It has been a very long time since this blog has even graced my mind with it's presence. Life just happens, I guess. Blogging shouldn't, in my opinion, be the best way to document your life, but being a full-time college student on top of my regular church callings and wanting to be involved in college life, this will have to do. Plus, some of my posts will go hand-in-hand with what I'm learning in one of my classes. Well, here it goes.
One of the perks of majoring in general studies is having to take an intensive writing class. Sounds very fun, right? Not really! I enjoy writing, but if it's something I'm being made to do for a grade, I do not like it. Rarely do I ever actually enjoy a written assignment. Anyways, last semester while I was chatting with my counselor about the classes I need to take in order to graduate, she highly recommended "Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective" as my intensive writing course. ("Yippee. Sounds like an 'intensely feminist' class. Bahaha," I thought to myself. I think I'm so punny sometimes). She told me that she took the class out of curiosity and walked out with a better understanding of what womanhood actually means. After she gave me more info concerning the class, I decided it sounded like a great class to take. So yea, that's how I got into it
I'll probably talk more details about the cool hippy-ness of Ms. Blan later, but since it IS close to midnight and my grandma side wanted to go to bed an hour and a half about but I ignored it, I'll just write what has been on my mind.
This last week, we watched a lecture video titled "Killing Us Softly 4" by Jean Kilbourne (I highly recommend you look it up; it's quite eye-opening). The whole thing is about how advertising portrays women, even men. In summary, women are advertised as vulnerable objects, especially in ads pertaining to men. As disturbing as that is, there is another problem, too: Ads practically say that women have to be pretty and skinny. Not only does that subconsciously make women self-conscious, but those advertisements also give an impossible standard of what true beauty is.
In our world, we are surrounded by advertisements, and although we say that ads do not effect us, they really do! Kilbourne said that we consciously absorb 8% of the ads we see, therefore, 92% is being absorbed subconsciously. That is a lot of advertising junk floating around in our minds without us realizing it. Those advertisements really do effect us, whether we like it or not.
Now, I'm just going to throw my personal story in here. On the outside, I try to put on a confident face, and heck, I even rock heels (I'm 6' 1" flat-footed). I'm not sure how this started, but lately, I find myself thinking I'm ugly. No matter how much I doll myself up, I feel like I look like a warty troll. Part of the problem is I feel ugly, and that is just working it's way outward. I truly feel like real beauty shines from within, but my own light is dimming. Because of these feelings of disgust towards myself, I've been having a hard time believing that people actually like being around me and being my friend. Heck, I don't even want to dance, anymore (If you know me personally, you know that when I don't feel like dancing, there is a problem). I want to get out of this pit, to be my usually happy self again. I WANT TO FEEL AND LOOK BEAUTIFUL. I can buy what the ads are trying to sell me. I can get botox and breast implants. I can get my double hour glass fixed with surgery. I can drop a couple hundred bones on a make-over. I can be Photo-shopped after a photo-shoot and placed on the cover of a magazine. I will not feel beautiful, inside and out. The world is trying to sell us women a lie!
I know that Heavenly Father made me the way I am. He wants me to be happy, and He wants me to feel beautiful. I let the world take over, and now I am in a deep hole of low self-esteem I need to dig myself out of. It will take work. So much work, it almost seems impossible to accomplish.
I am positive that a lot of women out there feel the same way I do. So, here is a solution... Even if no one else reads this post, I have a challenge (Men, you may do this too).
Appreciating Your Outer Self: Look yourself in the mirror like you do everyday. Pick three features you do NOT like about yourself. That's right. What you don't like about yourself. I want you to say to yourself that those features are BEAUTIFUL.
Appreciating Your Inner Beauty: Read and Ponder Proverbs 3:15-18.
I will be doing this too. As I have re-learned so many times, "fake it until you make it".
No comments:
Post a Comment