"A woman who does not love herself can not be free. And the system tries to make women never love themselves. Ever. " (Beatriz Giacomo)
And what is the role of the media in that task?
The book "The Myth of Beauty" by Naomi Wolf has a section that deals only with the influence of women's magazines (read MEDIA) on the evolution of women in society and says: "I buy them," told me a young woman, "as a sort of outrage to myself. They give me a strange feeling, a mixture of expectation and dread, a kind of artificial euphoria. But then I feel like throwing away all my clothes and everything in the fridge, telling my boyfriend not to call me any more and destroy my whole life.I'm ashamed to confess that I read them every month."
Media is our way of communicating in society, it brings the constructs of beliefs, patterns of behavior, beauty and success that make up our identity as social beings. Through these concepts we construct our own reference and our parameter, both in relation to ourselves and the world around us. Thus, it is inherent in the connection between the patterns of beauty disseminated by this media and the way women suffer in the face of an infinitely excludent aesthetic.
In the midst of the extreme lack of representativeness of women in the media in general, we have an especially complicated element that is the manipulation of our bodies. That is, the creation of an unreal aesthetic model, specifically developed to never be achieved. In this way, the permanent enslavement of women is guaranteed, since not even the model herself appears to be the way she is exposed.
The struggle for real representation in the media is arduous and long, since we deal with a misogynistic, racist, ageistic, gordofobic and extremely excludent aesthetic pattern. I believe, however, that an important step in this process is to stop manipulating women's bodies. Changing the shapes and characteristics of natural bodies is an assertion that they are not enough. It is to play in the face of millions of women worldwide that all the features that make their bodies be as they are are wrong, imperfect and must be changed.
It is important to understand that when we speak of our bodies we are not just talking about aesthetics. We are talking about a system that controls us, diminishes us and attacks us through our bodies. Quoting Naomi Wolf again: "if we decided to give up, come home one day and say that we no longer want to have a voice, vote, have orgasms, have jobs, equal pay, reproductive rights, etc., you can be sure that these aesthetic standards would drop immediately. Because patterns change over time and with society, criteria are fluid and shape into what best controls us in each period of time and space. What matters to the system is not our weight in itself, or the texture of the our hair, what matters is how much that is depriving us of our freedom, our self-esteem and our identity. "
To speak of representativeness in the media is simply to speak about the recognition of our humanity.
That is why this week women and collectives from around the world will post photos in the natural with the hashtag #dontphotoshopme, demanding that the media stop acting as if our bodies need artificial modification in order to be exposed.
All women are invited to participate!
Just stop photoshoping us.