Eating Disorders Are NOT Fashion Statements

Ever since I was little I’ve always been kind of chubby.  I grew out of it for the most part but when I was little I got made fun of a lot for it. And I guess it really didn’t help that my sister was seven years older than me (sixteen at the time), short, beautiful, blonde, blue eyes, big lips, and Anorexic. At the age of nine I thought that I was never going to really live up to her standards. How was I going to ever look as beautiful as her?

Now, Nora (my sister) is recovering from her Anorexia and is really healthy. Which is like the best thing ever! She has told me so many stories and just things that she thinks about that has helped me understand why Anorexia and Bulimia have become almost like a fashion trend. Girls post pictures on social networking site of their ribs, thigh gaps, collar bones, pretty much a picture of every bone that sticks out of their bodies. Why? Because it’s “fashionable’”. Why a bone that every person has is fashionable, is beyond me.

“Pro-Ana” and “Pro-Mia” are nicknames given to sites or blogs or Twitter accounts that are Pro Anorexia and Pro Bulimia. The fact that these eating disorders are being treated like it’s a blessing to have them just show how society is affecting young women in a whole other way.

Gossip Girl

Lately, I have been re-watching Gossip Girl on Netflix (Yes, I’ve already watched the whole show once before. No judging.). Now just let me tell you how much I like Gossip Girl, no wait scratch that please, I LOVE Gossip Girl. Like everything about it. I love the character development, the soundtracks, the clothes they wear, seriously like EVERYTHING. But I guess even the best things have their flaws too.

The other day when I was watching it I forgot how one of the characters, Chuck kind of like, pretty much tries to rape another character, Jenny. AND THIS GUY IS ONE OF MY FAVORTIE CHARACTERS. And this happens so early in the show that by the time the show is over we, as viewers, totally forgot about it.

Some people may say that this adds to the character development that we love so much in Gossip Girl but I don’t see it that way. How can we so easily forget that Chuck tries to rape her? And later Jenny is portrayed as being bad and Chuck suddenly becomes a little more human. WHAT? How does that even work? Why does he get a second chance? Yes, Dan, Jenny’s brother, does get mad and punch him but this whole deal isn’t ever really talked about again and Chuck has no long term consequences for his actions, besides a black eye.

Advertisers, What Do They Want From Our Kids?

For ages, Advertisers have known that parents will do many things in order to get their kids to stop crying, throwing a tantrum or complaining non stop. So of course Advertisers have been using this to their advantage since the beginning of time. Similar to how parents will do anything to get their children to be quiet for about two minutes, kids know how to work their parents in order to get what they want, whether it's a new action figure/Barbie, or a candy bar. 

Companies have been trying to use the cradle to grave idea when creating advertisements. This is the idea that when a company is creating an add or commercial they want to grab the consumer when they’re young so that when they are growing up they become loyal to that company. For example, if a person really likes Coke over Pepsi because of the Polar Bear commercials that you saw when you were young, you have become a cradle to grave Coke consumer. These companies have realized that if the persuade you that their product is the best when you’re young, then you will always choose that product over the competing one.

Advertisers have also used other ways to see how convincing or how much of our kids attention they can get. Advertisers have created something called the blink test in order to see how drawn in they can get kids while they watch a commercial. And this is called the blink test. All they do is put a kid down in front of a TV while they watch an advertisement and count how many times they blink. The less they blink the more drawn in they are to the TV.

Is Porn Healthy?

Many female Porn Stars say that porn really empowers them and makes them feel in control of themselves and the situation that they are in. But do the viewers see it that way? Is typical porn healthy for young adolescent men to watch? Is it healthy for young women to watch? What is it teaching the future leaders of the world?

A lot of "regular" porn features young skinny white women being dominated or submissive to/by slightly older white men. The sex that is in porn isn't really the type of sex that is had by ACTUAL NORMAL people. It's amped up, edited, everything is airbrushed and smooth, and all the women look "perfect". Thats not real sex. Porn is teaching a lot of people, especially men, as to what sex is "supposed" to look like. When men grow up watching porn and expect exactly what he see's in the videos, they start to expect that with real women. This becomes very problematic because it's creating these unrealistic expectations for real women to fulfill, but they're impossible to!! Not all women will be able to fit into a XS sexy lingerie piece, even at their fittest! And when women realize that men expect these impossible goals to be met, it makes women feel like they aren't doing what they're supposed to be, which isn't true at all!

There are some sites that might refer to themselves as "feminist" porn, or something along those lines. There are definitely some sites that attempt to be seen as feminist and aren't owned privately and not by large companies just trying to make load of money. SuicideGirls.com is a website that shows different types of women (or they at least try to) with piercings and tattoos and fun different styles of hair. But the problem is that SuicideGirls is still run by men. And so is a lot of porn is still filmed and directed by men, therefore the only porn out there to be seen is the porn that men want to watch. 

You Can Be Anyone You Want On Halloween

For ages girls have been wearing revealing costumes on Halloween. The idea that you can be anyone who you want and nobody will judge you has been the rule that most people follow. But what does it say about our society when girls are wearing less than what they wear to the beach?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sexy-3pc-Flaming-Firefighter-Chick-costume-set-G-World-/380296078535

Some people say that it's empowering to women to be able to wear a sexy firefighter outfit, sexy cop, sexy (insert animal here), sexy anything pretty much. But what I don't understand is the argument behind that. Does the idea that you can really be anyone you want on Halloween and have nobody judge you actually go into practice? How do men look at women dressed in these costumes? Do they see these women for actual human beings with intellect and a brain? I don't think a guy looks at a girl dressed in a low cut leotard and bunny ears and thinks "Wow she's really empowered right now with that costume on. I wonder how she feels about the economy and climate change. I want to get to know her.".

