The Shrinking Decade
After being traumatised by Torchwood I decided to pop on a DVD and picked out Cruel Intentions as it had been a good while since I last watched it. And my reaction is what it has been for a few years. Reese Witherspoon is gorgeous in this movie! Yet she is probably a good 2 to 3 sizes bigger than she is 10 years on. In fact becoming ever slimmer has become a trend over the past decade. In 1999 I was 16 years old, and a size 14, looking at women who were UK10-12 (US6-8) and feeling throughly under pressure to lose weight and be slim. If I felt that then when that was the “ideal” portrayed by celebrities and in the media, how the hell are the teenagers of today coping.
The past ten years it has become an increasingly popular trend to be almost invisible. As a teenager a size 6 was seriously skinny. I only knew two people who had small frames and were actually built to be that size. And there were some people that picked on them for being so small. Now it’s something to aim for. In fact the celeb ideal has become a UK4-6 (US0-2)… size zero. Take a look at Girls Aloud. A few months ago I saw the video for ‘Sound of the Underground‘ their first single back in 2003 (only a mere six years ago) and was shocked to see five healthy looking women who seem twice the size they are now (just watch the video for ‘The Promise‘ in comparison!)
I think most women know logically that beauty is subjective and therefore whatever shape or size you are there will be many people out there who find you attractive. The sad thing is that however logical this thought is, the media “ideal” is never far from most of our minds. I am ashamed to say as an intelligent woman who has achieved a hell of a lot in 26 years of life there is part of me that longs to be slim. And I haven’t got a clue why. I am fairly good with exercise and despite a bit of a chocolate addiction try to eat healthily, I’d say I’m averagely fit and healthy. I have never been short of people who find me attractive. And the way I look has certainly never ever had a negative impact on my career. There is no area of my life that would significantly improve if I was two, three or four sizes smaller, however my brain has been so influenced by this perception of beauty that it has become conditioned to think it’s something I want to be.
I have a 12 year old niece who is gorgeous, slim and absolutely beautiful but I am petrified of the messages she is picking up now about how she “should” look. Where will this “ideal” end up? And how will impressionable teenagers cope with that pressure? My youngest niece will turn 13 in 2019 and I hope by then we haven’t shrunk so much that invisible is the new thin!
I think this just demonstrates the power that the media have over our lives – totally irrationally.
Nice, well written article.
This is something that’s been on my mind for years. We’re living in an age of strong women, the media seems to be compensating by making them frail and delicate? I know, it’s terrible logic but it’s the only reasoning I can think for promoting that as an acceptable size. I used to be extremely self concious because I thought I was fat and this is the reason why, the images we are bombarded with. Now I realise that I’m actually normal but try telling that to a teenager, it just does not happen. I go into clothes shops now and see petite clothes for women who are short (at last) and plus sizes all separated out in their own little section with signs and all sorts but I notice the size 4-6 clothing that a child could fit into are put at the front of the pegs with the average sizes of 10-14. I feel a little disgusted by this, that we have to rummage past the sizes that a fraction of the population fit into, probably less (though I imagine the amount is growing) than the amount of people fitting plus sizes and petite clothing, to get to the average sizes.
And that’s my rant, an excellent blog post.
I think the point that your mental “ideal size” has nothing to do with the attentions of men is spot on. “The incredible shrinking woman” is a cultural artifact that has nothing much to do with what heterosexual men find attractive and much more to do with what makes clothes look “good” in a fashion shoot. Problem is, as this article points out, like all bits of our culture the relationship between the “media” and what they claim to represent is a complicated and reciprocal one. And I’m not sure how we break the cycle.
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