Okay. I admit it. I waited to write this post until I was dressed and showered and makeup-ed so that I wouldn't look stupid in my photobooth shot. Now I've defeated the whole point of this picture-thing, which was to show myself all throughout the day, sloppy and all, and thereby comfortable in my own skin and comfortable to let you see me being comfortable in my own skin.
This picture thing is in part, a reaction against botox, liposuction, face-lifts, breast augmentation surgery, the need need need for facials and pedicures and injections. I wanted to show you how I have acne scars along my whole jaw line, how I have a deep wrinkle between my eyes, how my neck is beginning to look layered. And I hoped that we could still see beauty. That hope failed, because I will not show you my face until it is covered in bare minerals.
I am not immune to the images and ads I constantly see. But even still I am willing to struggle this out. I will not be signing up for the many body altering procedures out there. Doesn't it feel wrong? That women would willingly be knifed, injected, covered in acid and poisoned all for a perfect body, for perfect skin? I am especially worried that mormon women sign up for these procedures like a swarm of bees. Whatever happened to "bodies are a temple"?
Last night Anne was measured for a poodle skirt. Her waist measured 25 inches and she still feels that she has an unsightly pouch. She knows she is being bombed with images, she wrote a paper on it, but she still thinks a fake-digital image is the true measure of a beautiful body.
Women will tell me that they have these procedures because it makes them feel better about themselves. This infuriates me.
"To add insult to injury, the rhetoric of feminism has been adopted to help advance and justify the industries in anti-aging and body alteration. Face-lifts, implants, and liposuction are advertised as empowerment, "taking-charge" of one's life. "I'm doing it for me" goes the mantra of the talk shows. "Defy your age!" says Melanie Griffith, for Revlon. We're making a revolution, girls. Step right up and get your injections."
--Susan Bordo "The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies"
It all feels wrong.
