Hate. It’s an incredibly powerful word that has been the source of conflict and violence for centuries. From an early age, we have been cautioned against this sentiment. We are taught to avoid hate, no matter how deeply we disagree or dislike someone. So why, despite all this caution and warning, do we so often exclude ourselves from this rule?
Recently Notre Dame’s “Love Your Body Week” brought attention to the issues surrounding body image. A week dedicated loving oneself, and promoting positive body images. Lectures and presentations were held across campus, challenging this attitude of self-hatred, and spreading awareness about the sources of poor body image, and low self esteem. So where exactly do these negative body images we project toward ourselves come from? We certainly weren’t born hating our own reflections. One answer, as many of us already know, lies in the unnaturally flawless images of women portrayed in the media today. The key word here is unnatural.
In addressing this issue of the media, author Jean Kilbourne, gave a dynamic, moving speech, ridiculing the ridiculousness of these images. In highlighting the extensive amounts of Photoshop and retouching involved in these images, she demonstrated how fruitless and damaging it is for women and girls to compare themselves to these “paradigms of beauty.” When we pit ourselves against these images, we are just setting ourselves up for dissatisfaction, and unhappiness with our own bodies.
Pretend for a few seconds, that everyone had their own real-life Photoshop, and could bend, contort, reconstruct, and recolor their bodies to match the images they saw on TV or in magazines. What we would find is that, those once perfect images we see in the media, would become the norm, and comparatively average. One can guess that media would continue to slim down, and touch up models until they were unrecognizable as humans. At what point would we, as a society, recognize the absurdity of this definition of beauty, and laugh in the faces of these unrealistic, disproportionate models, rather than trying to recreate them?
Along with Jean, many other people and organizations are launching an attack on this definition of beauty. With campaigns like the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty society is quickly becoming privy to all of this touch-up and imaging. With the dispersion of this knowledge, one question still remains, why, despite knowing the improbability of achieving these images, do women and girls everywhere continue to fall prey to such comparisons? I would like to point an un-manicured, imperfect, human finger at today’s competitive, perfection driven society. A society, in which we are constantly advancing, and striving to make things faster, sleeker, more efficient, and ultimately perfect.
Ultimately, it is our obsession with perfection that drives us to look in the mirror and see not the things we love, but rather, our own flaws. And given our constant connection to media and advertising, why would we be conditioned to think any differently? Every time a new edition or update for a phone is produced, it always promises to be faster, better, and is almost always slimmer and sleeker, deemed more aesthetically pleasing. But within a few weeks, this edition becomes old news, and out-of-date. It’s considered imperfect, chunky, and unwanted. So when we look at ourselves, and compare ourselves against the latest “perfectly retouched images” in the media, we are objectifying ourselves as “old, imperfect technology,” that is flawed and limited.
But is that really what we deserve? To liken ourselves to the old “EnV Touch” and see Victoria’s secret models as the new iPhone? Forgive me for pointing out the obvious here, but I would say that the number one problem with this comparison is that we are human beings, and technology is well, technology. That is like trying to compare buffalo wings to mountain ranges, or Taylor Swift songs to lampposts. You can make these comparisons if you want, but there is nothing inherently similar about the two things, any conclusions are hollow, insignificant, and ridiculous. So we do we continuously make these meaningless comparisons?
Despite the lack of meaning behind these comparisons, people still make them all the time in their aims at perfection. When we live with this perfection driven mindset of comparing ourselves to others, and picking out flaws we will never be truly happy with our own images. We will only look in the mirror and see our blemishes, asymmetry, roles, wrinkles, frizzy hair etc. Ultimately, what we need to do is to realize that there is no “perfect image,” and we can stop striving to achieve unquenchable satisfaction by searching for something that doesn’t exist. The real challenge is to focus on the traits that make us truly beautiful, the things that set us apart from these “perfect images,” which are just images after all. We need to acknowledge our humor, love, compassion, style, charisma, and our other character traits, as the components of our own beauty.
In an attempt to truly love our bodies, I believe we must do a few things, which may seem obvious, but sometimes it is the most obvious things that are the hardest to recognize. First, we need realize beauty is all-relative, and that there is no paradigm or exemplar of beauty. Second, we need to appreciate just how amazing the human body is and just how much our bodies do for us. We need respect and care for them accordingly. Finally we need to look at the way we treat and see our friends and loved as an example for how we should treat ourselves. We are ultimately our own worst critics, and will pick out our own flaws to no end. Now compare this self-criticism to the way you treat your friends and peers. If you judged your friends with the same criticism that you do yourself, odds, are you would not be the most popular, well liked individual, and would be much less happier overall. We have recognized the weight of the word hate when it is directed at others. Now we must recognize it has the same if not greater effect when we direct it at ourselves. So think of this next time you take a look in the mirror and are about to criticize yourself. Focus instead on what you like, and what you appreciate, rather than what you perceive as flaws. Do this and you will learn to love your body, and recognize your own beauty, and in turn develop a beautiful confidence in yourself.