I’m a week late on this one, which in the internet world is like being a year late, but I think we should talk about it anyway: The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I have never actually watched one of these shows, but I’ve seen enough VS commercials to know what I’m missing, which is media-designated beautiful women with very thin bodies walking around in lingerie.
As a fat woman, I have spent very little time and money in Victoria’s Secret. I have known plenty of women who swear by their products, but they really don’t have anything that will fit me, or that I would want to wear. The last time I was in a Victoria’s Secret (with a friend who was shopping there), I remember being struck by the giant poster of several “angels” in their skivvies with the tagline, “I Love My Body.” At the time, I remember thinking, jeez, if I looked like that, loving my body would be a piece of cake! Apparently that was the name of the lingerie line, but still. I’m not posting the picture, but if you want to see it, click here. (NSFW, of course.)
Now, chances are that even women who are genetically blessed enough to be christened Victoria’s Secret models (angels?) have something they don’t like about their bodies. I doubt there is a woman on earth who is completely content with her physical appearance. Still, I think we can agree that society and the media believe that the shape and size of a lingerie model is pretty much considered perfection.
Let’s also consider the fact that there are, what, a few dozen of these angels in the world, out of a population of millions of women who are of similar age? I am terrible at math, but that is a really really low percentage of women who are deemed to be physically beautiful and slim enough to walk that particular catwalk.
Why am I bringing this up? Because even though most women have a much better chance of being struck by lightning than ever looking like (much less chosen to be) a VS model, we still feel like it’s our fault that we don’t. After the show aired, social media was flooded with women lamenting that their bodies don’t look like that, swearing that they will force their bodies to look like that by any means… and by men mocking the fact that women don’t look like that (despite the fact that only a handful of men know women in their lives who look like that). Check out this very small selection of Tweets I grabbed:
While some people think there’s humor to be had here, the fact is, many women will be so strongly influenced by this program that they will put their body through terrible things in an attempt to look like these models, and then feel even worse – and possibly go to even greater extremes – when they fail to achieve their goal.
As grown women, we can remind ourselves that these bodies are the extreme and not the norm. We can remind ourselves that not looking like these women doesn’t make us less good or lovable. And as for our daughters? Ideally, I would like them to never see this show. But if they do, I hope that there are caring adults in their lives to teach them that they are more than just a body.
What are your thoughts about the Victoria Secret Fashion Show? Do you watch it? Does it entertain you, inspire you? How does it make you feel about your body?
