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It’s not okay

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Last night, this ad played on TV which sang the praises of some or other weight loss thing. A woman told us all how, as she got older, the pounds piled on. We are shown the shocking photos of her before state. I stared, open-mouthed, turned to Micky, and said something to the effect of: “They’ve got to be kidding.” The before version was a slim, healthy-looking woman. The after version was very thin. Skeletal, almost.

Then there was Facebook. I’m just coming off a month’s Facebook hiatus, and slowly started checking it every few hours again. Then I remembered one of the reasons I went off Facebook. Advertisements similar to this one keep popping up in my news feed:

insanead

“1 Tip to a flatter belly!” screams the page it is from. My problem is that the media is indoctrinating us that the above skeletal appearance is the ideal. If you don’t know how deeply damaging it is to the psyche of not only women, but men, too, to be conditioned that this is what women should strive to look like, there is ample information online to update you. (here here here) The biggest tragedy is, of course, that the body image displayed as the ideal is a myth. If you’re not aware of how drastically removed from reality those magazine photos are, please do yourself a favour and go read this. Please also watch this amazing TED talk by Cameron Russell. Media images are works of art, and striving for it is as realistic as striving to look like a figure from a Picasso painting.

Omg, can a plastic surgeon plant my eye in the side of my nose like that? I just have to have that look...

Omg, can a plastic surgeon plant my eye in the side of my nose like that? I just have to have that look…

So here’s the problem, over and above the urgent need for all of us to educate ourselves about the true nature of media body image: you can’t opt out of this. I feel offended everytime that advert comes up on Facebook. I understand it’s not the intimately personal platform many people make the mistake of thinking it is, but I also understand that adverts which pop up on your computer, much as we dislike it, are targeted specifically at you. Facebook is aware of my gender, age, country of residence. Simply being a woman of around 40 in the Western world makes you a victim of near ceaseless harassment. The research which shows that exposure to images such as the one from Facebook lead to negative feelings about myself proves that these people harm me, and don’t care about harming me, as long as that harm leads to them making money.

I don’t buy fashion or beauty magazines, partly because I am aware that they are harmful. I set The Guardian’s app to topics which exclude all the bullshit celebrity stuff. Yet Facebook leaves me one of three choices: I can stay off it altogether, and lose contact with a few friends who, due to distance and the pressures of daily life, I really only keep in touch with through Facebook. I can visit Facebook and simply endure the adverts which are shoved under my nose in what feels like a very invasive way. Or I can “hide from timeline” two or three of them every day, endlessly, ceaselessly, with no option to say: “Ya know, Facebook, I understand you need the advertising revenue, but can I perhaps just opt out of this bullshit which angers me so much? You’re much more likely to get me interested in something cycling or camping related anyway.”

It’s not okay to put these things in places where we can’t opt out. Another argument for just opting out of Facebook altogether.



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