Body Image: Is This the Legacy We Want to Leave for Our Daughters?

As we take a look back in history, women have banded together to take on the fight of one cause or another. Until recent history, we always fought for our men's causes: wars, land disputes, politics (though we know none received any credit for this one), and the classic; the less fortunate. Finally, women realized that we should receive credit as well as men for most of our own ideas and took a stand. Through the years, we have managed to legitimize our ideas and true roles in society. We have fought for equality with men for so long now; that we have forgotten what banded us together in the first place. That band called womanhood is the one distinct thing that connects us all. So please tell me why we as women are the first to attack each other and ourselves. On the surface, it seems that today one of our main causes is body image. So many of us are so quick to throw blame out at women in magazines, TV, movies, and those who put them there. Why haven't we attacked ourselves for allowing the perfect body stereotype to become our and our daughters' main focus?

The reason for this is simple: We have virtually won the fight for equality with men, and for some idiotic reason we now feel that we have to fight for equality with other women. When did we as women (the wonderful creature that we are) get so horribly off track? We are equal. We are sisters of so much variety which really is one of the best qualities of our gender. We have been made small, medium, and large in every characteristic we have. Some of us have big hearts, some of us have big strength, some of us have big forgiveness, some of us have big minds, some of us have big power, and yes some of us have big hips, too. Why are we only concerned with the what is physically big on us? This is why our daughters are killing themselves to reach some physical perfection. Ask yourself this question as a mother: What does my daughter hear me telling myself in the mirror? I bet she isn't hearing you praise yourself on that great new promotion you just got, or the fact that you give out hot meals at the homeless shelter. That's right. We aren't teaching our daughters to recognize their own achievements. We are teaching them to pick apart their appearances and those of others. We harshly judge ourselves and other women on a daily basis, and then we expect our daughters not to care what others say about their own appearance. How confusing is that? We can blame the media all we want, but it is us who buys the magazines and watches tv and movies, and it is us who will spend outrageous money for a sweater or a purse or even medical procedures just to mimic what we see. We have even tried to blame men, but let's get honest, if we aren't respecting and loving ourselves then why should they? We set the lead on this one.

This ridiculous focus and attack on each other has set a bad example and a sad future for our daughters, granddaughters, and so on. When history is written, we will have shamed our fore-sisters for not passing down their hard fought for legacy. When they were marching for the right to vote no one there was concerned about the 15 lbs they had gained over the holidays. When our mothers and grandmothers were burning their bras, no one was excluded because they were so small they didn't need a bra. They embraced all the women who joined, because they knew the power they had when women stood together. The power that enables us to give life and to shape that life, to care and provide for those who depend on us, or to tend to a dying parent or spouse selflessly, harnessed is a mighty force to deal with.

So ladies, let us band together to change the legacy we are leaving. First, look around the room at all the women, can you count the number of wrinkles, rolls, age spots, missing behinds (you know what I mean women), and gray hair? Now take that number, and figure that there is a lesson of life attached to each of them. What is a lesson of life? It is wisdom. It is the knowledge we gain as we move through life. We need to stop and listen to these life lessons. We need to retell these lessons and include the ones we have learned ourselves to our daughters. I can tell my daughter, that in each stretch mark I gained the wisdom of how wonderful bringing life into this world can be. I can also tell her that wrinkle in-between my eyes came from worry that I had made the right decisions for my children. We must wear these as signs of honor, instead of a scarlet letter. Every great achievement in history has had a mother behind it. This is proof of how important we are in the human race. If we do not start to repair the damage we have done, what kind of future are we leaving? We have to teach our daughters not only fitness and nutrition, but we have to teach them love and acceptance of themselves. The best way to do this is to start loving and accepting ourselves and each other. I hope our daughters can one day say to their daughters, "My mother taught me to judge others on their contribution to the next generation, not the corpse they left behind."