Every year, around this time, our good friends in the media start telling us 'What Swimsuit is Right For Your Shape'. They also tell us about new kinds of (hide your) shapewear pretty much once a month. Both things irritate me because they represent two things - media's belief in the inherent stupidity/gullibility of women everywhere, and the constant peddling of the Jennifer Hawkins-esque body as the ideal and proper shape.
First of all, just because a year has elapsed, it doesn't mean we need a whole new set of bathers, be it bikini, one-piece or apparently exciting new range from, you guessed it, Jennifer Hawkins. Not there's anything wrong with buying a new set every year, the stuff stretches and fades, goodness knows, but the idea that a year has gone by and the number of swimming costumes women own has magically gone from several to nil and we're all primed and ready to buy more is just ridiculous.
Secondly, stories about what sort of bathers you should be wearing imply that you, the consumer, does not know how to dress herself. It whispers in your ear that you are stupid, and that these fashion designers, 'media commentators' and... (SNORTS) celebrity bloggers are smart, and that you need them to tell you what to wear. I'll be straight up here and say that sometimes you see a woman walk down the beach and you think, "Oh, that pattern is all wrong" or "She should NOT be wearing a bikini". There's no accounting for taste. But you don't go up and scream these things in their faces, not just for the sake of good manners and empathy for your fellow beachgoer, but because however questionable the fashion choice, people's right to dress as they please is indisputable, no matter how subjectively 'bad' or 'wrong' it may look to my eyes, yours, or those of the rabid and ravening monster that is the media.
So far as shapewear is concerned, my mother remarked (though not in these exact words) that with ever increasing amount of the body these lycra contraptions are covering, we might as well be heading back to stays and the like. That seems like a backward step to me, because it is perpetrating a twofold lie, one for each sex.
Shapewear makes it look to men, who, bless them, would never imagine such a stupid thing under a woman's clothes, that the shapewear-clad woman is a size smaller and an entirely different shape to the one she actually is. Forgive the meat-market turn of phrase, but that is quite definitely false advertising. Frankly, I think the opposite sex deserves a woman to be honest with them - in word, in deed, and in body. Been through this before, but isn't it better that a man love you for who you are instead of lust after who you're not?
The lie that it tells women is that you can look as leggy and perfect as Jennifer Hawkins without having to do anything other than squash your internal organs and operate on reduced oxygen. What's more, it tells women that this is the way they should always be. God forbid that men, who are after all the implicit target audience of all this pouring ourselves into shapewear and careful bathers selection, should see the real you, squidgy edges and all. And of course, every time a woman takes the stuff off, and the proper shape of her body reasserts itself, it is a kick to her a self-esteem. It actually encourages women to feel bad about themselves.
A specific one that disturbs me is the underpants that, no joke, make your bottom look more rounded and shapely. Incidentally, they do make these for men too. But seriously, padded underpants? A padded bra is one thing, but shit, is your arse really the make-or-break thing about your appearance? I mean, I'm technically the target market, being narrow of hip and flat of rear, neither of which I consider detrimental to my appearance, when I do bother to think about such things. I suppose what enrages me so about this particular one is that the producers of these things, not satisfied with normal-sized and overweight women encasing themselves in shapewear, have started targeting the slim woman, the one who is probably safest from the media's obsession with the perfect female form. I don't technically fit into this category, but there are women out there who are now going to ask the question, "Does my butt look small in this?", and that makes me sick, because it leaves the chronically insecure with absolutely nowhere to go.
At the end of the day, all of this garbage cluttering our TVs, websites and newspapers are all designed to project one single idea - wear this pair of bathers and you will find a man. Cover all your natural body in lycra, hide anything that could possibly break the illusion of perfection, and you will find a man. Because of course, the only thing a man looks for in a woman is a fucking sculpture of an arse and an hourglass figure, right? No way could they be looking for anything real behind the metric ton of make-up and the push-up bra. No way could they be looking for your heart or mind or soul. Those things are worthless, because a man wants your body, not you. These are all the words that all those perfectly coiffed, perfectly strapped, nipped, tucked, painted people aren't saying. These all the appalling brutal ideas they don't want at your conscious level.
And they take advantage of all the women who simply can't or don't want to see this, and reduce them into wobbling puddles of self-loathing. It's wrong, it's just so bloody wrong. I could easily go strangle the lot of them, especially when they start talking about promoting positive body image. Derisive laughter is the only sane response to these peddlers of misery, who so self-righteously pretend to fix a problem they created on the one hand and keep on driving the nails in with the other. We must all turn our backs on these snakes and their poison. They'll have us buying new bathers on our deathbeds.
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