Body Image

             I  never cease to be amazed by folks' conversations about their bodies especially for the past ten years since I have been a certified Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor.  Apparently, everyone, male and female, is obsessed with body image these days.  

            When practically any random individual learns I am in the ‘body’ business, somehow they feel compelled to sit me down to have my complete attention so they can share their life stories with me, embracing every detail of their eating habits and exercise programs, how they used to be thin, why they gained all of this weight, the myriad of fad diets they have tried, and what they’re doing now to get thin again.  This could occur at just about any time or place:  traveling on an airplane, lunching in a Chicago restaurant, shopping for athletic shoes at Niketown in New York City, or waiting for a shampoo and blow out at a local hair salon. 

          Should the subject  come up, people stand up tall, throw their heads back with their eyes afire, and exclaim with amazement, ‘you are a trainer?!?!’.  Then they begin their stories and questions.  I hear about Pilates’ routines and Bikram yoga practices [which consist of performing non-stop asanas for over an hour in a room heated to 100 degrees during the summer, fall, winter and spring].  Total strangers offer me details of their cardio and weight lifting routines;  kick-boxing, cardio-pump and zumba classes; who their trainers and group fitness instructors are, and why they like or dislike them.  They also share tales of the sports they play and the injuries they have incurred, the orthopedic surgeries, and the physical therapy, too. 

Truly, I consider myself part of the ‘health’ industry.  I got into the profession because I was motivated to become healthier and to stay that way for life and wished to share that notion with others.  I strive to stave off cancer and heart disease which had taken the lives of my parents.   In my view,  proper nutrition is a major component of the fitness equation, and the benefits of well-being such as controlling weight, blood pressure, diabetes, and effects of menopause [when appropriate] are the best rewards; and becoming strong, fit, and looking good are simply byproducts of the effort.    

An Independent Woman

          My Aunt Anne, one of my mom's sisters, was a woman I admired my entire life.  She was a single woman who lived in an era when unattached women were admonished, considered old maids and spinsters. She never married, yet she made a wonderful life for herself.  My aunt was a conscientious worker, she built a successful career with the Federal Government, rising among the ranks, earning a paycheck that enabled her to live a full and satisfying life.  Aunt Anne  possessed genuine inner and outer beauty, she was poised and pretty, almost glamorous, with striking stature and an affinity for dressing well.  I especially remember a pair of green suede high heel pumps I admired that she wore with a suit to match.  Her Washington, D.C. apartment was always neat and tidy and when I went there to visit with her, I loved to play with her cosmetic tray filled with various perfume bottles and hairbrushes.  She was strong and independent, well-traveled,thoughtful and loving, and she was a 'girlie-girl'.         

          Although Aunt Anne had no children of her own, she exemplified filial dedication.  She was enormously generous and kind, never forgetting to send gifts to her nieces or nephews on their birthdays.  She took pleasure in remembering everyone in the family with souvenirs from her travels around the world, like the Great Wall of China, Paris or Dublin. When she died, each of my brothers and cousins [from London to Atlanta, from San Francisco to New York] expressed the closeness we felt to her as we gathered around my dining room table and told our stories about Aunt Anne.  Each of us felt like she was our surrogate mother; he was admired by all who were fortunate to knew her.  

          Aunt Anne succeeded in a career, traveled extensively, dressed to kill, and was adoring and adored.  But most important, she was my inspiration and role model.  I learned from her that women can enjoy their femininity and be a whole person. I never took the opportunity to tell her but I think she knew.  I learned from her that a woman can live a fulfilling life all by herself without a man to take care of her.  She confessed to me once that she lived an unusual life as a single woman in a period when it was not the norm.  I know she had a little angst, but basically, she was very happy as she was, unencumbered.  It may not have been her preferred path, however she truly made lemonade out of lemons.  I learned from her that many choices and possibilities are available to each of us and granted me permission, as Marlo Thomas' famous recording espoused, 'to be free to be me'.

White Privilege and Male Privilege

'The Most Influential People in Business in 2011'

            On January 1, 2012 the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran an article entitled 'The Most Influential People in Business in 2011.  The article enumerated a list of the 'movers and shakers' in the city, presented in random order.  The article said, 'it speaks to our homogeneous nature, there are some surprises and people who are sure to continue to impact the region in 2012 and beyond'.
            What comes as no real surprise, yet a heartbreaking disappointment, is the fact that all of the notables are white males, from the Governor of Pennsylvania, and on down the list of businessmen and CEO's of corporations such as UMPC, PNC Financial, and Saks Fifth Avenue. This clearly demonstrates the notion of white privilege and male privilege, as discussed in the article of the same name by Peggy McIntosh, found  in our text.  Ms McIntosh succinctly states, 'I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege". Though they may espouse otherwise, it seems to me that most white men are in denial of this unbalanced and unfair situation.  I believe they wear blinders on purpose, that deep down they feel threatened by women. This is not a positive statement about the City of Pittsburgh and this whole notion makes me feel very angry, ashamed and frustrated.

Guerilla Girls - Reinventing the F Word

I learned about Guerilla Girls last Spring while visiting the MOMA [Museum of Modern Art] in Manhattan.  I was taken with their artwork and felt compelled to photograph their exhibit.  Guerilla Girls are feminists who travel around the world espousing feminism as a platform for art and activism including Civil Rights and GLBT Rights.  They proudly proclaim themselves the embodiment of the 'F' word.  In her essay, Still Needing the F Word, Anna Quindlen states,  'While young women are given the impression that all doors are open, all boundaries down, empirical evidence is to the contrary'.  Other countries are way ahead of ours when  it comes to gender equality in the arts.   In Europe, curators and museum directors have made it their personal and public

 mission to increase the number of women artists in their collections.  It's time for US museums to do what Montehermoso Cultural Center, Spain; the Tate Modern, London; and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm are doing - collect and exhibit art by women.  Another arena in our country that needs to attend to its women artists is Hollywood, where a woman has never been awarded an Oscar for Best Director; 94% of writing awards have gone to men; and a mere 3% of acting awards have gone to people of color.  We still have a long way to go for the 'F' word.

The Media Is The Message: Sexism

          We are surrounded, inundated, and influenced by the media’s many forms.  Newspapers, magazines and television are supported by advertising dollars and Netflix and in-theatre cinemas now host ads.  The internet offers music videos and YouTube at our fingertips 24/7, and can be accessed by very young children.  Music is available in several forms like downloading through iTunes and burning discs from the internet. The sky’s the limit.  The media is the messenger. What is the message?  Sexism.
          Dozens of sit-coms on the ‘tube’ imply sexist gender ranking.  TV has made some progress toward themes of equality since the staid patriarchal household of ‘Father Knows Best’, however even animations like the Simpsons engender male domination.  Popular music genres like ‘rap’ or ‘hip-hop’ frequently contain sexist and misogynist theme's.   
          As noted and discussed in class, sexist advertising exploits women and women’s bodies.  It impacts the minds of very young people and it is ubiquitous.  Children watch, their brains absorb, and that's what they will remember. Young girls who are fed this culture strive to emulate the skinny, scantily-clad, men-pleasing, models they see, and young boys are affected as well.  Ten year-olds begin to worry about their weight before puberty; statistics reveal an increase in anorexia nervosa among pre-teens.

Positive female role models are desperately needed.  High profile women professionals like television journalists, news anchors, actors, and political leaders are in a position to be role models. The relatively few women who could be paradigms are generally not taken seriously by their male colleagues.  It is important for us, as a society, to strive toward honoring positive female images for our youth to follow.