Why Doesn't Victoria's Secret Represent Me

You’ve probably noticed that I, Sophia E. Fredo, am generally average.  I am slightly taller than average, of a normal weight, and not too special in the looks department (except for my cheekbones; those things could cut glass).  But in all seriousness, the media do not value the qualities of the average woman. While I embrace girls with brains and character, who display honesty and are trusting and loyal, the media instead display a totally different ethos – one dominated by sexuality and completely superficial qualities.  Will you find someone similar to me in a clothes catalogue, or seductively posing on a highway billboard? No, you’d find a Megan Fox or Victoria’s Secret Angel type instead.  But why them and not me when I’m the type that these products are thrust at.  This misrepresentation of women in the media is highly unfair to girls all over the world and affects all girls.  I am a young woman, and I am a target of this.  This is happening to me and I am exposed to this constantly, as are millions of girls across the world.  This misrepresentation of women in the media sets unbelievably high standards for women to adhere to.  No one (normal) could possibly look like a Victoria’s Secret model, unless they are in fact a Victoria’s Secret model.

Tina Fey, in her autobiography Bossypants, said, “…I think the first real change in women’s body image came when J-Lo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and J-Lo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful.  Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.” (Fey)
Though Fey’s writing is hilarious, it’s also quite accurate.  Fey also makes a good point: these women aren’t actually women.  They’re Photo shopped, airbrushed, enhanced, and slimmed down versions of real people.  So we have the .05% of what women look like setting the ideals of beauty and “perfection.”  This misrepresentation, or should I say, MISSrepresentation, doesn’t set a good model (no pun intended) for young girls and teenagers, who are the ones most affected by this.  This can lead to low self-esteem, anorexia, bulimia, depression, and even suicide.  In middle school, I was anorexic and depressed and this is exactly why I hated myself: because I didn’t think I was pretty enough, all because a stick slim model with great boobs made me look bad. This misrepresentation really does hit home for girls everywhere, especially for me, and if you’re a girl, I’m certain that you haven’t felt good enough or beautiful enough after flipping through Teen Vogue or watching celebrities on TV.           My real goal in this isn’t to rant and annoy the hell out of you, but to illuminate the fact that women are being shown in ways that don’t really show women.  I’d want models who are average people to set the standard for clothing sizes, strut on the runway, and work it at Victoria’s Secret.  After all, if a woman is airbrushed, Photo shopped, slimmed down, and enhanced, is she really a woman at all?

A Passionate Feminist's Rant

If there is one thing that gets under my skin, its the misrepresentation of women in the media.  In May, Kraft Foods Group released an advertisement depicting a man lying sensually (that is to say, naked) on a picnic blanket promoting a new salad dressing.  Unfortunately for Kraft, this ad received a lot of negative and angry responses.  Parents, particularly mothers, found this to be extremely vulgar and offensive.  Many thought that Kraft was trying to sell something other than salad dressing.  Through all of the negative comments received, I couldn't help but yelling at my computer screen: Of course this would bother you! When its a man depicted sexually in an ad, but when its a woman, well full speed ahead!"  Women have been shown in similar lights (and even more erotic than this) for decades and no one's really had any vendettas against those.  But why?  Certainly women across the globe would be shocked by the amount of skin of women that ads can get away with showing.  Not only is this selling whatever product is being shown, but its also selling the fact that the women, too, are for sale (for men to buy).  In my mind this relates to the idea that women are animals and savage and need to be controlled, an idea that is very obvious is Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines."

But back to my question, WHY ON EARTH IS IT OKAY FOR WOMEN TO POSE SENSUALLY, BUT FOR MEN, ITS A SCANDAL?  And completely ironically, its typically frowned upon for women to breast-feed in public, but it's alright to expose 90% of a Victoria's Secret Angel's decolletagé on a 20x20 foot billboard?  Why are you so offended by your own anatomy when it's thrown carelessly all around you?  And doesn't that make you a bit of a hypocrite to say how vulgar is it to display your body in public when the media's been doing it for decades and you've never had a problem with that before.  But I got to give props to Kraft for using a sexy man rather than a sexy lady in their ad.  And good for them, when most of their products are bought by women, so why not appeal to the ladies?  After all, they're the ones, who, according to you, are supposed to do the shopping.