Mommy Always Told Me That If I Was Ugly...

One day when I was about sixteen years old my mom and I were talking about our family friend whose daughter just got a nose job, and when I asked why she got one, my mom said that apparently Julie, the daughters name, just had a "horrible nose" according to my mom. Then, my mom told me that if I didn't have a chin or, like Julie I had a "horrible nose" she would get my plastic surgery to "fix" those unattractive features. Now, at the time I felt very comforted that my mom would be so willing to help me make myself more, of what my mom refereed to as "presentable" to the world.
My opinions have changed since I was sixteen about a lot of things. And plastic surgery has been one thing that I've had many changing and developing opinions about. Currently, my opinion on plastic surgery is that if someone was born with something that affects their ability to do normal everyday tasks, if someone is having a sex reassignment surgery, if they were in a bad accident and need to reconstruct their face or something along those lines then it's perfectly okay.
But what gets me and confuses me is when someone does it for cosmetic reasons only. To make them feel better about their body, aging, whatever it is. This one girl who I'm friends with lost about one hundred pounds and now her breasts aren't what they used to look like because, well, she lost one hundred pounds. Once she referred to them as looking like popped balloons. And as a fellow young woman in a world that tells us constantly what it is socially acceptable to look like, I understand her being self conscious about her breasts and body in general. But also, as a young women is it okay to show young girls who are growing up in a harsh critical society that if you don't like something about your body you can just pay some old white dude a bunch of money to go cut you up and "fix" yourself?

Heidi Montag, an actor from The Hills has gone through about twelve plastic surgeries. In my opinion I thought that Heidi was a very naturally beautiful woman before she got anything done. But something made her decide that she wasn't attractive enough. According to her surgeon many of these procedures were little "tweaks". Now, if they are just little "tweaks", are they really necessary? Does having your eyebrows raised about a quarter of an inch or less really that important in the whole grand scheme of things? I think not.

You Play Ball Like A Girl

I play rugby in my town and we have both a girls and boys team. Now, I don't want to brag or anything but the girls team is a lot better than the boys. We've won more games, participated in more tournaments, and we have raised more money. I mean really, we're an all around better team. However when we practice the boys team gets to use three quarters of the field, all of the balls except two (in total we have about ten), and they get treated more seriously then us.

I think that this is this way because of the stereotypes that get put on women. That women can't play as well as men, that women are weak, that women can't be as competitive or aggressive as men can be. Now technically, women cannot have as much upper body strength as men but that doesn't mean that we can't kick a ball as far or tackle someone well.

Something else that I have noticed about the boys team is that whenever we practice with them they don't play to their full capability. When I've gone to tackle them they don't try to run away they'll just stand there and don't do anything about it. It's pretty lame. I don't want to be playing against a mannequin. I believe that they play this way because of how boys are raised they are taught chivalry. Part of that being to not want to ever physically harm a girl, even when they play a game like rugby. Instead of finding this as being respectful, as some women and men see it that way, I find it rude and insulting. I am obviously there at a practice in order to actually practice and the boys team not wanting to play a real game with our team ticks me off. A lot of the time I feel that boys and men see women and girls as little dolls and if you touch us then we automatically break into a hundred thousand pieces. Which is obviously not how we work.

http://rocketstar.tumblr.com/post/57971988972

Sex Sells.

There is one thing that I see in almost every single ad. Sex. Or someone looking sexy. Ads like this appear on TV, in magazines, on billboards, on Facebook, Youtube, etc.... Most of the time the ad is of some woman with her lips slightly parted, legs open and half naked. Women have been the subjects of most ads since the beginning of time. Women in ads have been over-sexualized and dominated by men. It has become the norm for us to see this everyday.

http://adage.com/article/adages/burger-king-ad-latest-smutty-sandwich-peddling/137541/

This Burger King is probably the worst one I've seen yet. This ad suggests many things. The fact that Burger King decided to name the sandwich "BK Super Seven Incher" astounds me on many levels. The placement of the sandwich near the young woman's mouth, the name of the sandwich, the woman's open mouth and that the word "blow" is printed in huge font, all makes me suggest... well it doesn't leave much to the imagination

The Brainwashing of Product Placement

"WILSON! WILSON! WILSON!" However before this famous scene in he movie Castaway featuring Tom Hanks, Chuck Noland has to open a ridiculous amount of FedEx packages, largely and colorfully labeled on the boxes.

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/03/25-hilariously-obvious-product-placements-in-movies/cast-away

Product placement is in every single TV show and movie. These big companies pay to have their product used  in a movie or show. Half the time viewers aren't very aware of the brainwashing that is going on. For example, the Etch-A-Sketch and Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story are HUUUUGE product placement but they go by unnoticed as product placement a lot of the time, because the toys are actual characters in the movies. After the first Toy Story Etch-A-Sketch has a 4,500% increase in sales, and Mr. Potato Head had an 800% increase in sales.

These companies are brainwashing viewers into buying their product. Viewers will see these products and never really consciously acknowledge that maybe whats in Lady Gaga's hair isn't just any soda can, but it really is a Diet Coke can. So later when someone is going out to the grocery store they'll pick up some Diet Coke, instead of the stores brand.

 

http://www.ourstage.com/blog/2011/4/22/sound-and-vision-product-placement-in-pop-videos-good-bad-ugly-or-just-great-business