My Reason

Jane Doe. How appropriate. A woman without an identity, so fitting for any woman of the 21^st century. So I pose the question, who are you?

At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all right off the bat, allow me to tell you who you are not. You woman, are not the cellulite free, sunken cheek bones, non-touching thighs, flawless pores, no love-handles, no wrinkles, no laugh lines, type of woman that sits on the cover of most magazines around the world.

You are, however, a woman. That itself is something more powerful than any new diet craze. You are capable of bringing new life into this world. You have a kindness, strength, a passion to help, to love and to care for others. Whether you are single, married, young or wise, you are beautiful because you are a woman, and I think we should start there.

So this is my story, my reason, my passion. I am 21 years old, and I adore magazines. I love them. I read them from front to back and sometimes even back to front. I love the art of communicating, through photographs, articles, and stories.

I want women to see realistic advertisings and images that encourage self-improvement and freedom of expression. I would like America’s definition of what “beautiful” means, to change. I want “sexy” to be healthy, not sickly thin. Today, a woman’s worth is overshadowed by thinning Hollywood and Maxim’s Hot 100.

WOMEN ARE WORTH SO MUCH MORE THAN THE MEDIA GIVES CREDIT FOR.

My greatest fear is what we are doing to our younger generations of girls. I remember days, feeling like I wasn’t going to make it out of my teen years alive. I was never thin enough, always too tall, and too big. My pores were never small enough and my thighs had too much cellulite and so on and so forth. I feel like I can make my case because I am freshly out of my adolescent years but not quite fitting into my adult shoes just yet, so my memories are vivid and strong. And now, as I finish up my college experience, I think back on all of the time I have wasted trying to be beautiful when I was all along.

To summarize, I feel as a society, we are doing massive amounts of damage to not only ourselves, but most importantly to young girls. If growing up wasn’t hard enough these days, we are bombarding our young women with visuals that scream they are not thin enough, not pretty enough, not sexy enough. So, I come to find myself, surrounded by a million bleach blond women, with spray on tans and breast implants. Whether you find it attractive or not is not the point. The point is we have allowed the standard for beautiful to become very limited. Now we walk around, trying to fit the same mold, which clearly we cannot do. In the process , we end up killing ourselves.

I believe if we change the way the media portrays women, we can fix many of life's threatening problems. We can lower the rates of eating disorders; we can instill a sense of self-worth into our daughters so they can look in the mirror and praise their individual body types. We can give young women confidence, which allows them to stand up against peer pressure. Who knows, we could lower teen pregnancy rates, stop young girls from trying cigarettes to stay thin, and teach the importance of good exercise and nutrition. I would love to see diversity celebrated.

"There is something … women can do for themselves. It will not only help them look more youthful, it will help them be happier. Learn to speak to yourself with kindness and generosity. Women have this ongoing internal voice. They'll look in the mirror and say, 'Oh, you fat cow!' If someone walked up to you and said, 'Hi, you fat cow,' you would not accept that. So why would you accept that from yourself?"

— Victoria Principal

Photos taken from www.campaignforrealbeauty.com