sigelphoenix

You know Dove's new advertising campaign? The Campaign for Real Beauty? It involves 'models' who are not professional models, whom Dove picked for having more realistic body sizes. They're running an ad with these women pictured in their underwear.

The Chicago Sun-Times ran this editorial about the ads. The first part is written by the woman whose name is on the byline. The second part, though, "Reserve billboards for the unattainable," is by another writer, a man named Lucio Guerrero. Just ... go read it. You'll understand.

( So I wrote an email ... )

I'm hoping to get a response, in which case I'd post it.

For further references, go here to see a picture of the ad in question, and here for the post on feminist that I originally saw this story from. The writer's email is lguerrero [at] suntimes [dot] com. And finally, this article is a lovely response to the response.

EDIT: See this for Guerrero's response to one of the emails. And this ... *sigh* This is the supposed 'apology,' or some facsimile thereof.

The problem, as these demonstrate, is that these people (men and women) are taking it as a big joke. They think that those of us who respond to it for what it is -- perpetuating stereotypes of a single universal objective of beauty based on skinny legs and big breasts -- are just crazy, obsessive, too serious. But it *is* a serious issue. I don't think these people understand the rates of eating disorders -- eating disorders which cause serious health problems and death -- that are a result of these standards, the ways in which women sink their money into weight-loss products and plans, the less quantitative but pervasive problem of discouragement that girls and women feel because they are shown these images all the time. Breaking the monotony of beautiful women of a single shape/size is not a joke. Worrying that you look 'wrong,' that you're unattractive, that you need to stop eating; dieting, starving, exercising, getting surgery, and dying; these things are not fucking funny.