":7722,"date":"2011-06-15T21:48:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T05:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.godammit.com\/?p=7722"},"modified":"2011-06-15T21:48:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T05:48:00","slug":"the-tyranny-of-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/the-tyranny-of-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tyranny of Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

This photo in the Daily Mail<\/a> is accompanied by the tragic story of twins who have suffered from anorexia for twenty years. \u00a0It’s a disturbing story that touches on sibling rivalry, parental enabling, and the failure of all mechanisms to heal the victims of our culture’s obsession with beauty.<\/p>\n

If you read the story, you’ll notice images on the right-hand side of the page, mostly celebrities chosen by the Daily Mail to ridicule for their weight gain, plastic surgery or cankles. \u00a0The message is clear: There is no escape from the search for physical perfection. No escape and no winning either.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a photography exhibit called Beauty and Culture<\/a> that examines the many ways that images work to influence our concept of beauty. The exhibit featured a short documentary that was truly devastating. Five year old beauty queens, cancer survivors, ancient women still trying to look young, and a history of evolving thinness in fashion models…it leaves you sickened by the shit we go through to measure up to a stupid restrictive ideal of beauty.<\/p>\n

The documentary points out that only 2 percent of women are built like fashion models. Why do these models have so much power over us?!<\/p>\n

You know the “It Gets Better” campaign for gays? We also need a campaign for women that says:YOU LOOK FINE! Maybe if we were reminded 100 times a day that we are okay as we are, we could forget about the size of our butts.<\/p>\n

When we left the exhibit, my friend and I looked for somewhere to have coffee. We found a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, where they display calorie counts with their pastries. Naturally, I freaked out and ordered a reduced-calorie muffin, because no matter what I know intellectually, deep down in my psyche I’m an unlovable fat pig.<\/p>\n

I would like to thank Vogue, Glamour, the fashion industry and most of all my dad, who loved to drive around shouting “Look at the fat ass on that one!” I can relate to those poor \u00a0emaciated \u00a0twins, even though I’m a normal size. Accepting \u00a0yourself \u00a0can be a lifelong project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"