Fasten your seatbelts folks. It's time for a rant. I've had an incredibly busy few days and I'm in a mood.
I admire folks who start their own businesses, work their butts off, and make some decent do-re-mi. Good for them. America was built on the entrepreneurial spirit of folks like that. We must encourage that, celebrate it.
However...
Should we encourage women to feel bad about their bodies?
Should we tell little girls they have to visually lie about their bodies to meet a standard of "beauty" that fashion dictates?
I don't think so.
Bloglovin posted this piece which got my rant motor going: Billionaire Sara Blakely Says This Is The Secret to Success. Really? While I applaud the basic notion of not being afraid of failure, I must point out that she basically just "invented" a modern-day version of the girdle.
Let's look at the name: SPANX. Spanks, spelled with an X. A garment that spanks you.
Spanking = punishment
Who names a product after PUNISHMENT?! A marketing genius. Females are being punished for that ice cream cone, or that extra helping of potatoes. Females who contort their bodies into Spanx are buying into the notion that the worst thing a woman can possibly be is overweight, even by a few pounds. So they must spank themselves.
I can remember seeing my 75 year old grandmother struggle to put on a corset, because to her the notion of going out in public with any part of her body jiggling was APPALLING. Even though I was only 12 years old, I can remember thinking to myself, as God is my witness I will NEVER put myself through that nightmare.
I also remember my grandmother lecturing my mother about not leaving the house without wearing a girdle. I remember my mother buying me a very girdle-like garment and urging me to wear it, when I was a young teenager. I remember vividly how horribly uncomfortable I was every time I wore it. It wasn't a corset, but it was the same principle.
Generations of women have bought into the notion that we have to fit some ideal body image in order to have worth. If we aren't perfectly slim and trim, we are jiggling failures. I've always wondered what happened if a guy thought a woman was slim and trim and then they got back to her place and started making out and he felt all that latex holding her in and realized he had BELIEVED A VISUAL LIE about her. What happens when he realizes he has a normal, insecure woman? A woman who has spanked her flab into submission in her desperation to get a date?
Instantly, a woman has to worry about if she's good enough to sleep with, good enough to date, possibly even good enough to marry.
He has to then wonder what else she has been hiding.
The only way I can conclude this is to say this: ladies, quit spanxing yourselves. Be who you are, in all your imperfect glory. Very few women have perfect bodies. Put down the stupid fashion magazines. Quit listening to anyone telling you that fat = failure. Look at Melissa McCarthy and Rebel Wilson. Let's celebrate our flawed bodies and forgive ourselves. Let's stop teaching our daughters to hate their bodies.
Say it loud: I jiggle and I'm proud!
