Secrets, Lies and Grace - Part 1

How do you feel about your life? I read two quotes about women recently: The first one said: ‘So few grown women like their lives.’ This made me wonder why this might be and that led me to the second quote: ‘Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good looking, good tempered, well groomed and unaggressive’. And this is of course the challenge that faces every woman – how do we learn to like ourselves when the pressures on us are so intense? 

First there are the lies society tells us. Society tells us that there is such a thing as ‘a perfect woman’. But of course that perfect woman is able to walk on water. Then it goes systematically undermining us and our views of ourselves by telling us in ways both subtle and unsubtle that we will never be good enough. Lady Gaga has been hailed us the cultural icon of our time. Her song ‘Born this Way’ encourages people to celebrate themselves as they really are and not to allow anyone else to determine their identities.  But let’s be clear: Stefani Germanotta doesn't perform under her own name; every appearance and performance is choreographed, costumed and constructed to the nth degree to project a pre-selected image. So, despite what she says, what she does simply reinforces the lie that we are not good enough as we are.

How many of you follow fashion on the catwalk – you know you watch those programmes when we look at what designers tell us we should be wearing and how we should look. Well, if these fashion icons are to be believed: there is an ideal shape for women and women are not good enough to portray that shape. 

Lea is currently a top Brazilian catwalk model.Well, Lea was not born a woman. She is the product of gender reconstruction – surgically changed from being a man and as such has a form created around the concept of the 'ideal woman' What about Andre Prejic? He is a young man used on the catwalk and for big modelling campaigns (like Vogue features) because he represents ‘the ideal female form’. How scary is that? How do you compete with the image of the ideal female form when that form isn’t even female?
Depressed yet? Well, don't be, watch out for Part 2 tomorrow. The clue is in the title...