Slim or Strong?

One of the biggest things to miss out on life is to explore what you’re own body is capable of. A lot of people will die without exploring their own limits and I feel that is very sad. Why wouldn’t someone want to know their limits? Isn’t it a part of self assessment and exploration? This post however is about the different perspectives of beauty in the world.

 

I write this to all the women in the world (doesn’t mean men shouldn’t take notice). The media and paparazzi of today has created an image of the perfect woman. This perfect woman is slim and that supposedly makes her sexy. I urge you to look at the photos above and tell me which pair of legs looks sexier? The one on the left which is markedly slim or the one on the right which appears firmer and stronger? To be honest, the lady on the left is clearly not eating enough food.

In my opinion a woman should be strong too. With the advent of modern technology, the need for strength is losing its value among people. It used to be expected of men to be strong physically as they had to protect their family and support it. Now the only support required is financial. This is one of the reasons why we have diabetes, heart disease, obesity and all of this is just because of a lack of awareness. But women need to be strong too. A woman undergoes many stages in her life which requires a lot of strength; childbirth being one. A woman needs to have legs strong enough to carry herself when she has a life inside of her. Do you think the lady on the left has legs strong enough? A woman also needs to be strong enough to pick up her child and walk around with it all day if required. Mind you that is not a measly task and it requires strength.

The media paints a very dazzling picture of how a woman should look and we, like sheep, follow what they say. Here are a few examples of how the media dictates our perception of beauty.

Case of Disappearing Muscles of Celebrities

Photoshop makes Celebs look brighter more appealing

We all know what happened to Beyonce at the Superbowl. She sported her strong muscular legs and this is what they did to mock her.

The media needs to stop the campaign of defining feminine beauty. The campaign is more anti-women than it is pro-women. The women of the world need to wake up and realize what the media has done to them in terms of their food habits and everything else. And the first step has to be taken by us. We as responsible inhabitants of this planet have to tell the media to go to hell and boycott the airbrushing of celebrities.

In the first link above there is a picture of Olympic cyclist Victoria Pendleton. When she saw her exposed back with the muscles, she was proud because she put in a lot of hard work to achieve that. And what did the media do? The retouched her muscles to make her look feminine. Women are also human beings. And all human beings have muscles – around 600-800 in all. It is very natural for women to have them as they are the same species as men. Now they don’t have the hormone testosterone in as much quantity as we men do. That makes their muscles smaller in general than their male counterparts. But it certainly doesn’t mean that a female cannot have muscles. In fact having more muscle mass is beneficial for longevity and health of any individual.

I hope someday people will wake up and help me change this perception of female beauty. Women with legs like the lady on the left in the picture don’t need praise; they need help.