I was poking around a few nights ago and came across some great links, I thought applied to the subject here. I will add them to the sidebar, too, but wanted to make an “announcement” formally.
The sculptures at The Real Women Project are amazing. Amazing.
Check out this example of airbrushing. Funny, but after seeing the original, not only do I wonder WHY they airbrushed, but I think the result is a plasticky, Barbie-like figure.
And, finally, this one was actually mentioned to me quite some time ago, but got lost in the shuffle and I forgot to post it. A Fitting Experience is, according to her site, “a community project entitled, A Fitting Experience, I invited a group of women to contemplate the following questions while shopping for new clothes:
1. How do you feel about your body?
2. What did you think to yourself about your body as you tried on this garment?
3. Describe your body size and shape.
I then asked the women to record their responses on the paper tags of their newly purchased garments.”
I am spitting mad after seeing the photo retouching site. It’s no damn wonder women have such body image issues!! I mean seriously, her face naturally has pores. In the reouched pictures, it does indeed look like plastic. Her body is incredible–but in the retouched pictures I realized that she had no ribcage. It was edited out. So what, are we not supposed to have lungs or something because ribcages take away from the “perfect” hourglass figure? I was also stunned that they ever changed her arms and bellybutton. It made me feel good to see this image of perfection in the untouched photo. Not only was she more beautiful, but more real and I felt relief that something so amazing has aspects of her body that were close to mine. Mainly her thighs, when untouched. I am always self conscious of my upper thighs. To see any model in print nowadays, none seem to have any sort of shape to their thighs but this one does! Thank you so much for posting this link. Some more of my self image has been salvaged this morning because of it.
That airbrushing example also surprised me. That woman’s body was gorgeous and sexy…before the airbrush. I hate what they did with her belly button. And her already lovely, full breasts just HAD to be bigger? I’m sure her significant other, if she has one, is very pleased to have the real woman and not the retouched one. She’s ever so much more appealing as herself. Also, I wonder how she felt after seeing that new image and realizing how much of her they changed, how much of her was lost. I hope she recognized which was the truer beauty.
she’s only 14 years old!!!!a sexual object at 14 troubles me.