Supple Cow

There is a great video on this site: I wish I could figure out how to embed it, but I'm pretty sure I can't.

Go here and give it a few seconds... it will start on its own.

http://www.runworldrun.com/

I absolutely love this. I also love that the magazine is called "Vacuous"!

The only thing I'm not 100% on board with is the implication that all beauty products are bad. I kind of like to wear some makeup and look a little colorful, particularly when I'm feeling good about myself after a good run. The danger is when women start thinking they NEED products to be complete or even worse, because they feel they don't measure up to some standard that those vacuous magazines out there set.

It was a nice surprise to stumble onto this as I was looking for motivational material for my quixotic marathon quest.

squeeeb

cool vid. i myself prefer women without makeup. i don't understand why women feel they HAVE to add makeup to make themselves better. but i'm not a woman, i'll probably never understand, so i just accept it and go along with it.

as far as the magazine...men's magazines are just as guilty and vapid....

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onward to mayhem!

Plan9

Hey, where are these women that wear makeup, anyway?

My exwife never wore the stuff. Lengthy stint with girlfriend before that never wore the stuff.

Dunno, maybe I'm dating the women's lib totem pole or something.

Running is hot. Nothing better than the doing of the sex after the doing of the running.

(sigh)

What are men's magazines, anyway? Playboy? Pfft. This MEN'S HEALTH crap is just the male version of cosmo. "GET SIX PACK ABS" "LOSE THAT GUT" Blah-blah. Real men are happy with their beer guts and huge forearms. My brother is the epitome of manly. He has a tattoo on his neck. He fixes vehicles for a living. He wrestles his dogs. He drinks domestic beer.

Disclaimer: I'm a tofu-eating hippie.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Supple Cow

See that's like saying you HAVE to brush your hair or shave your face to make yourself better... most people look a little more put-together when they do. Makeup is just another accessory and I play with it just like I play with new hairstyles every now and then. I don't think it makes me better with than when I'm without it... it's just that it puts an extra sparkle in my eye or lets my lips highlight my rad new outfit when I feel like it. The key is that I only use it when I feel like it.. because it's fun to be colorful.

The neat thing about being a woman is that we get to be our own canvas and express ourselves like giant walking coloring books every day. At least that's how I see it. It's not like I make sure to hit up the mascara and eyeliner every time I leave the house, even just to go running. (In fact, I tried eyeliner - Cleopatra style - to help with the sunlight while running once and it didn't really work too well so I'm never doing that again. )

I guess this is true of men's magazines too, but there is something about the way girls are socialized that make these magazines have such a huge impact on girls compared to boys. I know when I was a teenager, despite my Riotgrrl / third (fifth?) wave tendencies, I still had this sinking feeling in my gut that those magazines were the standard and that I wasn't measuring up. I don't think that many boys feel that way, particularly in relation to magazines.

Jinn

I'm torn on this statement. The feminist in me says I shouldn't be saying you haven't had this experience, because I haven't been a woman and I thereby can't really know the true effect of social pressure.

On the other hand, it really sounds like a cop-out. "It's something about the way girls are socialized that makes these magazines have such a huge impact" is excusing the ability of powerful women to escape that "powerful impact" by willpower.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

Supple Cow

Okay, well I wasn't saying it as a cop-out, but I understand how it came across that way. It was easier to introduce the idea that way than to explain that I am a powerful individual who has overcome that but I recognize that there is something to it (and also something to each individual woman) that makes it, on average, a bigger obstacle for a girl than a men's magazine would be for a boy.

Boys aren't sexualized at an extremely young age by the media. You probably didn't stand in front of the mirror lifting up your shirt trying to look "sexy" (and not really knowing fully what that was) at a young age (like younger than 10) the way I did. I can't say for sure what made me do that. All I know is that I have overcome a lot of expectations placed on me by my family, their culture and the media (among other things encompassing the rest of my personal experience)... and I think it's also a cop-out to say that you're just not good enough or strong enough if you can't overcome it.

If you have one strong swimmer and one weak one, you can drown them both in the ocean if the conditions are right. There's more nuance to the idea than my initial statement suggests.

squeeeb

au contrair....standing in front of a mirror, flexing to see if i had muscles, doing push ups in 4th grade because i'm supposed to be muscular like the wwf guys? lifting weights in 9th grade, some kids in high school were actually taking roids......sounds stupid now, but fonzie, vinnie barbarino, leif garret, any hairless boy on the cover of "Teen beat", "cool" guys who "got the chicks" and i didn't know why, but i knew i wasn't like them and i should be. as for the "mens magainzes" i mentioned earlier, GQ (giant queer), MENS VOGUE?!?!?!? , details, complex, men's health, mens journal, etc etc. men's versions of cosmo and glamour. all those hairless guys with flat abs and huge chisled pecs and a full head of wild untamed yet moussed hair, sporting the watches and shoes and clothes....all the chicks want that...and then there is me....ok, honestly boys don't have it as hard as girls, but we have our share of image pressure....starts when we are young, gets worse as we age...

i am a part time tofu eating hippie as well....

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onward to mayhem!

Supple Cow

Fair enough. I still draw a distinction between an unattainable standard that leads you to 'roids or pumping iron (for men) or on that leads you to throwing up your food or throwing up your food (for women). Personally I prefer the choices the media presents to you men. And I still think you are not catching my drift about the hypersexualization... it is not so much that I was comparing myself to some unattainable standard in that situation, but that it was fucked up that I would think I should look more sexually attractive to men being an 8-year-old girl. When my brain created these inexplicable fantasy situations, the imagined audience was adult.

When you stood in front of a mirror, who was your audience? I'd be interested to know if it was generally girls, women, adults, or even specific people you know (like the little girl you liked who lived down the street). At least men's fitness magazines tout stuff that would be healthy, even if not for the best reasons. It would be nice if all the Vacuous magazines out there recommended extreme workout routines to get in shape instead of fad diets and beauty products. It would be extra nice if the shape the media portrayed as ideal was more athletic and less angsty waif.

Crack

I like my women just a little on the trashy side...

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx