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I got 99 words and they’re all magazine headlines telling us that we need fixing.
Telling us to be less.
Not to be happier. Not to be stronger. Not to be bolder.
I’ve broken up with these types of publications a while ago. I couldn’t tell you precisely when, but I think it came on gradually. I do remember quite precisely that crestfallen feeling that would come over me every time I perused one of these “articles”.
Instead of giving me the solutions that I sought, it seemed each one was pushing incomplete information which, more often than not, contradicted what I’d read in the piece that came just before.
Amidst the confusion, one thing at least became clear: I was wasting my money, and I was wasting my time.
And so I stopped looking at them.
Years of detox later―because this is what this is akin to―I’m dismayed to see these titles glaring from magazine covers everywhere, and from click bait-y articles all over the web.
Praying on our insecurities, quietly whispering destructive messages to our soul. Convincing us that we’ll only ever be worthy if we purchase whatever they’re selling to turn us into a more diaphanous version of ourselves.
HAVING GAINED SOME CRITICAL DISTANCE, I SIMPLY CAN’T UNSEE THE BLATANT MANIPULATION THAT’S GOING ON.
As Naomi Wolf famously states in The Beauty Myth:
A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience.
Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.
AREN’T YOU SICK OF IT?
We can stand against this.
In my practice as a trainer and a coach, I advocate movement for the benefits that it can bring to all of our lives: easier, pain-free movement, more strength and endurance that translates in our everyday activities, and the freedom that we gain by moving deliberately on a regular basis. I promote eating things that taste good and make us feel good. I encourage everyone to approach this with love and compassion.
Are we ready to change the game for all of us?
I’ll keep doing my part in my little corner of the interwebz and the world, but I feel like more of us need to not only speak up, but keep talking.
Because I’m tired of being told that women need to be less, however convoluted those messages may be. Enough.
LET’S STRIVE TO BE MORE.
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