McKenna+C’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech


 * Unattainable standard for women's body **

In the America I wish to grow old in I would like to see less expectations of how women should look act in the media. From a young age media teach us that there is one certain idea of what beauty is. By the time I was in 3rd grade I had the idea that in order to be beautiful as a women you had to be tall with long legs, long shiny blonde hair and of course super skinny with tan skin. Where did I get this idea? From the magazines, the magazines that were being sold when I went to the store with my mom and from the TV show that rarely showed women who were shorter than 5’5 or weighed more than 110 pound. This false idea of beauty had created an issue for me because I am not the idea image of beauty, I am a short and stout, the exact opposite to what society has taught me beauty is. This unreal expectation of what beauty is has caused many girls to hate how they look. Looking at the society that we are growing old in it is no surprise that 50% of girls in 5th to 12th grade want to lose weight due to the pictures of women in the magazines and that 70% of girls let magazines influence what their ideal perfect body is. The media is barraging women with images that portray what is considered to be the “ideal body”. Such standards of beauty are almost completely unattainable for most women; a large majority of today’s models that are displayed on magazines and TV are well below what is considered a healthy weight. And now with Photo shopped images even the super skinny models don’t look like they do in the magazines. Media’s use of unrealistic models sends a harmful message that in order for a woman to be considered beautiful she must be unhealthy. If you were to go to the grocery store and look at the magazine covers you will see several things that greatly add to this idea that women need to look a certain way in order to be deemed as beautiful. On the cover you most likely see a skinny celebrity or model talking about “how they lost all this weight” or the newest plastic surgery. If the magazine isn’t flaunting how great these women look after changing themselves it will attack women who are considered fat in our society. Throughout these magazines it will talk about how some celebrity life is falling apart all because she has gained 20 pounds or is seen in public without her makeup on and wearing a pair of sweat pants. Women in our society are critiqued based on their appearance and rarely on their accomplishments. A major example of this idea is Hilary Clinton. When she ran for president magazines rarely talked about her political opinion or what laws she would be supporting. Almost every magazine talked about how run down she looks or how she needed to dress sexier and get plastic surgery if she wanted to win the males majority vote. Hilary was one of few women to actually run for president and throughout her entire campaign magazines talked about her appearance and marriage more than her political positions. This idea that the media is portraying is teaching little girls and women a like that the only thing valuable about them is how others perceive their body. Little girls are starting to compare themselves to each other younger and younger. For those of you who don’t know I work at Goldcoast gymnastics with the little peanuts from ages 2 to about 5. A few weeks about one of my little girls who is a typical 3 year old, cute and round with little chubby cheeks, was watching one of the other girls who is small in every directions do her summersaults. My little peanut came up to me and asked me why she isn’t skinny and pretty like the other girl. This broke my heart because she is 3. She is beautiful and sweet and perfect and 3 years old. She should be worrying about what toy she wants to play with that day or what her favorite animal is. Not already comparing herself to others and believing that she is not beautiful. Due to this belief that we all need to strive to be beautiful in the eyes of societies we begin to not only attack ourselves, but also the women around us. We begin to judge and compete with each other to try to reach this unattainable standard. In the America I want to grow gray and wrinkled I want to be able to do just that. Grow old and wrinkly in peace with out the judgment of the media, society and the strangers around me. I want to see women dressing for themselves and not the people around them. I want to see the media discussing how badass women are with about talking about this Asses. I want to grow old in an America where my daughter won’t grow up hating herself and comparing herself to an unattainable standard.

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