Those Ribs Are Hot

Throughout history women's beauty has been looked at through the fertility lens. If you looked "healthy" enough to conceive and bare children then you looked very beautiful. Roman Goddess Venus (equivalent to Greek Goddess Aphrodite) is associated with fertility, love and beauty. She has been pictured as the modern definition of voluptuous (Marilyn Monroe) and the postmodern definition of overweight and possibly even obese (Mariah Carey) . I'm not saying Mariah Carey is overweight or obese, I'm saying that possibly, because her ribs don't show through her dress, she is thought of by men and women alike as fat. Regrettably, most of the time, I am one of those women that thinks Mariah Carey and any woman above size of the bony models on the run way are not thin. I know that my fear of celebrities fat is from my own insecurities as a curvy woman. I can look at women, celebrities or not, and think you're thin, but you're not really thin. It's very weird because when I look at my friends size two or not those thoughts never go through my head. I believe my female friends to be like Mary Poppins "practically perfect in every way". I know my problems with body image stem from my past issues with weight, but also with the mass media who tell women daily what is beautiful and what is so last year.
When I was growing up I struggled a lot with weight. A lot. I used to believe that it started when, at the age of 6, my best friend's mom told me I needed to lose weight. I had never thought of myself as fat until then. I have looked at my younger pictures and I definitely did not need to lose weight. This might have been the needle that broke the hay stack, to my gaining a lot of weight over the next couple of years, but it was not the hay stack. My low self-esteem is due to my mother's low self-esteem coupled with the mass media telling me how I was not beautiful were the hay stack.
My massive weight fluctuations led me to believing that I didn't know who I was. I tried to be different to different people. Whenever I dated a boy I would turn into who I felt they wanted me to be. I didn't like myself when I was being someone other than myself. It took me a while to figure out who I am. I also came to the realization that I am continually changing, the difference is is that I am changing for myself and not someone else.
Well, what does that huge history have to do with anything. Well I believe that if women know who they are, who they really are, then they are better equipped to be the best of feminist according to their own ideology. They would be confident with their choices as women and accepting of other women's choices because of their confidence. I also feel that because of my past I can see through my negative thoughts about women and see their beauty. I also can see that whether the ideal model for beauty is thick or thin, that the definitions were made up by men. Women's body and their beauty were as much of a commodity at the beginning of time (how many children can you bare me) as they are now (how many records can you sell for me by showing off your body). The definitions of beauty need to change. Those changes cannot happen when Tyra Banks tells one of her America's Next Top Model nominee's that she wished that the modeling industry was different, but it's not. She continued to tell the model that the model need to make better eating choices that would in essence keep her stick thin. Well Miss Loophole Banks, the industry won't change if your condoning the way that it is. Women need to be the change that they wish to see.