Media enterprises in
conjunction with advertisers, product manufacturers, fashion moguls, and
political agents inform the public on the proper roles in which genders should
function. This imagery serves to
form many wires of a bird cage that continue to encourage a bi-gendered society
with clear distinctions between women’s and men’s roles. These wires are based
in historical lifestyles and body image views as well as the encouragement for
women to spend ample amounts of time and energy excelling in each of her
designated tasks, thereby creating a superwoman ideal. In terms of women’s size
and shape standards, past body image ideals as well as current focuses on
femininity, pre-set body sizes, and health enhance the wired web containing
women in their inferior roles in our patriarchal system. The media’s portrayal
of women as needing to remain young, slim, fit, feminine and beautiful limits
the paths in which women can consume sustenance and feel positively about their
bodies; an obsession with “healthfulness” which, with respect to women, more
often refers to thinness and limited food options must leave women satisfied,
hence the collection of pictures in the website “Women Laughing Alone With
Salad” [1].
The Hairpin is a women’s
blog, edited by women, about women, with most content being written by women
for women. It contains witty content, flashy articles and picture collections,
and generally seems to make fun of common portrayals of women, male idiocy, and
humorous interactions between women.
The editor, Edith Zimmerman, compiled a collection of photos of young,
slender women with beautifully whitened teeth, all relaxing alone in a kitchen
or outdoor setting, with a full bowl of salad. Each woman seems to have a look
of pure ecstasy on her face, often times laughing as if the salad just told a
hilarious joke. The photos are aiming to represent the everyday woman, as most
of them show women in gym clothes or fun and casual wear, and appeal to the
average female reader. As a
marketing technique, the advertisers making these photos understand women’s
yearning for a more realistic representation of themselves, an attainable goal,
and it appears as if these photos demonstrate a sense of normalcy.
Surprisingly, the collection represents a racially diverse group of actresses,
but they are all under 40 with tight, wrinkle-free skin, sculpted bodies, and
fabulously bleached teeth. The modern American woman is so often bombarded with
images of skinny, busty, leggy models that a picture of a slightly more
average-looking scenario is celebrated as representing “normalcy.”
The readers of Hairpin
are a slightly more analytical and enlightened group than those traditionally
viewing these images in purchased magazines. Some of their comments are:
Making healthy
choices. Taking care of me. Feeling good. Living good. Healthy and clean. I
like that. For me. Because I matter. Loving myself because someone has to,
right? Who? Oh right, me. Loving me for living good and eating good. Loving
myself. Must. Or at least should. Possibly could if I eat salad. But only
salad.
People tell me.
Instead of living. The life I could live. I eat salads. So I'm healthy.
Therefore I must be happy. Because people say so. But deep inside. Somehow I'm
not. Must eat more salad.
You know what goes really well with salad and laughter? Water. It's
just so light. And refreshing. And guilt-free. Just ask pix 3, 14, 15. And pay
no attention to that pig with the glass of juice in 13. [1]
These commenters touch on points that the average
viewer most likely misses. These pictures are intended to make one feel that
eating salad is very fulfilling; women should be satisfied and feel satiated
after eating salad; being slim and “healthy,” which must go hand and hand, are
the keys to happiness.
Although
the 20th century has been called the “century of svelte,” the
arrival of the 1990s marked an increase in the intensity of dieting as well as
an obsession with exercise and toning. The age when girls began these body
modifications and internal restrictions shifted from about fifteen to nine and
ten. “Middle-class white girls
[now] define perfection as five feet seven inches tall and 100 pounds, and many
long hours at exercise and body sculpting in order to achieve the body of their
dreams” [2]. Dieting is no longer a game played amongst teens, with general
disapproval from parents and guardians, but a widespread socially acceptable
and even encouraged practice.
Restrictive eating, as a response to a fear of fat, has led to a culture
of limited food options for women, with the most dedicated only consuming
vegetables and fruits for the most part; popularized food fads and diets such
as Atkin’s put the fear of carbohydrates and fats in our minds, despite the
fact that these eating styles have been proven to be harmful to the body in the
long run. We are a fast-paced culture and demand immediate results; thus a
long-term consideration of nutrition is set aside for the more immediate
weight-loss option. Salad, being a
somewhat voluminous food, is deceptive to the eye and hopefully the stomach as
well, providing a perfect food alternative with few calories but just enough to
maintain basic human functions.
Susan
Douglas, in her chapter Lean and Mean, states that
the message the media portrays is clear: “your body is your central, critical
resource in establishing your net worth as a female, and if it isn’t like
Giselle [Bundchen]’s, well, aren’t you kind of worthless? Or at least really
deficient?” [3]. The impossible challenge associated with this obsession with
beauty, slimness, and fitness, is that at the same time we must also maintain
“adherence to this forceful, pointed code of femininity” [3]. What is this code that we must adhere
to and why must it be so specific to women? The femininity standard is nothing
more than another media construct, an image ideal that women must aspire to and
work for, because “femininity isn’t inherent—natural or biological” [4]. Myhre
calls this lifestyle “women’s slavery to their appearance” and points out that
society’s view of gender and beauty is based in the notion that the difference
between femininity and masculinity is very clearly defined. Feminism, as
popular culture sees it, and cannot be allowed to resurge; despite our
attraction to muscular women, the very fine line between fitness and
masculinity must not be crossed. The women eating their salads all seem to
represent the pinnacle of femininity, while still maintaining fitness ideals;
the three-pronged beauty regime--femininity, beauty, and thinness—must be
upheld.
