The other day I had the unique opportunity to speak with the two founders of Redefining Beauty, Lexie and Lindsay. For those who are unaware of the purpose behind Beauty Redefined, it started out as a PhD research project for the twin 26 year-old sisters Lexie and Lindsay that eventually evolved into an effort to educate and help women (and men) come to an understanding of how media in every venue has now skewed our vision of what is considered “healthy” or “normal” for our bodies.
Their efforts have been phenomenal in its exponential growth through unconventional means of advertising their cause: post-it notes with their message are often left by followers on magazines promoting a photo shopped version of women’s’ health, as well as billboards now up around not only Utah, but now also Pennsylvania. The Internet has provided these two women with an opportunity to share their message like never before through their website www.beautyredefined.net. On this website, there are numerous examples of blog posts and comments from other women, men and teenagers alike who all share in or are trying to understand the message of this program. Lexie and Lindsay are both currently attempting to turn this project into a non-profit organization to promote these truer ideals for women as well as how both men and women can work to help first become aware of how the media around them is influencing their ideals, as well as discouraging the objectification of women that has become so rampant in our society.
One of my favorite posts that I have seen on their website was about how children’s’ toys and advertising have changed drastically over the course of the past 50 years (this post helps serve some examples, especially for those of us who were kids in the 90’s: http://www.beautyredefined.net/my-sexy-little-pony-how-toddlers-are-taught-sex-appeal/).
An enlightening post on how photo shopping has changed our views in advertising and media can be found here: http://www.beautyredefined.net/photoshopping-altering-images-and-our-minds/
(For all those interested, the 45-minute-ish interview we had with them will take the form of a podcast, which should appear early next month on www.voicesindependent.com -- please note that this was done to promote their cause, not for a profit)
I initially started reading your post because it was similar to a portion of mine, and I wanted to see a different take on it. I casually read it, and then clicked on the links . . . and about thirty minutes later I’m writing this. That’s interesting stuff. There might be a few things that I don’t necessarily agree with, but when I think about it, I might not agree with it because I’ve grown up in the media’s standards. It’s weird to rework your brain to truly “redefine beauty.” And it’s really cool that these two sisters have found a way through digital media to express their feelings and teach others.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the same boat as Hayley, I started casually reading and then I read all of the links. Thank you so much for posting this website, I didn't even know it existed. This is an issue about which I am extremely passionate because my best friend in high school suffered from bulimia for over three years. She had a lot of personal issues, but I know that a portion of it came from comparing herself to (photoshopped) women in the media. I had a really hard time listening to her talk about the things she would do to herself, all because her warped sense of beauty told her she was fat. I couldn't agree more that "if beauty hurts, we're doing it wrong." Finding your own beauty (through getting ready in the morning or just by realizing it through thoughts) should be fun and empowering, not painful or life-threatening.
ReplyDeleteAs a dude who has undoubtedly (and sadly) been affected by this type of visual manipulation throughout my life, it was awesome to be able to read an article like this that actually points out what's going on. I guess for me it's been one of those things where I didn't know there was a problem because I didn't know what was going on. These articles are really good at pointing out the negative affects of this type of female portrayal without being too pushy or pretentious about it. The type of persuasion that always works best on me is the fact based, here's how it is type. Seeing statistics about how 3-5 year old girls are, at such a young age, being conditioned to sort of judge themselves and their friends is horrifying. My wife an I have had conversations about how we're going to raise our kids (specifically our daughters) and this will definitely change what we introduce our kids too.
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