I am known amongst my friends to be the one who is always going on and on about how the media perpetuates the poor body image of perfectly healthy young women. It's possibly my favorite thing to talk about; it makes me mad. This year's October issue of Glamour Magazine got me started on exactly one of those rants. It features an article on finding pants that are flattering for your body shape. It claims to gives pants-buying advice for everyone (female, at least).
Here is the online version of the article - http://www.glamour.com/fashion/2010/09/how-to-find-the-best-pants-for-your-body-shape#slide=1
I have two problems with this article:
1.) As you click through the slides you will notice that the body shapes included are: plus-size, boy-shaped, tall, and petite. That's it. Apparently there are no other body shapes...only four. Now, I understand that it would be next to impossible to come up with an exhaustive list of all the body shapes in the world. Not only that, but imagine all the space in the magazine that would take up. Still, something about the format needs to change. For starters, I wouldn't describe myself as any of those four. I'm not plus size; I'm not tall; I'm too curvy to be considered boy-shaped or petite. So how do I know which pants will flatter me? In the section on pants for boy-shaped women (which is, by the way, a use of terminology which could have me ranting for days) it's recommended that you get pants which are narrower at the waist than in the leg. In the section on pants for petite women it's recommended that you wear super-skinny styles. So what is a petite, boy-shaped (wow I hate that term) woman supposed to do? What about women who are pear-shaped, etc.? I'm not mad at the magazine...I feel like they're trying to be inclusive and acknowledge that a lot of variety exists in the bodies of women. I just don't think the possible consequences are being considered.
Not every girl who doesn't fit into one of these categories is going to get all ranty (new word?) and mad. Some of them are going to take that to heart. What if I decided that there was something wrong with my body because it doesn't look like any of the options listed? One thing Glamour could possibly consider would be changing the article to being about the pants instead of the bodies. Tell me what wide-leg pants do to the line of my figure, and I'll decide if I want that to happen. Tell me that dark jeans are slimming and I'll decide if I want to be slimmed. This way they could avoid categorizing women altogether.
2.) Here's the main reason I have a problem with these kinds of articles, though. They're implying that there is something wrong with some of these body types. They're offering ways to "fix" the way women are...when in reality all body types can be beautiful and there's no such thing as one definition of beauty. In the section on pants for plus-size women, the pants are supposed to "slim" and make you look "long and lean" and "sleek." Well what if not everyone wants to look long and lean? Why should a petite girl be trying to "lend the illusion of more height?" What's wrong with being short? Is it ugly to be short? No. It's not. They're sending the message that your goal in getting dressed should be to try to look different than you do. Silly.
There are definitely women out there who want to look taller, thinner, curvier, etc. But maybe it's articles like this that make them think that way. Maybe if they hadn't already read a million times how to look thinner, they wouldn't feel so much pressure to do so. These articles are perpetuating this idea that there is one best way to look. But that's not up to Glamour to dictate.
Absolutely no one can decide for you what you want to be; the media should stop trying.
That's all...
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