A Ramble on...That Evil Beauty Myth

I wrote this back a couple years ago, but since livejournal sucks now (ok, maybe it always did...) I wanted to repost here...

My whole life I always felt fat. It wasn't like I was over weight per se. In high school I always had that five to ten pounds I really wanted to lose. My freshman year of college (damn, that was a ways back now) I finally decided I was going to diet after soccer season and lose the weight. And it was working. But when you get into a groove, or maybe it is more accurate to say you get obsessed with it, you notice that maybe that ten pounds just isn't enough...and then it turns into twenty...next thing you know you're so tired you're going to class and then sleeping and you're eating a bagel without cream cheese. and that's it. all day. I started watching a lot of Baywatch, trying to figure out why it was that no matter what I did I couldn't look like those girls...And it was just downhill from there...

It took me a long time to see that what I had fallen prey to was pretty much what most of us girls fall prey to: the Beauty Myth. 

Yes, It does exist, and it is scary. It's that idea that women are supposed to look a certain way,or not... that certain things make us aesthetically pleasing, or not. That we are supposed to conform to a certain standard...I never thought specifically about it, but I was a part of it. I still am...every time I look at some girl who has something (or someone) I want and say, "oh, she's got cottage cheese thighs," or "yeah, she has small boobs though". Come on, admit it. We all do it. It is probably a big reason why we are still considered a minority, even though there are more women in the world than men. Women will never be able to fully unite as a gender, fully respect or back each other because we're too damn catty--we have played into the myth perfectly...

...but now, it's like we've started a new game. Now men, the gender that never as a GENDER had issues (although I'm sure some individually did) with self esteem in the form of aesthetics, now flock to the gym more than they ever have. They drink protein drinks, become vegetarians, use Rogaine, etc etc, all because the Beauty Myth seems to apply to them as well now...It is as if we as women said "hey, if we have to live up to unreasonable expectations, then you do, too, men." Somehow, I don't think this was the lesson we were supposed to learn...

I bring this up today because of the punkd pictures circulating all over twitter and tumblr of Jensen Ackles playing soccer sans shirt. I will admit when I first saw the link to the punkd pics, I looked at them and reacted in the following manner:
1) He's so adorable! Can I has a snuggle?; followed by
2) But, doesn't he really not like having pics taken shirtless :( He's going to be self conscious!; and finally
3) wait, soccer? He's from Texas! I thought they played football down there...impressed about soccer though!

Apparently not everyone that saw those pictures had my reactions though. Aside from reblog after reblog (which I felt self conscious for him seeing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and then one more time), but then people started getting insulting. Like the cut in for the hip bone wasn't enough, they decided to have a field day with not seeing chizzled washboard abs. Now I'll admit I can't be impartial on this one. In my opinion, he's perfect the way he is. But my reason for bringing it up was not just to get out my aggression regarding something that has been bugging me for the entire day. It is to stress that I don't believe this is what we were supposed to learn from years of feminine objectification at the hands of a patriarchal society. We were supposed to learn to accept and love people for who they are, not because Calvin Klein, or Victoria's Secret or what have you tells you that __________ is what perfection looks like. We need to abolish the Beauty Myth, not utilize it to victimize a whole new group. Free your minds people.