Thursday, March 31, 2005

God, that was a terrible obit. She was stunning in a bikini at a 110 pounds?! and you say this like just before you mention her eating disorder?! Like half of this is about whether she got the attention of boys, or what her family did, not her herself. I guess it goes back to the old a woman is nothing except in relation to others, but how sad it is that it's in her obit.

Although I would argue about Campo's framing here,(she was already dead and gone when he wrote this- her body just lived on) he has a good point. We say oh how horrible about this case, but the woman was dead. What are we going to do about the Terris of the future? The girls who are being taught to hate their thighs, hate their hips and hate their entire bodies because they aren't slim. I will never be slim. I weigh a hundred pounds. (and am five feet tall) I have big hips and thighs. That's just how my body is made. All fat goes to hips and thighs. I will never have society's ideal body- of course dark skin nappy hair and a decidely black nose aren't society's ideal of beauty either.

We need to strengthen our young girls to make them realize that living up to that ideal isn't worth hurting themselves for. I remember when I was twelve and was annoyed by the other girls complaining about how fat they were, and when I was 14, and got a girl crush on this athletic girl because this girl was telling us about how she threw up to try to get rid of the fat in her stomach, and I didn't know what to say. But the athletic girl told her that it wasn't cool, and I felt better.

Young girls almost children were being afflicted by our society's obsession with thin womanhood almost nine years ago. What have we done to fix this in those years? Why do we have to have communities to fight against pro ana?Why are there pro mia communities? What can be done? I don't know.

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