DOUBLE POST BECAUSE THIS IS A TOPIC I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT
I also think that people have an incorrect view of the media's influence on how women view their bodies. It is not so much the media pushes that "this standard is attractive" but more it reinforces the idea that "this standard is what's normal." Television, magazines, movies, ads portray, generally, one type of woman. Like the Doll Maker that Elle posted before, you could change the hair and eye and skin color, you could dress it up in different clothes, but that foundation was always the same. When girls are only ever exposed to one structure of woman, they associate that with normalcy. Anything that deviates from that standard deviates from normalcy. So it is not even "I am not beautiful because I don't look like that" it is "I am not normal because I do not look like that."
The problem is that we equate television/etc media with real life. If everything you were exposed to growing up that masqueraded itself as a reflection of reality showed people with three arms, even if the majority of people did not have three arms, you would see three arms as being correct. And if you had two arms, you would feel "incorrect."
(off topic: People of color face the same dilemma because the media is predominately white. So white, at least in western nations, is seen as "the default" skin color).
also gosh sorry if that was all jumbled SO TIRED.
I agree so much. I'm going to talk about Tumblr here, because I feel like it needs to be said. I see so many pictures of for example Victoria's Secret models, other models who are skinnier than most ladies out there, and the captions I see underneath the pictures are incredibly sad. Things like ''I'll never look like them'', ''I wish I looked like them'' ''They're so skinny they're perfect'' etc, I could go on for days and this is not even the worst I've seen. Sure, they're beautiful but they do set the wrong example of beauty. I've even seen pictures of girls with their hipbones out, ribcage noticable and collarbones sticking out way more than you would see on the average woman. Again, the captions are like this. It's really sad, because women come in all shapes and sizes, yet model-like thin or even thinner is portrayed as normal. If you're, for example, shorter and thicker, like you said they won't see themselves as normal.
But, there's also another side I see on there. Thicker girls, curvy girls. They will also say the same things about those girls ''They're perfect'', etc. When they stumble upon a picture of a skinnier girl they will bash them for being too skinny, being too flat everywhere, etc because curvy and thick is normal to them. Both are wrong in my opinion, because like I said, women come in all shapes and sizes, there is NO such thing as ''the perfect body'', and there is no such thing as an ''abnormal body''.
Kind of crazy when I type this because when you stumble upon someone who has their story to tell about being overweight, they will be praised for standing up to people and being proud of themselves (which is a good thing, absolutely) but when an underweight girl does it they will bash them for being an attention seeker. Ah, girls.
Both these types of girls will try anything to achieve one of these types of bodies, because they think that is normal, it's something you have to do, which I think is really sad. Sure, it's okay if you want to be healthy, if you want to exercise and want to follow a healthier diet, but some take it to the extreme. And like I said before, unless your health is in danger you absolutely need to do something about it.
