the protein world elephant in the room
Never hear of protein world? Familiarize yourself.
I read the comments. Never, never ever read the comments. You’d think I’d learn by now. What I found in doing so, is that there are still a ridiculous number of people who stand up for this sort of statement, and spew hate toward “angry feminists” who are “probably ugly themselves” or something to that effect.
Well, yes, I am a feminist. And yes, I am pretty angry about this. But maybe, just maybe, I’m also right to be angry.
I read a great article sometime in the past year (I honestly have no idea where / when / what – just kidding found it) that talked about how our obsession with women’s bodies and weight and thinness makes women weaker than men in a very real way. It is not a metaphor. Society has convinced us (women) that looks are what matter, that being skinny is EQUAL to being healthy, and that muscles are not attractive. And in return we have not only believed it, we’ve done everything in our power to comply. We have weakened ourselves.
In case you missed it, Protein World is apparently sick of all of us making excuses for “fatties.” This honestly strikes me as being sickeningly close to comparing body positive proponents to rape apologists, which, needless to say, doesn’t sit well. Encouraging women (and all the peoples) to be body positive is not at odds with encouraging women (and all the peoples) to be healthy. There’s one major reason for this: being healthy doesn’t require that you be thin, and getting healthy does not require you to hate your body. If you hate your body, all the weight loss in the world will not make you happy.
The problem with the Protein World ad is that it is not even talking about health – it is ONLY promoting the idea that women should aspire to look a certain way. It is promoting this same message that has systematically oppressed women and made them objects. If, instead, it had an image of a women doing something… pushing herself… and its message was something like “is your body [marathon | baseball | life | fight | hike | surf | skateboard] ready?” we would actually have a protein ad that was not only promoting health but also promoting body positivity. But why would any of us want to actually DO something? We should probably just do our best to look good.
I want to be clear – lifting is my way of building metaphorical strength, which, in this case, is also literal strength. I realize that is not for all women, but I do believe that all women should have their own way of gaining strength. My outlook on life has completely changed in the past 4 years, in part because of where I live and in part because of who I surround myself with. But what I never realized is that feeling physically stronger and more powerful has made me feel mentally stronger and more powerful. I walk down the street with a confidence I never had before. Finally my body actually matches my mind, my personality, my essence.
Stop focusing on what you look like. Start focusing on how you feel. What you want to accomplish. Reexamine what you think it means to be healthy. You can be skinny and be healthy. You can also be skinny and not be healthy. If you focus too much on a number on a scale, you can lose way more than you can gain.
And to all the marketers – I know you’re clever – way more clever than most would think – and I know you have numbers and I KNOW that this message works, which is why you use it. But perhaps you could be both good at promoting a product and also resist doing psychological damage in the process? Perhaps body positivity might sell, too?
Now for some goodness: http://www.disruptyourdiet.com/