**If you're further interested in this topic, there's an incredible documentary called MISSrepresentation, wonderfully free to view on YouTube, to which I thank for the illumination on this issue.**

To Be Cute, or to Have Money

Sentence Imitation

From Jamaica Kincaid's, A Small Place “And so you can imagine how I felt when, one day, in Antigua, standing on Market Street, looking up one way and down the other, I asked myself: Is the Antigua I see before me, self-rules, a worse place than what it was when it was dominated by the bad-minded English and all the bad-minded things they brought with them? How did Antigua get to such a state that I would have to ask myself this? For the answer on every Antiguan’s lips to the question “What is going on here now?” is “The government is corrupt. Them are thief, them are big thief.” Imagine, then, the bitterness and the shame in me as I tell you this.” (Kincaid 41)

And so you can imagine how I felt when, one day, at the Oyster Festival, standing by the dress racks, looking from one cute dress to another, I asked myself: Do I really need to spend, money, MY hard-earned money, on a $60 dress that I’ll probably never wear? How did I even decide that I wanted it? Is it because Caroline told me it’d look so cute on me? For the answer on my lips was, “Of course it is! Why else would I buy such a dress? All I wanna do is look cute.”  Imagine, then, my despair between wanting to look super cute and wanting to have money.

If You Really Wanted to Piss me Off, Look no Further

If you know me well, you'd know that there are hundreds of things, minor and major, that really get under my skin and that I rant about constantly. Obviously, I can't list all of them here for fear that you'd have to read War and Peace meets Gone with the Wind.

Personal Bothers
1. How expensive everything is, particularly in Darien. I'm sorry but I don't really need strawberries that are $6.99. I could buy 25 Munchkins with that plus an iced coffee.
2. Lack of sidewalks around Darien. I like walking, it makes me feel like I'm living in a city again, but alas, there aren't any sidewalks within a mile radius of my house (as is the case with lots of people in Darien) which makes it difficult for me to walk without almost dying once.
3. Movies nowadays. I remember when movies used to be good and wonderful, but now they're too expensive, and frankly, they suck.
4. How unhealthy food is- sugar, corn starch, and dozens of chemicals I can't even pronounce. Health rule no. 1- Never eat anything your great-great grandmother couldn't recognize (with the exception of Nutella)
5. How alcohol companies, specifically vodka companies, are making flavors targeted at teens and kids. If I wanted something marshmallow flavored, I'd have a s'more, not a vodka shot.
6. How tobacco companies are targeting electronic cigarettes at kids with fun flavors like chocolate, cherry, and lung cancer.

School Bothers
1. The fact that school starts so early- I love sleep, but for 75% of the year, I don't get to enjoy it.
2. The amount of homework we receive. I don't mind doing homework, but when its 2-3 hours per subject, I start to consider dropping out of school and becoming a hobo. If we had 30-45 minutes of homework per class per day, I might be able to actually enjoy my teenage years which are supposed to be "the best years of my life."
3. Too much wasted paper. Can't we at least recycle?
4. Scheduling conflicts. They restrict me from taking classes I actually want to take and instead put in me useless classes that I'd never go near normally.
5. How foreign languages are taught (with the exception of CGS). When I go to France, I won't be able to hold an actual conversation, but I will be able to conjugate 100 verbs in 10 different tenses.
6. Lack of good science and math teachers in the U.S.
7. How we have a school musical but not a play. I'm very interested in theatre and acting, but I can't do it because my voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard and I don't want to be doo-wopping or swaying in the background.

