Inspiration

This post found through Carnival of Feminists gave me some food for thought. Her main point: “feminists should believe in female beauty.” The tricky bit, of course, (which she leaves out) is that it should be our beauty, not what mainstream culture considers beautiful. I think we feminist women should all work on looking good to ourselves. Nevermind the rest of the world. As I have read on several feminist blogs lately, it’s none of my business what other people think of me. But it is my business what I think of me. Imagine if we feminists went to the effort to make ourselves look beautiful to ourselves, so that when we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirrored surface of a window it made us stand up straighter? Imagine the aura we would project. That’s power.
It’s hard, of course, to separate society’s beauty standards from our own – that takes some real work. But taking care of our bodies, keeping them in good health and avoiding fashion mags like the plague is a good start. I know some women who do this already, which is very cool. But some of us (like me, for example) need a little work.
Feminist men can do something about this too: believe in female beauty, real female beauty – not the stick-thin, plastic crap the media is selling. Appreciate the beauty inherent in all women if you don’t already. (Most of the guys I know are better at this than most women would give them credit for. But then, the guys I know are by and large awesome.)
Sounds like a revolution to me.