I watched a fascinating documentary last night. Particularly fascinating if, like me, you are interested in, and/or suffer from mild BDD, or Body Dysmorphic Disorder. I find the psychology behind this sort of thing interesting, because part of the road to acceptance and recovery is understanding.
I have always been one of those women that compares herself to others (which I imagine we all do to some extent) and used to read those stupid pink magazines with 100 pages of how shocking the size 0 craze is and then an article on how to drop 6 dress sizes in 5 minutes. My life drastically improved when I started ignoring their existance.
I have always thought that I am big . However, irrational or self-indulgent that may sound to anybody who does not know me; since I announced to my mother at the age of 5 that I was fat, I have had problems with my body image. The question is, where did I get that from? Moreover, where do a substantial proportion of the population get it from? We aren't born that way; more programmed by environment. This is why I want to study Psychology. Anyway, back to the programme I was watching...
I started wtaching it because it was about advertising through the 20th Centuary, beginning with the early 50's "dahling, one would simply love a Babycham!" and such gems as "Even a woman can open it!" when referring to a bottle of tomato sauce. This particular epoisode was about women and beauty products. See, I always thought that that the media preyed on mass insecurity. However, I'm now more of the opinion that it creates that insecurity. I mean, I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to have a wrinkle when I'm 46 until Andi MacDowell told me I wasn't - I thought it was normal! Incidentally, there is a new face cream that claims to contain "Oxygen atoms". I hope I'm not alone in thinking this is complete shyte! I mean, the only way it can physically contain an oxygen atom is in the form of water! So it's a tube of watered down cream, I presume? And don't get me started on that silly woman and her "Pentapeptides". The only way to tackle 'anti-aging' is for us all to be embalmed at 36 - ask the Egyptians.
Anyhow, it was interesting to see how women were tailored into certain situations. Post war, advertising focussed on getting women out of the jobs they had worked in while the men were away fighting and back into the home by placing huge emphsis on 'having your whites whiter than your neighbours' and all that. Then came the need to have a complexion like a china doll, when bathrooms and pampering were so inaccessible to the masses, soap companies glamorised their products so as to convince them that advancement in life would only be made through using such products - taglines such as 'be ready for your close up'. The idea was to sit at home lathering oneself in Camay whilst waiting for a man to select you and then you could wash his whites (potentially they'd be whiter than those of your neighbour) for the rest of your life, feeling smug. Equally, a marvellous advert was shown in which a woman asks herself why, if she is such a good Secretary, her boss doesn't like her whereby another woman turns up and 'whispers' (more, 'screams') "B.O!" in her ear. Great.
But...the one that incensed me the most was an advert for Special K. A woman walks through the office eating a cream cake while some smug, suit-wearing g*t says "I wonder what her waistline will be like in 5 years time?!". I could literally feel every woman at that time gasp in horror. Indulgent products - cake, chocolate, alcohol - were being marketted like no tomorrow, yet with the introduction of Twiggy, denim and so forth, how were women to emulate her look and have a Flake in the bath (watch it doesn't get ion the Camay) ?! Honestly, I was so angry, I almost threw my Pick 'n' Mix across the room.
Perhaps what I am trying to say is, very incoherently, although we can see that Andi MacDowell is full of it (I never liked her in Four Weddings anyway, although I'm dissapointed in Davina McCall) the subliminal power is shocking. It's amazing what the subconscious takes in, which is why Hypnotherapy is so prevolent (it really can stop you smoking, you know). My mother bangs on about being "an old woman" and something about needing ironing rather than a moisturiser because she is 60 (yet still looks about 35). There's this horrible feeling of craving acceptance and seems to always have been. From having clean washing to smelling like a tart's boudoir and now being so wrinkle-free you are physically unable to smile. I get very cross, as I think you've gathered. I was always so affected by what I saw and heard as a child and young adolescent and it got me in right bother. With impressional people seeing this rubbish all around them, and silly skinny Victoria Beckham and the like, the situation is worsening. The obvious answer would be to not be affected by such things, wouldn't it, and I know people who say they don't care what they eat/look like/wear..but I struggle to believe them.
I've finished ranting now. Grr.