26 Mar, 2010

Women today have such strong, conflicting emotions about their bodies – and it’s no surprise. Often, we feel as though our value is defined by the way we look.

As we head off to work each morning and flick through our favourite magazine over a coffee, we’re bombarded with images of gorgeous – not to mention flawless – females. In addition, on a personal level, we’ve probably all felt judged or been guilty of judging another woman on her looks.

“Historically, women have been valued according to their appearance because the patriarchy [at the time] deemed we were pretty things that should be seen and not heard,” says media commentator, blogger and regular CLEO contributor Erica Bartle (girlwithasatchel.blogspot.com).

“Although feminism has won us so much in the way of equal rights to things like education, work and pay, we really haven’t evolved much in terms of how we think about and contextualise ourselves beyond the physical,” Bartle explains.

The parody of choice

Emily Maguire, author of Your Skirt’s Too Short: Sex, Power, Choice (Text Publishing, $24.95), also feels that there needs to be some sort of revolution in the way women perceive themselves.

“As a society, we have yet to break free of the ancient, patriarchal view of women as decorative objects and status symbols for their male partners,” Maguire says.

Of the current state of things, she says, “It’s now widely accepted that women can think and work and achieve as much as men, but we’re supposed to do these things in addition to being decorative – not instead of.”

Is “body love” the answer?

You might’ve noticed a flock of “body love” campaigns in the media of late, showing different-sized women in place of ultra-thin models. Such initiatives have done a great service in diversifying images of females in the media and, in doing so, reconfiguring women’s views of themselves.

They’ve also drawn attention to the massive pressure women are under to try to conform to society’s current beauty ideals. As a result, many of us feel a lot less alone in the anxieties we might feel regarding body image.

However, one problem is that “body love” campaigns still continue to drive home the message that it’s important to feel attractive and love your body without really questioning that basic tenet, “Why, again, is it so damn important for us to be attractive?”.

Maguire says, “I think we need to ask ourselves why beauty is more valued than any other trait. Why is it considered important for me to love my body? Of course, hating the way you look feels terrible, but the remedy isn’t necessarily learning to love your appearance.”