Post 4 - Jacob Deely

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Growing up, I went to a Catholic elementary school.  The school was connected to a church and most of the teachers were very ancient nuns.  The boys wore polo shirts and navy blue slacks, and the girls wore plaid skirts and white blouses.  I remember being in the fourth grade when my friend Sarah was sent to the principle's office because her skirt was too short.  "No more than 4 fingers above your knee" was the rule.    At the time I didn't really think much of it, seeing it as another baseless law that Jesus had wrote somewhere in the subtext of the bible.  However even when I grew older I would be out with my mom observing the public, and she would let out little comments that seemed to be along the same lines.  "I can't believe she left the house like that."  she would whisper under her breath referring to another woman with a see through white shirt visibly displaying her colorful bra underneath.

Until recently I agreed with my mom.  I thought, why do women feel the need to expose their bodies?  I don't walk around with half of my chest showing.  The issue around this was that I was assuming that men and women were treated equally in society.  It wasn't until my naivety began to diminish before I began to realize that the female body was "different" in the eyes of the public.  Breasts, for example, were not tools for feeding babies, but instead a sex toy designed to be looked at and groped by men.  At least that what the popular media would have one believe.  The policing of female bodies is exactly what my elementary school injected into young brains.  It was what my mom felt the need to do under her breath while we watched people walk by.  Either a woman could cover herself up and be considered, "conservative", and "up-tight", or she could let it all hang out and she would be "asking for it".  Although the United States is not requiring women by law to completely cover their body in clothing like in Iran.  Women are subjected to something very much the opposite.  In America, women are encouraged to accentuate their femininity.  What this means is that women are an object to be observed and they need to distinguish themselves from men.  The media perpetuates this ideology with constant bombardment of near naked women with the message that a female should feel sexy and comfortable.  One example of this from Vickie Nam's Yell-Oh! Girls was the way that even teen magazines were encouraging her to make herself into a suitable women to be dated.  "... I fantasized about going to prom when I was fifteen..." (Nam xxii).  There is also a problem that I have noticed recently with the new fad of plus sized models.  The problem with body image for women is very counteractive.  I recently entered a subway car covered in top to bottom adds featuring large women in their under where with the words 'I am no angel".  This is another example of policing of women's bodies.  

#imnoangel

The idea of this ad campaign is that larger women can feel just as sexy as the toothpick skinny victoria's secret models.  Therein lies the issue.  No matter what changes regarding body image in the media spotlight it still focuses on the sexualization of the female body.