Women Are Not Their Own Worst Beauty Critics

[redqueen]

Last week, Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” ad went seriously viral across the web. And by viral we’re talking millions of YouTube views, a New York Times article and a parody within the span of a few days. Regardless of your opinion on the ad, it’s clear it has struck a nerve and contributed to a necessary conversation.

But there is one particular strand of this conversation which seems especially worth further investigation. Whether it was in TIME’s twitter feed or in individual’s Facebook posts, many have used some variation of this phrase in relation to the commercial: “women are their own worst critics when it comes to how they look.”

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All the men in the world who feel entitled to women’s bodies, and feel entitled to have an opinion about those bodies, and sometimes even feel entitled to touch and hurt those bodies – they are the worst critics of women’s beauty. They are the ones who most often turn criticism into objectification, dehumanization and even violence.

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If we really want women (and everyone else) to feel better about themselves then we should also be challenging these men and boys to take a second look at how they talk about women and women’s bodies –and the negative impact it is having on our world.

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http://www.missrepresentation.org/media/women-are-not-their-own-worst-beauty-critics/

[ismnotwasm]

1. No shit

I almost posted a parody I found of that campaign, involving men being their own worst critics by thinking they're more attractive than they are, but decided that ultimately, it wasn't useful.

[redqueen]

3. Sigh.

...

By contrast, it could be argued that men – who have never had their value as a human being appraised by others relative to their physical beauty in the ways that women historically have – live in a self-image bubble. And existing as they do outside the relentless, self-image-battering criticism/critique that women endure every day coming at them from all sides, is it surprising that men’s sense of their own attractiveness might be, well, just a little out of whack?

The video is funny, no doubt, but it does also serve to underscore something very real and not-so-funny: the massive gender gap that exists between men and women relative to body image. Brass tax, women aren’t hard on themselves because it’s natural or normal or we’re born that way — we’re trained by society to be ultra-critical and hyper-anxious about our bodies, and men simply aren’t. Or at least aren’t anywhere near to the extent that women are. Sure, there are guys out there who are style and image conscious, men who work out fanatically at the gym to achieve some ideal physique, but I think it’s fair to say that the average dude thinks hard and critically about how His Attractiveness about as often as he gets an oil change for his car. But for women… well, there’s a ceaseless daily drone in our heads (and on TV, and in magazines, and in movies, and – perhaps most disturbingly – coming from other women) about whether we’re too fat, or too thin, or if our hair is shiny enough, and does this lipstick make me look pretty or cadaverous (ad infinitum, applied to every facet of our physical being)? It’s exhausting, frankly.

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http://www.babble.com/babble-voices/mamapop-all-access/2013/04/19/dove-sketches-parody-highlights-gender-gap-in-perceived-attractiveness/

[mopinko]

2. yeah, but it is just a commercial.

the artist knew all along who was talking, and drew accordingly.

[seabeyond]

4. men are the ones who most often turn criticism into objectification, dehumanization and even violenc

yes. yes they are.