General, worldly things that really piss me off
1. The modelling industry. Seriously, no one looks like a Victoria's Secret Model, except the Angels themselves. How come they're the basis for clothes made for the majority of people when they make up .001% of the population. Why not use actual, normal-sized people, I mean, they ARE the people who'll be buying the clothes.
2. Rape, birth control, and abortion legislation. How come women officials aren't making any of these decisions? I never knew that 60 and 70 year-old men has uteruses and had to deal with rape culture. It's my body, I'll do what I want to it.
3. The war against Muslims because they're all "terrorists."
4. Saving to "save" Muslim women from wearing burkas and hijabs because its "confining" them.
5. Outsourcing jobs. Even though bringing manufacturing jobs to the U.S. would increase prices, but more people would have jobs.
6. Child labor (and sweat shops) particularly in China, where its basically slavery.
7. Apple and how expensive their products are and the fact that they're made by slaves for 10 cents, yet I have to pay $200 for an iPod that cost less than a dollar to make.
8. Cell phone contracts.
9. Contracts in general.
10. America's War on Women- All MEN are created equal. Maybe, but women? God no!
11. Rape Culture.
12. Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke.
13. The fact that gay marriage isn't legal in all 50 states yet.
14. How radio stations play the same 15 songs over and over again.
15. Lack of classical music on the radio. I'd love to listen to Tchaikovsky or Chopin or Waldteufel, but instead I get Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift.
16. The switch from paper books to electronic ones. I pledge to read the printed word for life.
17. Misrepresentation of women in the media, particularly in magazines and advertisements.

A Sophia by Any Other Name Would Be Just as Wise? A Blogging

According to my mum and dad, I was named Sophia because it’s a beautiful Italian name (though the origin is Greek) with a slight influence from Sophia Loren, a beautiful Italian actress (though I am not an actress, hopefully I can be a beautiful Italian baker or Mario Kart champion or something).  Also, my dad said that we didn’t have to pay homage to any rich relatives by naming me after them so I could be named virtually anything, though my grandmother campaigned heartily for Charlotte which I associate with Charlotte the Spider, whose death has tortured me emotionally since childhood.

In Greek, Sophia means “wisdom.”  Now just because I’m named Sophia doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wise, but if its true that people’s names describe them, being wise wouldn’t really be such a bad thing.  Historically, the name Sophia originated from a misunderstanding dating back to the middle ages when the large basilica Hagia Sophia

(“Holy Wisdom” in Turkish) in Istanbul was created and people thought the name came from a saint who died of grief following the deaths of her three daughters.  I’m not really sure how I feel about my name originating from someone whose daughters died nor do I wish to be tied with such a tragic event, but I have to admit the story is intriguing and that's definitely a movie I’d see.  On a slightly happier note, Sophia was a common name in European royalty during the Middle Ages.  Sophia became much more popular in Britain by the Hanover House of Germany when they inherited the British Throne.  Since then it has been a name for characters in the works of Henry Fielding and Oliver Goldsmith in Tom Jones and The Vicar of Wakefield respectively. 

Not to be confused with Sophie, Sophia is, in my opinion, a completely different name.  Too many times to count have teachers on the first day taking roll call ask if I’d like to be called Sophie. As a Sophia, this insults me.  I love my name and I’d like to be called by it in full.  But is Sophia really too long a name to pronounce? The is ‘A’ at the end really too much work for you to say? It’s only six letters, not quite the mouthful like Elizabeth, Charlotte, or Madeleine.  For future reference, I’d like to keep Sophia and Sophie separate.  That extra syllable at the end really gives the name a certain je ne sais quoi that Sophie doesn’t have (maybe it's the extra syllable).  Though both names are similar (and actually have the same dictionary definition) as a Sophia, I see them as completely different. 

I’m not sure everyone can say their name is the capital and largest city of a country.  But luckily for me, I can!  Though its spelling is not exactly how I’d like it, Sofia, Bulgaria is a beautiful European city located at the foot of Mt. Vitosha. 

Considerably much cooler than my 16 years on earth, Sofia itself is 2,400 years old.  Not only do I have a Sofia city, but also a Sofia University where I will no doubt attend and receive a complete scholarship because sharing a name is a deep, spiritual bond.  I’m only kidding, but I wouldn’t say no to a trip to Bulgaria, it is, after all, a place with deep meaning to me. 
             Hopefully Sophia will be able to find Sophia in Sofia, with perhaps a group of other 
Sophias/Sofias (but no Sophies).