For primary research, I decided to get together with a group of friends and discuss a few of the ideas around how important appearance is in relationships as well as it's impact on women.
What I found from one of my friends was that even in the LGBT community, it was kind of normal for types of lesbians or gay men to go for a certain type. Whether it was a butch woman going for a feminine woman or, like her, a small woman going for someone a bit bigger. But she also explained that at some times, women wouldn't see her as their type because she was darker coloured that didn't really fit the 'Shane' look (Shane being a quite androgynous looking white, woman character on the L word). So even in an environment of women, who understand the pressure of fitting in to a kind of appearance, that look for an attractive 'type' is still present. She admitted to going through a time of trying to put on weight to be a look she found beautiful. This being done in a rather unhealthy way. As well as that, she also talked about using scar bleaching creams to lighten up the darker areas of her skin and through all this changing of how she looked, she talked about how she hadn't actually sat down with herself and asked 'if by finally turning in to what she wants to look like, will she really finally be happy with herself?'.
I then went on to talk about what happiness with our bodies was. Acceptance? Adoration from who we're attracted to? Health? Being a type of beauty we adore? For me, I admitted I was partly following the advice of my mother, who mainly saw her body type in me and therefore was worried about my health. This concern wasn't taken out as well as it could have been and it annoyed me that even though I had had friends who went through eating disorders she wasn't very careful with what influence she had on my own body image. As well as this, although I have days where I look in the mirror and am happy with what I see, I never feel entirely complete if there isn't proof of wanted, positive male attention to how I look too. This I find the most scary, seeing as most of my feminist morals revolve around trying not to do anything based around a gender role, for anyone especially if it is for men but it's a thought which is always there, at the back of my mind.
Another friend of mine mentioned how she thinks about changing herself to fit in to her parents' approval. There had been a time where her mother literally called her 'a slut' for going out wearing make up, a gothic, strappy top and shorts as part of a Halloween costume. This wasn't surprising to me, seeing as I knew from other stories she had told me, that her parents were rather conservative and she had been keeping a lot of secrets from them, in reference to how her appearance has changed so much in an alternative direction.
This talk brought to mind a lot of other ideas to the issues around body image and in conclusion we all realised, and my first friend pointed out, that 'if you actually sat down with yourself and didn't think about anyone regardless of society, going out and media, you actually wouldn't care at all how you look.'
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