Several weeks ago, much to my surprise, I was captivated by a new billboard campaign. A picture of a normal, healthy, non-airbrushed woman and a question: withered or wonderful? Immediate WOW!
This is not some momentary media blip. Here's some background from the Dove (as in soap) website CampaignForRealBeauty
For too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes. ... Dove's global Campaign for Real Beauty aims to change the status quo and offer in its place a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty. A view of beauty that all women can own and enjoy everyday. In order to achieve this important goal, the Campaign for Real Beauty includes the following initiatives: Creation of a forum for women to participate in a dialogue and debate about the definition and standards of beauty in societyRelease of a global, academic research study that explores the relationship that women from around the world have with beauty and its links to their happiness and well-being
Advertising that inspires women and society to think differently about what is defined as beautiful
Fundraising initiatives (sponsored by the Dove Self-Esteem Fund) to help young girls with low body-related self esteem
Self-esteem workshops with young girls in schools to help them foster a healthy relationship with and confidence in their bodies and their looks
Establishment of the Program for Aesthetics and Well-Being at Harvard University, through a grant from Dove, which will continue to examine the way we think and talk about beauty in popular culture and the effect that this has on women's well-being
Creation of a global touring photography exhibit, Beyond Compare, Women Photographers on Beauty, showcasing diverse images of female beauty from 67 female photographers, and demonstrating that beauty is about much more than stereotypes.
Interesting footnote: today my 5 year old son asked me, "Why is there a picture of a person with chicken pox on that sign?" I could not convince him that the woman merely had some "beautyspots". It's going to take alot of Dove to overcome our saturation of artifical beauty.
Yeah but stereotypes always come into being cause there's some level of truth to them. Like external beauty isn't as important as internal beauty for sure, but still sociologists say that generally societies name 10% of their populace as beautiful or handsome. Like what is gained by calling uglier people beautiful so they can feel better about themselves on the basis of deception? There are degrees of beauty that can be measured with broad scale accuracy.
In every society and generation we have evidence of both men and women who are beautiful and that efforts were made to "enhance" their natural beauty. The problem that exists within western culture today is that "beautiful" is anything but natural and normal. Beautiful = airbrushed models and actors sporting botox, liposuction, breast enhancement, tummy tucks, cosmetic surgery, and a plethora of eating disorders.
Where once we valued the woman who aged 'gracefully' we now hold up icons made possible only by the deception of photo manipulation, surgery, unhealthy eating and illbeing. Is this the "truth" that I wish to pass on to my 9 year old daughter and 5 year old son?
I saw one of those billboards on the way home last night. I thought it was awesome. I fear for my daughters too. My oldest (8) thinks she's fat because all the women society exalts are thin. What constitutes "ugly" and "beautiful" are way to subjective to debate over, but kudos to Dove for saying it's OK to be yourself.
What's wrong with beautifying what God has given? I wax my car. I paint my house. But sometimes when women are on the other extreme really into their looks in the sense of talking about growing old naturally they're covering up for their insecurity about their looks or self-concept cause they feel they can't measure up. Maybe sad but true. Like Bill Gautherd asks "If you had a magic wand to change something about your body would you use it?" I can't lie, I prefer the look of beautiful women.
Surprise! The models who appear in magazines and on billboards are airbrushed. Some are naturally more beautiful than others, but the modern standard of beauty is hopelessly unrealistic.
For the record, my wife is beautiful. But I am glad to be stretched to see past some of the shallow standards of our society and to realize that beauty can look different than airbrushed models with unblemished skin who weigh 95 pounds soaking wet.
Jim, first off, houses and cars are things, objects. Women, like men, are created by God, made in the image of God and are to be honoured and respected as you would your mother or your sister.
We are all wired to appreciate beauty. Beauty is good. Unfortunately, within our culture, the standard of beauty for women (and increasingly for men as well) is not a healthy kind of good but rather a compulsive, unbalanced version.
Chasing the images of beauty that are thrown at us daily leads only to death - just ask a friend or family member of someone who has struggled with an eating disorder (and it shouldn't be hard to find one because there are 35 million Americans identified as such today).
Final thought: when Lever Ponds and organizations for eating disorders identify a moral need to change our cultural definition of beauty and believers argue against it something is really wrong somewhere.
I find nothing wrong with beauty, as long as it's a natural and healthy beauty. Like Charlene said, I think we all can appreciate it. The problem is that the type of beauty we're bombarded with daily is fake and unrealistic to some extent. We're so caught up in the airbrushed and plastic models, that some can't even appreciate natural beauty anymore. That's really sad. What a challenge it is not only to live in this world as a woman, but to be raising our girls, as well as our boys, with these types of images and this type of a message. It's nice to finally see someone step out in the ad industry and try to change some of this finally.
First off I was using an a fortiori argument. If we wax and paint inanimate objects how much more should we enhance the beauty of human beings of the female gender?
Second my comments were intended to balance out yours not negate or as you assume argue against them. In my view if you take the "natural beauty" high ground (something that beautiful women don't tend to do) then you standardize what God hasn't and run the risk of legalism that equally masks the root problem. Honesty about ourselves is superior to some kind of artificial catharsis.
Jim,
We can argue this forever and I would rather not. I don't know if you have seen the billboards to which I referred in my original post. While this campaign may not agree with your perspective you may find, if you truly engage women of various ages in conversation about this, that this is a genuine issue for women in our society today.