The
media insists that we fit a certain standard of beauty, or as Douglas calls it,
“our confinement in Barbie-land” [3]. The evolution of bra manufacturing has
greatly contributed to the need for specific body sizes, rather than designing
clothes to fit a woman. As opposed to mothers making bras for their daughters,
the commercialization of bras and junior figure control demands that all girls
purchase these garments, which are often expensive. “With the store-bought
clothes, the body had to fit instantaneously into standard sizes that were
constructed from patterns representing a norm” [2]. Eating salad does not only
keep the body in a specific shape and size so that it can fit into generic
standards, it also represents a method of fitting into a behavioral standard
that society imposes in a similar way. A widespread weight obsession brings
with it a homogenization of female consumption behavior, thus forcing women
into labeled spheres such as thin, overweight, and obese.
The
women making those statements above in response to the Hairpin website seem to
be expressing Douglas’ form of female solidarity, by “sharing…woes over this
aspect of being female, our entrapment by these standards of physical
perfection,” (“this aspect” alludes to the semi-emaciated models of fashion
magazines) [3]. There is an underlying sense of anger and resentment in their
statements, an understanding that despite the modern view of having equal
rights, they are still forced to mold to the male ideal and live under a
patriarchal view of the body. These discontented feelings have yet to result in
an adequate response from the female community, however, and women instead
continue to feel this discontent about their own bodies. In order to further
torture the female psyche, media campaigns, perhaps in response to the alarming
rates of model deaths from starvation, are now persuading women to love their bodies
just as they are, supposedly without modification. This new message, however,
is completely contradictory to the majority of media campaigns and social
pressures encouraging small body sizes. Models in push-up bras and
tightly-fitted outfits help sell products and advertise lifestyles that the
general public is supposed to crave.
Yet women should love their God-given bodies to prevent bad press and
liability issues. The underlying message is that one should openly express
acceptance of all body types while covertly taking steps to transform into the
societal body ideal--a size two.
These
images, if placed in health magazines, can be used to encourage healthier
lifestyles, which is a positive message for all genders. Healthy living and
slimness can be correlated, but this idea does not shine enough light on
different body types that, despite exercise and eating habits, will never be
able to fit those single digit sizes. On the other side of the spectrum there
are some women who will never have significant breasts, despite all of the
figure transforming devices available in the market. Rather than placing such
emphasis on women (and only women) eating salad and extremely small meals with
very low calorie counts, a focus on health living could encourage more
wholesome, nutritious meals, and plenty of them throughout the day to keep
metabolisms from slowing. Women’s magazines and media outlets are trying to use
this healthy living route as a guise for their steadfast message of thinness,
which “is the true progressive position for women (because it’s healthy—don’t
you love it?)” [3]. The drastic rise in obesity in this country in recent year
provides media images of skinny, young, “healthy” women the perfect atmosphere
to be accepted and embraced. Obsessing over one’s body until muscularity and
thinness are achieved can be encouraged as the perfect way to combat obesity;
in a society where fear of fatness and heart disease is so omnipresent, people
are wary of attacking the unattainable skinny-woman ideal without risking being
labeled as bitter and overweight.
The
cage surrounding women’s diets and body size continues to suppress their
ability to engage in health measures that are nutritious but potentially seen
as masculine or unfeminine. Women are supposed to be satisfied with their
circumstances and limited options, and any discontent felt about their roles
are turned inward in the form of depression and self-esteem concerns. There is
a great potential for women to respond aggressively to the media’s constricting
measures and to empower women to create their own body size, shape, and look.
Through collecting the media’s imagery and portraying them in a humorous and
ridiculous way, hopefully women ca become more enlightened and wary of media
outlets and demand acceptance.
[1] Edith, Zimmerman.
"Women Laughing Alone With Salad." The Hairpin. http://thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with-salad.
[2]
Brumberg, Joan. The Body Project: An Intimate
History of American Girls.
N.p.: Vintage, 1998.
[3] Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism. New York: Times Books, 2010.
[4] Myhre, Jennifer. "One Bad Hair Day
Too Many." In Listen Up, Barbara Findlen, Emeryville, CA: Seal
Press, 2001.
I found the attached website to be funny, yet at the same time, sadly true. We all know that our media and society projects an idea of the feminine body that is, most of the time, unattainably thin. Therefore, many of us strive to fit this ideal in a tireless, life-long effort. The idea that women eat salad is, in my opinion, not at all a myth. In fact, I sometimes bitterly call friends of mine “salad eaters” when our whole table at Frank Dining Hall consists of thin young women eating the least satisfying meal options presented. Honestly, seeing this makes me question my own eating habits. Although I’ll go for the entrĂ©e more often than not, the ‘salad-eating’ female culture can wear down on those of us who appreciate a full meal. Obviously, I think most of us are all for healthy eating choices, but I can’t help but think that there is something wrong when pressures put on women drive them to call a bowl of spinach leaves dinner.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading about your analysis of "Women Laughing Alone with Salad." It's the first hairpin article that I came across and the more I kept scrolling through the different stock photos, the more fulfilling eating salad seemed. It seems really silly, but there's a reason why there are so many stock photos of women laughing alone with salad. The message that eating salad will make you happy and light is so simple but it's amazingly effective, at least after looking at multiple images of happy women eating salad. One of the reasons why I enjoy reading the Hairpin is because of articles like these. Another interesting article is "Women Struggling to Drink Water."
ReplyDeletehttp://thehairpin.com/2011/11/women-struggling-to-drink-water
Merci beaucoup pour cette tuto, il est vraiment utile
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