Poor body image

[Hermes]

http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Eating_Disorders/women_famous.asp


"""Writers Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Browning, and Virginia Woolf, for example, were deemed by their biographers to have been anorexic. Charlotte Bronte and Emily Dickinson exhibited disordered eating. Caught between their own personal powers and mothers who led very limited lives, these women, says Silverstein, all expressed regret about being born female.

"To me it seems a very terrible thing to be a woman," wrote pioneering social scientist Ruth Benedict, one of Silverstein's notables, who suffered from an eating disorder during adolescence. Elizabeth I was reported by her physician to be so thin "that her bones could be counted." In addition, Silverstein has also found that the symptoms afflict daughters of extremely eminent men whose wives are virtually invisible. "Just when their bodies are turning into their mothers', they find it hard to identify with the mother."

At this point in history, it's a disorder of epidemic proportions, he says, because there are many more women who, afforded new educational and professional opportunities, are not identifying with their mothers' lives. Unquestionably, our generation's formidable challenge is to reverse a trend that is apparently as old as civilization itself

[Lupita]

HI Hermer, thank you for this thread, it is interesting. I have apartial theory. Publicity. Publicity. Publicity.

In the times of Liz Taylor, and before, the famous were fat. If we put them today, they would be considered fat. But small waist was  the problem. They wore belts so tiet that many woman got hemorrides. Today, the models are so so so thin, that teenagers want to look like them and becoem anorexic. Started with twiggi, then more and more, see the models today, see Helen Hunt, bone and skin. Very very thin. Or they do not get contracts.

That was my two cents.

[Hopalong]

And during Victorian times, or maybe previous to that, some women HAD RIBS REMOVED so they could make their waists smaller.

We in the West are inheritors of a terrible legacy of female self-annihilation.

It is good to be mindful that this is NOT just a result of our FOO experiences. It is pervasive, it is everywhere, it is in the media when you see an anchorwoman displaying skin next to a fully-suited man (see Joe Scarborough)...it is EVERYWHERE, the vision of women as bodies, not persons.

I have found it very overwhelming at first, to look deeply at the culture and how it devalues me. Then, after facing the reality and rejecting it, it's very empowering. To say NO.

I wear makeup, love being feminine. Much that is customary about being a woman is a source of pleasure. But I draw the line at self-mutilation or bowing down to thoughtless assumptions about power.

love
Hops

[emptied]

WARNING-THIS MAY TRIGGER SOME-GRAPHIC

Ah Hermes,
    I have found in my short time here that you always bring up food for thought! If we are female, we not only have to deal with the fact that our FOO found us less than wonderful, but we also struggle with the fact that the world at large many times has devalued us. In the same way that we were simply objects to our families, throughout history women many times were simply chattel. All the more reason to find our voice. I am going to not go any farther here as this is one of those topics I could continue to write about for a long time....and as I write some girl in some part of the world may be having her genitals mutilated with a rusty piece of metal in the name of keeping her in the position of chattel. Better go back and post a warning above this one.

E

[Hopalong]

Emptied,
A sister.

Yes.

I am there.

A closeup photo of a 10 y/o girl having it done, screaming in pain, reaching her arms up in anguish to the photographer, is seared into my mind.

All over the world. Every day. Everywhere. Estimates from 2000-6000 girls a DAY. With rusty can lids, scissors, even broken glass.

It is overwhelming and it must make us angry and strong enough to rise up against it. Posessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker will help anyone understand. It is a shattering novel about a "chore" done to girls...by their brainwashed female relatives.

https://my.care.org/campaign/fgcpetition_progressive

http://www.google.com/search?q=stop+female+genital+mutilation&hl=en&start=20&sa=N

Please...sign the petition, forward it to friends. Make a donation if you can, to any organization that is fighting it. Write a letter to Congress.

These girls are ultimate victims of voicelessness.

Please help them in honor of all the courage and healing and the best that is in us.

love,
Hops

[emptied]

(((HOPS))) Hugs to you sister. Just wanted to say that I LOOVEE Alice Walker. So nice to meet you here.

E

[Leah]

Dear Emptied and Hops

100% agreement with you both, proactively, in real life.

Mutiliation, and also, Honor Killings, and Capturing young girls and women for the S-x Sl ave Trade Worldwide.

It has to stop - we have a voice, so we need to use it.

Posting those links is an absolutely brilliant piece of work, Hops

for awareness and action.

Love, Leah

[Lupita]

In response to emptie I decided to post the following. Men are not very behind in the curelty. Since the beginning of humanhood. Warriors had to prove their manhood wioth their own life. Many tribes do circumsicion with rusted twisted metal and the put hot peopper in the wound and they have to walk several miles after that. I saw a deocumantary of some tribes that made anous an rectal dilatation of one of thier boys since they were very little so they become homosexual, "according to them", and they took care of the parents when they were old, and that little boy was choses by the parents and usually was the youngest one. Men die more than women, men comite more suicide than women, men live less than women, why is that? I do believe that men's life is harder, many times they have to be the only bread winner, they have to be the strong, many times they are not, they have to prove to society who they are, in Japan many men have to do harakiri, so, men's life is very difficult.

