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meg fowler tripp dot com
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “in a HEARTBEAT.”.
I think …
… Kate Winslet is a knockout AND a smart, talented woman. At any size.
… you are right on about Cosmo. Speaking as a reformed Cosmo junkie, this magazine is just the epitome of all the contradictory, crazy-making women’s magazines out there.
… this Fatshionista thread perfectly illustrates how conflicted we as women and as a society are about women’s bodies.
… you are perfectly gorgeous looking like this woman.
The irony of Cosmo (and magazines like it) is that women have replaced men in the objectification of women gambit. If you look at the masthead for these magazines, nearly everyone, right up to the editor-in-chief, is a woman.
Now, there are plenty of men objectifying women in Maxim, FHM and, you know, a bit of online pr0n, but I’m always struck by the irony.
Upon turning 30, something clicked in my brain that (finally) made me wish not for a better body but more acceptance of the one I have. Seriously, I could workout 24/7 and the width of my hipbones is still going to be wider than I’d like. All we can do is our best, yet still we strive for unattainable standards then beat hell out of ourselves when we (undoubtedly) fail to meet them. At least if you’re me that’s what you do!
I wish I had the answers to this question. I’d sure like to shut out the world’s ideal body for women and learn more self-acceptance.
Curious to read others’ answers…
The irony of Cosmo (and magazines like it) is that women have replaced men in the objectification of women gambit.
That’s called internalized oppression.
I’ll never forget when a lesbian friend of mine confessed she was a homophobe.
I’m one of those who has nearly always been exposed to the ‘pop princesses.’ Now, I’ve never idolized them and have always been ashamed that that was what passed for ‘feminism’, yet I’m all insecure that I don’t wear the right clothes, hairstyle, makeup etc anyway. Basically, I feel I’m wrong because I don’t really want to be a Cosmo party girl. Silly, eh?
Anyway, sounds like my twenty-something issues echo yours. And maybe it’s in our (people’s? women’s?) nature to worry about the next generation; it scares the hell out of me that my 5 and 7 year old cousins love Bratz dolls.
hey meg,
have you read “Female Chauvinist Pigs” by Ariel Levy? It’s great, and speaks to a lot of what you’ve written about here. and i hear angela about the whole Bratz dolls thing; they scare the crap out of me, and not just because they look like emaciated girls with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. you know i still love the girly stuff, but i too have yet to find peace with the magazine issue. other than i just don’t read them anymore.
No, I haven’t, but I’ll look for it if you recommend it:).
I’ve struggled with this, too. The physical fitness standards set by the Navy two dozen years ago are measured in inches and not in physical ability, and as a large-framed guy, I struggled with it every day for fifteen years. I was once downgraded on a performance evaluation because “while you meet the physical fitness body fat standards, you APPEAR to be outside those standards.” By way of appeasing me, my captain added, “We had to draw the line somewhere…competition at your level is VERY intense.” The next time I hit shore duty, I joined a traditional martial arts program and worked out there 9 hours a week, plus the mandatory three hours per week for the Navy. I’d go home after my classes with my gi so soaked in sweat that I looked like I’d been swimming. I lost 35 pounds in three months, and I STILL didn’t “appear to be within body fat standards.” Yet, a professional football player joined our class for a session and couldn’t keep up…so which of us was more fit?
I got passed over for promotion because of my appearance.
My point is that it happens regardless of gender.
One of the concerns I’ve had for a very long time is that the Ancient Greeks and Romans developed similar obsessions with physical beauty right before their respective empires collapsed.
Cosmo (and its brother magazine, Maxim) are the literary equivalent of chocolate Easter bunnies, offering us an existence that is so focused on the surface that the inner emptiness is viewed as unimportant. In fact, that’s what they are…the hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse.
~Kurt
You just wanted an excuse to say “hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse”. And who can blame you for taking your shot?
I see the sad result of Cosmo thinking in my friend’s sister. She is 36 and looks like an aging Barbie doll. She has had tons of “work” done – botox, boob job, you name it.
She is deeply in debt due to her twin beauty and fashion addictions, and now she is way on the far side of her shelf life as arm candy. She has begun to date older and older men, reaching up into the 60s to find a man who want her as a companion as she desperately hopes one will marry her and set her up with a bottomless bank account.
As I see it, her main problem is not that she has focused on beauty, but that she has never focused on anything else. She does not have a marketable skill. She has a hard time taking care of her basic needs (can’t cook, budget, create, repair, etc).
