It doesn't surprise me that beauty over the decades, the 1920s to 2010s, is defined largely Caucasian women, sprinkled with a few women of color who have Anglo features. Naturally, my lack of shock comes from my research. You can scream and holler at me 'til the cows come home about changing beauty standards. But even Newsweek, who, in 2003, declared Saira Mohan as the new global face of beauty, failed to include more women of color in their 2010 montage. This illustrates that beauty standards are not changing. At times, they're re-packaged, but they're not changing much. Also the articles show that beauty is highly valued (sometimes even more than an education) in this society. Unfortunately, in many instances, we are far from any type of progress in that arena. This is dangerous for all women - regardless of what background you come from. Want more proof? Well here you go...Check out this story about a video that showcases how "hot" republican women are as opposed to their less attractive democratic counterparts. Republican women are shown in various photographs to the song "She's a Lady," while democrat women are shown to the song "Who Let the Dogs Out." I'd link the video, but I refuse to glorify such ignorance. I can't begin to tell you how many levels of wrong this is. Yes, if the tables were reversed, and the video showed "hot" dems versus "ugly" republicans, I would be equally offended. This video is a testament to how far and wide sexism and ignorance is in this country.
Today's Small Victories
I am really glad that I made it to the box. It was tempting to skip out knowing my workout partners weren't going to be there. However, I showed up. Presence is half the battle.
Warm-up
500 meter row
Jump rope work
CrossFit One World WOD
Conditioning:
Complete 10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1 reps for time of:
Burpees
Box jumps 12"
Overhead squat 53#
Joanne's Final Time - 23:29
Notes (to myself) about this workout: I was really happy with my performance tonight. I hardly broke my reps in the burpees and box jumps. My strategy was to go slow and rest in between the exercises. Ultimately, I wanted to do my overhead squats un-broken, which I did. I managed to do it by using a weight I knew I could handle. Next time, I'm bumping it up another 10#. I wasn't worried about not being able to carry the weight overhead. I think I can do about 65# of unbroken OHS for a WOD like this. My concern was getting the sucker off the floor. I suck at cleaning the weight. Boo!
5 comments:
you know it's funny you say "presence is half the battle" because I totally get lazy to go. Once you're there, you're kind of impelled to make it good. haha.
That's true. My train of thought usually goes a little something like this:
1) Yea. I'm here. Maybe I'll just do the warm-up, fake an injury, and sit out for the rest of the WOD.
2) Damn. That's kinda lame. I guess I'll do the WOD. But I'll go half assed because.... I feel like it.
3) Damn these f--kin' trainers calling me out on my laziness. Fine. I'll do the WOD.
4) (Suffering through the WOD. Cursing all those who aren't suffering with me. Sometimes entering a dark place where the inner beast wakes up and I decide to kill the WOD!)
5) Done. Panting. Crawling to my slow death... but stupid enough to come back for more.
I totally agree with all of the above. My train of thought:
Sometimes when the WOD has Burpees, I get the feeling that I'm gonna throw up in the middle of the WOD. I would think, "Damn, I'm gonna meet Pukie...should I fake it & put DNF on the whiteboard?"
Or maybe, "Oh geez...I lost count (stops...taking deep breaths & scratches head) should I do it over or should I just do a Lotto pick a number?"
Well, that inner beast suddenly wakes up & stops the negative thoughts cuz I got a wedding dress to fit in & look better naked on my honeymoon. lol I am going to kill the WOD & will be back for some more.
There has never been an universal beautiy ideal and there will never be. The media acts like that is so, but that is just bullshit. People like all kinds of things and mostly, what is available in nature. The media is actually abusing their power of thought manipulation on people: Without this idiotic ONE MUST FIT all, people (men) would chose big women and be happy with them. I myself love love love big women, and I am thin tall guy. And it is very harmful for everybody, for women because they can never measure up, this made up and twisted beauty ideal is extremely rare, less than 1% of the population looks like that. A woman cannot form a healthy body image in an environment like that. And for men it is pretty sad, as they always look for that woman that looks like that and can never find them, instead of being natural and loving all the wonderful variety that exists in nature and being big has always been natural, all through history.
I'm from Europe originally and am shocked that the USA seems to go to hell in a handbasket: The education system is gutted, this focus on beauty of the republicans shows that there are more and more just incredible stupid people around and the IQ is dropping fast. Soon, this will cause big problems, the world is a big complicated place, only smart people can manage that. In Europe, much less focus is on beauty and smart people are actually admired, as they should be. They are the leaders of the future. Smart has always won out, ever since the first stone age person invented the first tool and spear all others that did not could not compete anymore. Brawns had suddenly been outclassed by brains. And at European university there is not this strange separation into jocks and nerds. Sports is not immportant, studying and being smart is. Smart people are admired, they are going to be your future boss, if you don't study hard. Being good at sports or being beautiful will not help you much. A scary tendency in this country. Reminds me very much of that movie idiocracy, and THAT is scary to be resembling anything in real life.
Hi Anonymous,
I know it's a bit late. But I just wanted to say thank you for your thoughts. It's refreshing to hear these things from men.To hear you claim that smarts will always win out gives me hope:) However, the natural born pessimist in me fears living in a state of eventual IDIOCRACY. Actually, I felt the decline back when GWB became president... TWICE. Anyway... many thank for your comments. Please reveal yourself next time:)
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