If That’s True, Why Aren’t Things Changing?

Coming on the heals of my last blog, I couldn’t help but comment on this.

I read a poll result on AOL today that made me stop and ponder. The poll asked men what they found attractive in woman and focused on the question of weight and body type. As anyone who has ever seen a magazine, billboard, newspaper, televisions program or movie knows society tells us that the perfect beautiful woman, the “supermodel” is a size 0, while in the days of Cheryl Tiegs and Christy Brinkley they were a size 8.

A size 14 woman, the average size for an American woman today, is told she is a “plus-size.” Marilyn Monroe, the icon all over the western world for beauty, glamour and sex appeal was a size 14. Today they’d be plastering pictures of her on the front of magazines talking about how “fat” she was and how everyone was on a death watch because she was so fat she was going to die.

According to the poll on AOL today, 80% of men said they prefer a voluptuous, curvy woman. Only 5% say they found the supermodel-thin women attractive.

That’s great. That’s wonderful. But it’s not the first time we’ve heard this. Polls have been saying for years now that men don’t want these thin, half-starved women, they want a woman who has all the curves, softness and fullness of a woman. They want Marilyn Monroe not Kate Moss.

What I don’t understand is if this is true, why haven’t the advertising companies, the fashion magazines, the Hollywood machine and all the others who glamorize the pencil thin female responded? Why is this still the pervasive image in our society? Is it because men say one thing in the polls because it’s politically correct and yet put their money down in a different direction? Is it because the advertising companies, fashion and entertainment industries are trying to shape public opinion and just keep trying?

I have a feeling it’s neither of those. I have a feeling that we women need to look at ourselves for this one. Men are saying we are sexy when we are full-figured and curvy. The media says we are beautiful if we are emaciated and you can count our ribs. Which message are we buying? Which message are we putting our money behind? The latter. How many of us have joined gyms because we “wanted to get healthy” or because we wanted to lose weight to look better? Be honest. How many of us plunk down hundreds of dollars each year for the creams and ointments that promise to make us young and beautiful forever?

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s true. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a beer belly, bald-headed, and excess body hair and still think they are damned sexy. I’m just saying, maybe we need to look at who we’re listening to about what makes us beautiful and how sexy each of us is.

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Anny Cook Winter Hearts
Sandra Cox Boji Stones
Bronwyn Green Ronan’s Grail
Heather Hiestand Cards Never Lie
Barbara Huffert Deal of a Lifetime
Amarinda Jones Mad About Mirabelle
Kelly Kirch Time for Love
Cindy Spencer Pape Cowboy’s Christmas Bride
Brynn Paulin Fallen
Jacquéline Roth Access Denied
KZ Snow Mrs. Claws
Lacey Thorn Earth Moves

And because it's my blog and I can, a little self promotion:

Access Denied
Jacquéline Roth

In Sanctuary the Committee controls everything, food, healthcare, housing, information and even love. The Committee’s life guides match the single residents for three month compatibility assignments. Everyone gets ten chances to find true love or at least an acceptable partnership. There is something special about Leah Bradley. She has the unique ability to reach out and really connect with the people in her life, but if she’s so special why is she facing her seventh assignment? From the moment she meets James he makes it clear he grants no one access to his life or, especially, his heart. Brooding and sad, he carries a darkness inside of him that swallows another part of him every day. What’s worse, he seems to want it this way. Leah slowly loses her hope and her heart. But just when James begins to see Leah the way she truly is, he’s forced to ask himself one question: Does the Committee really have happily-ever-after in mind?

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Coming January 17th :

Measure of Healing
Jacquéline Roth

Alejandro Ramirez’s Were-Cougar mother drove him out after his first transformation at the age of fifteen leaving him to seek out his human father and find the family his human side craved but that his animal side can never embrace. Now a man, he finds himself responsible for a traumatized Were-Cougar child. When he turns to the Weres for help, they send him to a human. Dr. Gabriela St. Jerome knows of the Cougars and hates them with every fiber of her being. But now she must swallow that hatred to work with Alejandro to help a Were child who has been thrown into transformation far too early by the horrific death of his mother. As they are forced together in the remote woods of the North Georgia Mountains, both find their mutual attraction overwhelming. But if Brie gives into this man and her own passions, it will cost her dearly. It will cost her her life.

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