I do believe that life is hard for all of us, and I have a dream that one day we are all equal no matter the sex, and that marriage is 50-50 and realtionship is 50-50, and I dont know what.

This was my tow cents, if you disagree, it is OK, I am going to the movies with my beloved son and I wont be here to see if you want to hit me. LOL.

[Leah]

What never ceases to amaze, or astound, me,

is that the mutilation "chore" done to girls ... is by their brainwashed female relatives.

And also, that female relatives uphold 'honor killings'

Leah


We were orginally, created, egalitarian ~ equal

-- which has been restored.

[Hermes]

Hello Lupita:

I agree entirely with what you say in your post. 

In fact I put up that topic particularly with you in mind, because in another post you did mention that you had a sort of issue with image, that you felt you were too small. Yes?

I think it is very important, purely from a health view point, to be slim and fit.  Obesity is the scourge of western countries, and is the cause of a whole raft of serious diseases.
Big difference between being slim and fit and being an anorexic.  Many have poor body image even if nothing is wrong at all with their face, figure and hair.  That is down to poor self-esteem IMO, and to other emotional problems.  A balanced person will not assume that she must look like the models in a magazine or on screen, and will understand that it is just advertising; and that a lot of work went into preparing the photograph, such as lighting, professional makeup, air-brushing and all the rest.

Best to all
Hermes

[axa]

Hops,

Read the book many years ago............heart breaking.

xxxxxxxxx

axa

[Hermes]

Once again, Lupita, I want to concur with your post, in the sense that men also suffer and that life is no bowl of cherries for them, no more than it is for most humans.
Why would anyone want to hit you for saying that?  You are absolutely right.  I also get extremely weary of this polarisation of the sexes, believe me.

All the best
Hermes

[Hopalong]

I agree too, Lupita.
Men and boys are also victims of incredible brutality in the name of "manhood". I can't stand that either. My D likes to watch boxing. I'm appalled by it. I've seen Ali and he has Parkinson's from his brain being so battered. It makes me furious and sad that young men of little opportunity (because "equal education" is a joke) see offering their bodies in the ring (or in war) as their only way to climb out of desperate circumstances. And people are "entertained" by it.

I have enormous compassion for men and boys. I see how the world hurts them too.

The FGM (female genital mutilation) issue just has special resonance for me. Among all the powerless, little girls are at the bottom of the ladder. Even as adults, they are still second-class citizens in most places, and just in terms of numbers, the subjugation and enslavement of women is vastly more prevalent than the same for males.

I do not mean to belittle the suffering of one gender when I rant about FGM.

I love and have compassion for men.

I just get crazed about certain issues that seem emblematic to me...FGM is one.

love
Hops

[Lupita]

Hermes and Hops, thank you for the validation. I was not being totally impartial. i was thinking of my son. I remember when he came devastated from highschool, I was alone raising him, no father image, it was very hard for him. One date he had one complete centimeter of skin totally burned. He told me that a bully had burned him and if he said something he would do something worst. I had nobody to ask for help. He made me promise not to say anything. On top, the bully was a relative of the principal. And I can mention a thousand things that he had to suffer. Not to mention dates, little girls wanted to go out with boys who had money. We had no money. And my son was only thirteen when he entered high school. He was only seventeen when he went to live on his own at the dorms in the university.
I know, in my own skin, that life is very hard for boys. And much more stressful than for women. Proven by the greatest amount of Myocardial Infarcts to men than to women. Like double.

If we talk about FGM, we also can talk about some cultures where women have to burn them selves if the husband dies. I have known of one who did not want to do it and the mother in low did it to her. Or how about the Afganistan, women have to beg in the street because they are not allowed to work. Or Iram, or Saudi, where they have multiple wives and the older has to educate the younger wives.
Or Mormons with multiple marriages, or who knows what.

But here in USA we are very priviledged. And we cannot ask for equal if we want to be taken care, then we are not equal. Because if we are equal, nobody has to take care of us, or we, shoulder by shoulder, we take care of eachother. 50-50

Or that is the way I think. I guess life is hard for everybody.

[Hermes]

Very sensible remarks, Lupita!  You are quite correct.  Equality does not mean: "some people are more equal than others" (to quote).  If one wants to be equal, then you act equal.  In this life, one cannot have one's cake and also eat it!

You express yourself well, and I am sure everyone is taking into account that English is not your mother tongue, or at least I hope they are!

Take care
Hermes