I have a confession to make. Besides my incredibly talented blogger friends, I almost never read any of the random blogs floating around out there. And yesterday I remembered why.
I stumbled across a blog completely by accident while browsing around one of my new favorite female-empowering websites (though the actual motives of this website, which shall remain nameless, are now seriously being questioned). Rather than put up a link to this garbage and force someone else to read it, I'll paraphrase it.
It was called "Another Person I'm Not Happy For: Jessica Alba" and went on to talk about how awful actress Jessica Alba is because she has two kids and a rockin' body. But what really irritated me was when the "writer" went on to say that she's jealous of the bodies of Victoria's Secret models, but "when they open their mouths to try speaking English it sounds like they’re coming off of a big dose of Anesthesia. None of the vowels work, and the more they talk the better I look next to them".
Okay...really?!
Don't get me wrong. I'm a woman who's had two kids and I'm just as self-conscious about my body as the next woman who has had two kids (or who hasn't had any kids at all, for that matter). But do you know what makes me feel better? Taking my kids outside and chasing them around. You know what doesn't make me feel better? Putting other people down.
As a woman, it's hard. We're trained to be critical of other women practically from birth. It's all one big competition. But the one thing I've learned over the past year is that it doesn't have to be that way. I repeat, It. Doesn't. Have. To. Be. That. Way.
Case in point: Last semester I was in the restroom at school washing my hands when a girl came out of the stall to wash her hands next to me. This girl was a knock-out in that make-up free, glowing skin kind of way that makes those of us who look like the troll that lives under the bridge first thing in the morning practically salivate with envy. To top it off, she was wearing one of those really cool wrap-around dresses in really bright colors that I probably couldn't even figure out how to put on, much less successfully pull off. Under ordinary circumstances, I probably would have done what I have spent the last twenty-seven years of my life doing (assume that because she's pretty, she's a bitch and continue to wash my hands with my head down) but I'd just come up with my book club's mission statement and a theory of my own; All of the "girl hate" with which we become so accustomed, is nothing more than a bad attitude and all in our heads. So instead of ignoring her, I decided to start practicing what I'd just started preaching and I told her I liked her dress (because I did) and I could never pull it off myself (because I couldn't).
She turned around, literally beamed at me and started thanking me profusely. We got to talking and it turns out her boyfriend told her he thought it was an ugly dress right before she walked out the door that morning and she'd been feeling awful all day (Just a side rant: Josh would wear a black polo shirt and jeans seven days a week if he thought he could get away with it. Unless he's gay, never listen to a guy when it comes to what you're wearing. Trust me, it's a waste of time). I refrained from suggesting she should dump her boyfriend and instead reinstated how great the dress was. No, we didn't become best friends (because life isn't a Taylor Swift video) but we talked long enough for me to be ten minutes late to class and whenever I saw her on campus the rest of the semester, we always smiled and waved.
My point is this: We live in an ugly world right now and it sickens me that so many people are not only okay with that, but seem hell-bent on making it uglier. The blog from the site-that-shall-remain-nameless was one of the most unnecessarily hateful things I've ever read. It didn't sound like it was written by an (allegedly) legitimate adult writer, but rather like it was written by a jealous sixth grader on the wall of a middle school bathroom in pink sharpie. I'm not really even a Jessica Alba fan to be honest and if the "writer" had written about how the last few Jessica Alba movies she's seen have been horrible and maybe Jessica Alba should consider a different career, there may have been a small amount of legitimacy to her point. In other words, if you feel the need to criticize, criticize the content, not the package it comes in. We can be better than that...I hope.
I'm far from perfect and I think that changing our attitudes towards each other takes a lot of time and effort. I hope that if you read the blog (which despite my rant, I still wouldn't suggest doing) your first thought isn't "Of course she has a perfect body, she has a nanny and a personal trainer" because a) We really don't know anything about anyone for an absolute fact, and b) Even if I personally had both a nanny and a trainer it wouldn't be enough to make me not want to sit on the couch and eat ice cream while watching The Simpsons every night. That kind of motivation is super-human, no matter who you are or what resources you have. Instead I say, kuddos to Jessica Alba, kuddos to my marathon-running friends, and kuddos to awesome women all over the world, whether you're staying healthy or doing something positive in the world. It's negative blogs like that one that have made me realize that you ladies are few and far between.
Finally, in the words of one of my own personal heroes, the gorgeous Tina Fey, "Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter. All you can do is solve the problem right in front of you". Amen, sister.
Amen, indeed!
ReplyDelete