Society and it’s every changing ideals. Thin. Fat. Chubby. Fit. Muscles. Tan, no tan. On and on it goes. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be on the right side of history. My entire adult {and teenage} life the focus was on slim models, waifs and being a total glamazon. I contemplated what it would have meant to be born two hundred years ago, or longer. Would I have fit right in? Or would my blue eyes and fair colouring have been a bit blah. Perhaps I was never destined to fulfil the ideal…
And then I realise, no one fulfils the ideal. Even the women held up as the ideal are tweaked and tweezed and primped and preened and photoshopped into shape. Their age and experience removed. Their uniqueness airbrushed. Even they aren’t worthy of the ideal in their ‘human’ form. If you really take a moment to think about that, it breaks it down a little. Makes it less impactful in a way.
If there’s one thing I’m learning about fashion and fads and ideal bodies it is that there is no such thing as perfect. They are all ideas. Creations by someone or something {media, society, whatever} and they only have power over me if I let them. As a woman I can choose my fate in a way my teenage self didn’t have to power to. I can choose to conform {or attempt to} or I can resist and rebel. Or maybe, just maybe the best response is to just be me in the best possible version and leave it at that.
So I have one thing to say to that big ideal maker in the sky;
Don’t point your ideal at me! I’m not interested. Not now. Not ever again.
Chief Blogger at Suger Coat It; An Australian lifestyle blog for women who work for themselves. Melissa is a social media consultant & lover of stripes. Most weekends you’ll find her at the beach or home on the veranda kicking back. Around here, they call her Suger. Feel free to do the same.
