The Body Un-Naturale

There’s another wedding in the family and, since I don’t have a bunch of wedding-related baking to provide an excuse this time around and because this one sounds like a much more formal affair, I have had to focus more on what I will look like and what I will wear. This has meant that I’ve been looking at clothes and caring about whether they might do anything to improve the sorry state of affairs that is my physique or at least distract from it. This has led me to look at clothing ads and even the odd fashion magazine for an idea for a wedding appropriate outfit that won’t make me look foolish. Shopping for clothing is never a fun time for me. Shopping for shoes can be enjoyable. So can shopping for jewelry and makeup, but looking for anything that covers any region from my arms to my ankles (with the exception of good, comfy, cotton t-shirts)  is a long, tedious process for which I honestly have little patience.

I’ve often thought that it was because I have so little in common with the fashion industry’s six-foot tall, ninety-two pound idea of beauty and that is mostly true, except that, thanks to Photoshop, the fashion industry – and our culture’s – idea of beauty is no longer simply extremely difficult to attain. It’s now practically impossible, even un-natural. It’s now a seventy-two pound idea of beauty.

This is a rather well-publicized example from a few years ago. If you haven’t picked out what’s wrong, allow me to point out that, in addition to her absurdly stick figure-like limbs, her head is about the same size as her pelvis and is larger than her waist. That does not occur in nature… ever. It just doesn’t. An emaciated adult’s head isn’t larger the their waist. Also, while this particular image did get some media attention, it is by no mean a rarity. Victoria’s Secret ads and all the ones in the magazines are loaded with heavily Photoshopped, skeletal waifs glowering and pouting. Is it just me or do they look hungry? Do people even find these modified images sexy?

I’m a little too old and a little too rational in terms of my understanding of anatomically feasible thinness to be made to feel inadequate by these images, but it does concern me in terms of its effect on younger, more self-conscious individuals. I mean creating a goal that’s impossible to achieve and then foisting it upon girls at an ever decreasing age strikes me as a problem waiting to happen. I remember how desperately I wanted to be skinny and pretty as a fat, plain preteen and that was in the olden days of the nineties when models and other “beautiful people” were just anorexic and on drugs. Now they’re digitally modified, too.

A while back I was working on a post that never made the cut and I found this photo of Sophia Loren from the late sixties. She was a sex symbol in her day, but at the same time she was still very much a flesh and blood human being with the physical flaws that come with being human as opposed to digital. At one point in time not too very long ago, this image and those of other attractive, unaltered women made up the idea of beauty in our culture. If your thighs were a little less than sculpted or your breast weren’t disproportionately large and up by your chin, it was OK. You would be viewed as pretty, desirable, and the like because you were beautiful even though you weren’t flawless.

There are mountains of things that I find wrong with the 50’s and 60’s views on women, but I think that the scale on which female looks were judged was a healthy one. Where we as a society have worked to break down ideas that negatively effected women’s view of themselves in the areas of career, and family, and personal worth, and pretty much everywhere else, we have made it harder and harder for women and girls to view their bodies in a positive light and that, in turn, has an adverse effect on all of the other things we’ve improved on. If a person can’t be confident with the way they look, they won’t be able to radiate the confidence they need to in order to reach the goals they’ve set for themselves whether those goals are personal, professional, or what have you.

That picture of Sophia Loren makes me feel pretty good about myself, not because I in any way resemble that when I’m wearing just my underwear, but because it’s honest. Even the best looking among us has a flaw here and there. Even the ones that are deemed beautiful are never perfect. That’s normal. She might not be perfect, but she’s healthy, confident, and quite pretty.

I tried to keep this photo in mind when I was in the fitting room at Victoria’s Secret.

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The Third Piece of the H.R. 3 Trilogy

I figured I should let you know the latest on the case of Republicans vs the English language regarding the word rape. Parts 1 and 2 of the saga are here. According to a Politico article written on Thursday, The GOP has dropped the “forcible rape” language from the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. The same is true for putting an age limit on funding abortions for victims of incest. The following is a quote from that article.

The bill’s authors, including Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), say it’s not their intent to change the way the exemption is applied.

“The language of H.R. 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so,” Lipinski told Talking Points Memo in a statement.

Call me cynical, but if this particular section of the bill wasn’t supposed to change the our current law, then why was it even added and why was there an obvious attempt to alter the current standard created and upheld by the Hyde Amendment by coining the term “forcible rape”. Regardless of what the purpose of that section of the bill was, it isn’t there now and I’m glad. I don’t like a lot of other parts of this bill and I don’t like that pursuing a social conservative’s dream agenda has taken priority over improving the economic situation for millions in this country, but maintaining our current definition of rape is a start. Hopefully, it’s a reality check for the House Republicans at the very least.

Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show ran a really good segment on the redefinition of rape the night before Politico reported that it was no longer in the bill and it summed things up pretty well. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with that section being cut, but tit was a good segment. Since it refuses to embed properly, this is a link to the clip. Hopefully, this is the last we hear of the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act”. I’m hoping it falls apart before becoming law because, technically, taxpayer money doesn’t go to funding abortions except in the extreme cases dictated in the Hyde Amendment which aren’t being affected and – according to one of people who wrote the bill -never were going to be affected (an explanation I still think is bullfunky) by this new bill. One can only conclude, if they are willing to cut through the sanctimony surrounding the issue of abortion, this whole bill is either a massive waste of time when there are far, far bigger things our congress needs to focus on, or an attempt to limit funds from going to institutions which not only provide abortions – the vast majority of which are not taxpayer-funded and therefore none of the government’s business or anyone less’ for that matter – but also birth control, prenatal care, testing for STD’s, OB/GYN visits, and mammograms. Last time I checked there weren’t large-scale protests about the immorality of low-cost, subsidized STD testing and obstetrical services. I leave you with this picture of silly protest signs because it just seems appropriate.

A Follow-Up on H.R. 3 and My Second and a Half of Congressional Time

I threw a big fit a few days ago about House Resolution 3 and I have more info now.

Every so often, once in a blue moon, someone listens to the “little people” – in this case, the “little person” typing this right now. I thought this dissection of terms regarding sexual violence in order to score a few political points was so insane that I actually did something I tend to think of as supremely self-righteous, slightly whiny, and kind of pointless – I emailed my congresswoman.

I don’t feel that emailing a government representative is self-righteous, whiny, and pointless because I feel that it somehow isn’t my place as one of the masses – a noble nobody as I have previously described myself. I just think that, with everything that goes on at Capitol Hill and all the work that needs to be done to keep the country running smoothly, I find it hard to believe that my semi-educated thoughts on a particular piece of legislation carries much weight. My congresswoman has more information about what is going on in the House than I do and understands the law better than I do, so I don’t think she really needs me to tell her about a bill. I know enough about her political stand on abortion and women’s issues and her voting record to know she opposes H.R. 3. I’d just like to see somebody in the House say, “Hey, are we actually trying to redefine rape and incest here,” and she seems like she might do so. I sent off a short note from her website’s contact page and was satisfied that I had properly and officially expressed my outrage and been a good citizen too by doing what I had been told I should do by my Social Studies teachers so many years ago. Patriot in C# Minor here. Civic duty accomplished. Done. I knew it wouldn’t be read. Who cares about one unemployed, snowbound, twenty-something blogger, right. Well, apparently somebody in Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s office thought it was worthy of a response and I will share it with you.

Dear Discourse in C# Minor, (It has my name on it, but I’m not going to put my politics online while I’m still sending out resumés, so I’m remaining anonymous.)

Thank you for taking the time to contact me.  I appreciate hearing your views on this important issue.

Like you, I oppose the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.  Current law already prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions.  The Hyde amendment has prohibited public funding of abortion in most instances since 1977.  This proposed legislation is an unprecedented overreach that would deny abortion coverage to low-income women, federal employees, and military women and effectively end coverage through private insurance policies.  In addition, it would jeopardize a woman’s ability to access abortion services even in the case where the mother’s life is at risk. This legislation has been referred to the Judiciary Committee, but you can be sure that I will oppose it should it come to the floor for a vote.

Again, thank you for writing.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me on this or any other matter of concern to you in the future.

Sincerely,

Rosa L. DeLauro
Member of Congress

It’s a form letter, I know that, but it was more than I had expected and it’s a sign that it wasn’t immediately deleted like so much junk mail. It also gave me a scrap of information to report. H.R. 3 has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. Good. Maybe they’ll decide that haphazardly trying to differentiate between different instances of the same crime is legally suspect and/or could have an adverse effect on the prosecution of those crimes. If not, I’m hoping there is an almighty fuss raised if it goes to the floor.

And, since not ignoring the “little people” shouldn’t go unnoticed, I hereby award this gold star to the person in Rosa DeLauro’s office who took that second and a half to read my email. It may have been Rep. DeLauro. It was much more than likely a member of her staff. Whoever it was, that star is for them.

There’s another update here.