All of this is my opinion so dont take my opinion to offense or personally, but I realized how this country America works in their portrayal of women. The images of “false” women we see are not women at all but products of a child hungry (pedophile) industry. The women that media, magazines, models, etc.portray have this childlike quality about them: flawless skin, soft youthfulness, innocence/virginity, flat stomachs and toned thin bodies (minus the huge breasts). All features of children, tho. Think about it. Models are signed on at what ages? 14, 15, 16 years old, children! Why would anyone want to see a 14yr old walking a catwalk in lingerie? What women, except for few, look like this and after kids especially? Our faces develop acne, we get dark eye circles from lack of sleep, skin is often riddled w/ stretchmarks and other marks in places we didnt even kno about and not to forget the stretched out stomach. And us women are made to think that if we dont go back to our youthful 20 year old bodies that we should just disappear. Most of American women don’t even have the means to buy personal trainers, nannies and nutritionists to regulate everything we do so we could get back into shape. If Hollywood moms didnt have the money they had they would look just like the rest of us and posting their body pics as well. And if models didnt have clauses in their contracts that said you must be back in modeling shape in this many days they would look just like us, too. In a nutshell and “my personal opionion”, society EXPECT women to have children, sacrifice for them and be a “good” mother, but if you also don’t meet the criteria of HOTness you should just stay at home out of public view and just be a mom. What kind of logic does any of this make? Little girls grow up into women, right? And Women help make this world and keep it under control. So then why is society so bent on looking/being like little girls?
I just wanted to say your belly and breasts are incredibly sexy – very womanly, soft, curvy – you are gorgeous!
I think I love you!
I also wanted to mention that shaving our body hair is a way of remaining youthful looking. Young girls don’t have armpit hair or thick, dark leg hair, pubic hair, etc.
I think you are totally right! I am currently pregnant and Im sick of being told that I have to watch what I eat and how much weight I gain because of what I will look like afterwards…pregnancy is stressful enough as it is without the added pressure of thinking we have to bounce back to our pre-pregnancy state right after birth.
We arent Heidi Klum..we are REAL women who dont have the money or time to dump our baby with a nanny right out of the hospital (which is what 97% of these women do) whilst we bust or butts in the gym for 10 hours a day..and if that fails,then plastic surgery it is.They also have c-sections weeks before their due date to prevent stretch marks and vaginal stretching,and VERY few even try nursing because of what they think it will do to their breasts etc..Who wants to live like that?
I want to enjoy my baby and not be forced into feeling guilty when my boobs sag or if I get stretch marks.
We are REAL mothers,and this is what we look like.I find it amazing to hear a man say “wow..look at her! and she just gave birth! Thats SO hot”.I find myself thinking “yes,but its not real!”.
Men are made to think that “real” women bounce right back to how they were,and that those of us that DO get stretch marks or saggy boobs are the ones that didnt look after ourselfs during pregnancy.This isnt the case! Its just that women like us are forced to feel ashamed of what we look like,there for,we HIDE our bodys.If people were able to see REAL women instead of the phtoshopped,silicone,airbrushed kind we see all over the place,we wouldent need to compare our bodys to everyone elses because finally,everyone would know that WE are the norm,NOT THE EXEPTION.
I think you look PERFECT! You have great breasts and a beautiful body :)
I couldn’t agree more. It sickens me to see pre-teens walking around dressed like an adult. For that reason I hope that I never have a daughter because of all the peer pressure and negative influences women get. I would hope my voice would be stronger in her mind than the media’s voice.
Kudos to you! Everybody portrayed her is beautiful regardless of size and shape.
I could not have said it better myself! Right on!
While I long to have a daughter (we currently have 2 boys and are trying for a little girl, but a healthy baby is great regardless of gender!), I also worry about this. How can I teach her to love her body and be proud of it when the mainstream images of female bodies look nothing like the women in our family? We have curvy women. Period. When we’re skinny, we look sickly and our bodies are unhappy. When we put some weight back on, we tend to feel healthier and look healthier! How will I explain that to my little girl – that her genetics may override her flooding of media images no matter what she does? How can I make her love what she is?
I know I will start with things like this – showing her that real women don’t hide in closets or under baggy clothes. Real women look just like we do. :-)
So true.
I remember reading about a model that Victorias Secret hired when she was only 15 years old! So here is this girl wearing next to nothing and posing in provocative ways. I can’t imagine why her parents would allow it, or how it affected this girl mentally. I think it’s sick that this is our “ideal” beauty.
hell yeah! i am pushing 30 & i look like it. ooh, scandal! true, i’m taking steps to make my body stronger & healthier (yoga 2-3x a week), but i’m not interested in flattening my chest, shaving or straightening my curves. i’m not 12! look up “curvaceous in the thesaurus:
Main Entry: curvaceous
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: voluptuous
Synonyms: Junoesque, attractive, beautiful, bosomy, built, buxom, comely, curves, curvesome, curvilinear, curvy, full-figured, pleasing, rounded, shapely, stacked, statuesque, well-developed, well-proportioned, well-rounded
Antonyms: anorexic, bony, flat, skinny, thin
You’re so right!!!