So at her age, she must be terrified. Once her looks are gone, what is left? That is the true tragedy.
and has anyone else noticed other “women’s” mags that have in huge print on the cover, “Lose 35 pounds in 2 minutes!” imposed over a cover photo of a scrumptious chocolate cake with ‘way too much frosting on it?? we get so many mixed messages, i just can’t stand it. meg, you hit it absolutely. i think a woman’s confidence is the sexiest thing about her. the thing is, how do we build our confidence despite all the attention to the physical? it’s a constant struggle.
meg, you’re gorgeous. you’re my hero. and you see the world in a really beautiful way.
xxoo.
At the risk of doing myself an injury by patting myself on the back, I did my duty as a mother by warning my too bright daughter about the dichotomy contained within the covers of women’s fashion/lifestyle mags when she (The Meg) was very,very young.
Also, the Dec.4th edition of New Yorker contains an interesting article on Bratz dolls and the market research that moves its’ sales philosophy (ie., greed… which is the motive behind Cosmo as well — that AND the base ‘need’ to create an artificial overclass to support a dangerous worldview, and the industries which advertise in the mags.)
(woooow-did I say all that!?)
You did, my mama, mostly because you’re brilliant.
Whoo-HOO, GO MOM!!!
“Artificial overclass” — I’m borrowing that!
Hear! Hear! It is so refreshing for this older-than-your-Mom woman to see such words from everyday hardworking, struggling women. My daughter (older than you, Meg) also wrestles with these issues. I applaud her for overcoming addiction, earning an MBA on her own and deciding to have a child out of wedlock. Her 6 yr old daughter is who I am scared for, not just for these issues but for those greater political and social issues (global warming and war are but 2 that come immediately to mind) that might just make the world uninhabitable by the time she is your age and thus make the whole feminist issue more important; but not for the reasons Cosmo would have you believe. I think that the world they describe will not exist and a woman’s role will become survival in the most literal and basic sense.
I think that has always been a woman’s role–survival. But these days the popular interpretation of it is self interest-the femininist agenda leaves a good portion of the population behind and any time you have that you create a climate of dissatisfaction, from which comes conflict. This goes from the one to one relationships all the way up through clans/tribes, to nations. If you always seek to put yourself first,as a gender, clan or nation, you will always come to war. Survival of all humankind requires a generous spirit and actions towards others, and while self-sacrifce is part of that, we must take care of ourselves in order to maintain strength for this self-giving. This does NOT encompass the philosophy of Cosmo and its’ ilk or the suppressive philosophy of radical feminism. I repeat,-any time you put yourself first you will leave someone behind. The times are scary, (I typed evil first and while I believe it, I thought better of it and modified it!)but they are about as scary as most other times in history, only now we have instant communication and it aint always the facts, its personal interpretation in the mix. But that’s another horse to ride!
The whole issue is so frustrating. I feel this simultaneous push to be both phenomenal emotionally and intellectually, but also to be confident and assured in both my physical appearance and my sensuality. I work hard on my internal growth – daily, hourly… sometimes by the minute. And yet, when someone of the opposite sex pays attention to me, I cannot help thinking:
“It must be because I look good today!” It is like my insides think outside the box when there is time and a thought process involved, but my instincts and quick response are based on my physical appearance. Does that make sense?
(Maybe this is because I spend two minutes on my outsides for every minute I spend working internally. Never thought about that…)
Thank you for pointing out how these magazines not only set the bar ridiculously high externally, but also internally. Women are still encouraged to put on a brave front. We might be told that we are amazing for overcoming some great feat, but damn us if we aren’t perfect before we share our great epic tale of “How I Survived”. Not to mention, we had better look better coming out of crisis than during or beforehand.
And as for the mags… bummer to them all. I try to avoid most of them because I cannot stand their content. I have, however, found a lovely mag: Bust. It is just awesome. Way more on the inside than on the outside. That is my recommendation if someone wants the simplicity and length of a magazine without a lot of the pretty pictures.
Although, there are still pretty pictures.
But I digress. Thank you for bringing this up, Meg. Even though I’ve never met you, I love reading your thoughts. And dude, you post more than once a day, which aids with my work procrastination! Thanks!
-Heather
Love this piece.
Kate Winslet is NOT full-figured. And she is absolutely gorgeous. Too bad her attitude toward personal beauty is rare in her industry.
The thing I find the most fascinating, and frustrating, is the fact that this tiny group of people — celebrities, models, editors — are allowed to set the standard. They are looked to to make the rules, to critique our wardrobes, diets, choices, careers, morals for all women. The regular woman is rarely represented in these types of magazines and when she is it is treated like some sort of feat of Feminism.