Tuesday 22 April 2014

The Eyes Of The Beholder.

Sometimes in life we have reflective moments to really think about ourselves and the world around us. Often these moments are associated with life changing events but others, well they just sneak up on you without you realising.


It was a standard shift at work, nothing interesting, until this little girl came by with her parents and saw me, immediately shouting "Barbie!".

This isn't the first time this has happened, I have had a life time of being compared to Barbie from when I was young and refused to brush my light blonde hair so it eventually had the texture and appearance of a well loved Barbie doll's to just last year and I got labelled the same way by a group of Taiwanese backpackers who were rightfully unfamiliar to a girl being 6 foot tall.

At first I saw it as a compliment and I understood the association, I have blonde hair and a long slender frame but then I really thought about it.

As a woman I feel pressure about my appearance all too frequently, primarily about my weight (i.e always intending to lose a little bit of it) and my height (which is often called freakish because adding an 'ish' to a word apparently makes it a socially acceptable adjective).

But then I realised this is just the beginning for this little girl. She has a lifetime ahead of unrealistic ideas of beauty being forced onto her wherever possible and exposure to photoshopped women in media that none of us are ever going to look like. I am sickened at the thought of this life only just starting on a girl who couldn't have been more than five years-old. At some point, she is going to realise she doesn't look like barbie (because none of us do) and she'll be aware that this doll who she sees as the epitome of beauty isn't going to be what she grows up to be.

But there is a reality that isn't found in the plastic walls of the beloved Barbie doll, there is beauty outside of that very small definition that we're exposed to from youth. Because Barbie doesn't tell the story of having curves, or having a different skin colour, or even having a different hair colour.

Barbie doesn't tell the story of variation that makes women beautiful and unique, and she doesn't define beauty, but how is a five year old supposed to know that?

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