Oh! You look just like me! Except I have smaller breasts, but same curvy belly and I have little stretchmarks on my hips, too! We’re hotties! :D
For Heathern3boys: I believe the best way to teach a daughter good body image is to know, as a mother, you look good. young girls feed off of their mother’s self esteem and a father’s reinforcement of that. If your man says you look good, believe him, it beats him saying “well u dont look like Heidi Klum” >>Prime example, my mother has always had a bad case of pointing out all of her flaws and weight. It has affected me and is already (to some degree) affecting my 6yr old sisters.
And thanks to all the comments, Michelle Dawn, your right shaving is also another form of youth. It amazes me how images of women back then has changed so much now, I still have to ask what happened. I cant even relate to todays women in the media. How well can one relate to these women in the following link.
https://www.cab.u-szeged.hu/wm/paint/auth/baldung/ages/seven-ages-woman.jpg
You’ve made a great point. We share similar opinions.
Thank You!!! I really needed some truth today!!!
I really have to agree that expectations of post partum women have gotten out of control. I’m one of the lucky few who is blessed with really great genetics when it comes to “pregnancy recovery.” I have no stretch marks, no saggy skin, and was back in my pre-pregnancy clothes within weeks. I’m 5’9″ and I was a size 8 pre-preg, size 6 one year post-preg. The scary thing is, I lost weight due to an overactive thyroid and went down to a size 4 over the summer. Many of my husband’s friends have made comments on how great I look and ask him if I’ve lost weight. What the heck, did you guys think I was FAT at a 6 or an 8 at my height? I also worry about having a daughter b/c of society’s expectations (I have a son that’s about to turn 2). I have told my husband that it is very important that we teach our son how to respect women and their bodies and that a lot of that needs to come from him.
BTW, thinness isn’t always an indicator of health. I am pleanty thin, but I have several health issues. My husband is about 40lbs overweight and is healthier than a horse.
I am so glad someone said it! and you put it wonderfully! I had triplets and im only 21 so i will never have my old body back but i dont care because i have a type of beauty that a lot of women will never experience…I think the pregnant body and there after is beautiful! i have such a story to tell by these stretch marks and scars from my c-section…im am so proud of the way i look now even though i could stand to lose a few pounds! lol and if someone doesnt like it i dont care because ive got three of the most beautiful healthy children! you go girl!
Tabitha
I agree completely – and sexualisation of children is a very scarey phenomenon. What’s so good about being young anyway?
Amen to all of the above! I was an actress living in L.A. during both of my pregnancies, and EVERYONE had an opinion on my weight! I was told I could get my stretchmarks lasered off, and then called crazy when I said I wanted to keep them, and that I was proud of them.
We have since moved out of L.A., and we are ALL much happier!
I think our society wants young girls because they are easier to manipulate than grown women are.
So those women aren’t ‘real’ women, even if they’re fully-grown adults — just because they don’t have drooping breasts and sagging stomach flesh? Perhaps you need to understand your own point — that women’s bodies come in all shapes and sizes, including the ‘perfect’ ones you so despise. All of those shapes are valid and all can be considered attractive, beautiful, and ‘real’.
Stephanie, again, I think you missed the point here. I think what the author of this point is getting at is a very deep-rooted psychology, not a judgment of women who fit that image.
Peace
Here’s the clarification. Be the natural woman that you are, but healthy. If your naturally thin, curvy, droopy, saggy, whatever but embrace it. The sad situation of it all is that woman feel as though they need to look like certain body types. Some are blessed with a “model” body and some are blessed with a “mother’s” body, others are blessed with their own type of body. Your body turned out exactly the way God intended it to be even if you may have made some wrong health choices. Some mommies stretch out as far as others but then don’t have the stretchmarks, but who’s to say they were “lucky?” Being mark free isn’t luck or “good genes”. A body is going to have marks on it sometime or another and one way or another. The ultimate goal here is to get all women to realize they’re perfect and the women they see on tv are perfect in their own right as well. What isn’t perfect is stressing over each others appearance for what you lack rather than what you have. Being healthy is perfect, not starving. For ladies who are married or have BFs and they say you’re beautiful, believe them because if you truly love them they should be the only one your trying to please (besides yourself) and they love you for the work and sacrifice your body made for his children.
What you said is absolutely true, and I never thought of it that way. It IS children’s bodies that are being marketed by the media and the fashion industry! Not only is that undermining women’s self-confidence, but what is it doing for our men who grow up being told that’s beauty?
They’re told, “desire a child’s body, but don’t be a pedophile!”.
You make valid points, and I don’t mean to detract from the purpose of this website…..but remember that it’s only in the past hundred years or so that teenaged girls have been thought of as children. For most of human history, adolescent females were MOTHERS. Present-day society tells us that it’s wrong for a 30-year-old male to desire a 16-year-old female. Biologically, the 16-year-old female would be the one males would seek to impregnate. Do you think that women were waiting until they were 30 to have kids back in medieval times?
Males are biologically hardwired to be attracted to young, fertile women in order to propagate the species. That’s just a fact of nature.
And no, I’m not a man. I’m a 37yo woman, married, with two kids. I think that being sexually attracted to a 7yo is sick. I don’t see anything morally wrong with being physically attracted to a 15 or 16yo. My mother was married at 16 and had me when she was almost 18. I think the definition of pedophilia has gotten out of control.