Why the world is fucked:
Company's hiring on a basis of looks. If you can't legally discriminate based on skin color, sexual orientation, or religion, how can you discriminate on a basis of physical aesthetics... especially when beauty is in the eye of the beholder? I don't understand how this is at all fair. Not only do we have videos at "Mollister" telling us how to 'recruit' store associates purely on the basis of how they look, but on the hiring /interview application, you rate a candidate's personal 'style and attractiveness' with a number (1-3). I always thought that work ethic, intelligence, personality, and diligence were more important in helping to score a job than how 'hot' someone was. I mean, I know this is a brand that sells their over-rated shit based largely on a 'lifestyle image,' but something tells me that if I was smart, friendly, hard-working, and I fit the "image," but I was busted and chubby, I wouldn't get the job; but someone who was a '10,' and dumb as a bag of bricks would get it over me. For example, the Mollister image, is a young, fresh-faced, relaxed, beachy attitude. They don't like associates to wear makeup, they like 'natural' hair (no cornrows, mohawks, chunky highlights, or overly styled hair) and they like associates to wear their boring, busted, clothes (that, might I add, are the same season after season). Take a look at the following scenario:
Candidate A shows up to an interview, make-up free, dressed in their ill-fitting jeans, plaid shirt, and flops (the 'Mollister' look). This candidate has a 3.8 GPA, and tons of credentials, but they are also overweight and don't have perfect facial-symmetry.
Candidate B shows up to the same interview. She is 5'8", 125 lbs, has a C-cup and a 'cookie-cutter cute face.' She is also dressed in 'Mollister' attire. She is super ditzy, graduated with a 3.0 GPA, and is unfriendly to customers. She WILL GET THE JOB OVER CANDIDATE A, ONLY BECAUSE SHE FITS AN "ASPIRATIONAL" IMAGE better than the previous candidate.
Does that make any sense to you? No, me neither.
Photoshop, and the media's representation of women. I'm so sick of it. As a woman, as a person. I think every woman reading this can admit to having days where she either hates her body, her face, or at the very least wishes she was born with something she was not, and can never have (ex. wishing she was taller, wishing she was an hourglass as opposed to a pear shape, etc.). Not to discredit men, I'm sure they have off days as well, not to mention they feel pressure to fit ideal, masculine body images. However, I think it's safe to say women have it a lot worse. I am very guilty of body-snarking. I find I do it on days when I'm feeling bad about myself (what's that saying about me? :p). But really, it's awful and I don't condone it. I hate looking at tabloids when I'm standing in the grocery store line saying things like "Christina Aguilera's weight issue." I'm sorry, yes, she put on weight. She could have had a raging eating disorder before, and maybe now she is eating normal and at a healthy weight. I mean, I remember watching a behind the music once, and her mom was heavy, so I'm sure that it's probs coded in her DNA. Maybe she is a lot happier at 160 lbs than she was at 110 lbs. Why is a woman's weight public domain? I know that overweight people are discriminated against, but I think it's important to recognize that thin people are discriminated against too. Maybe they don't have it quite so bad as overweight people, but I don't understand how some people feel that they have a right to comment on a person's size, looks, or weight to their face. I mean, a guy saying "damn, look at that ass" is highly offensive, but it's also offensive to tell someone who is thin to "eat a cheeseburger." I don't even know what I'm saying right now. I'm so overly tired it's ridiculous. I just am tired of living in a world where we have unrealistic expectations set for us by photoshop and tabloids, and shitty tv (Entertainment tonight). In the same way that tabloids shame fat women, I think they all too often glorify celebrities with legitimate eating disorders. I become deeply disturbed when I see a tabloid saying that Angelina Jolie is "too thin, at only 100 lbs." and then the same day watch a show on tv where she is ranked as the world's most beautiful woman. The two don't go hand in hand. That's not ok to me, it's not ok at all to say that someone is thin, and list their weight and say they are sick, and then to say that they're beautiful and all women wished they looked like her. It was the same way with Nicole Richie back in the day, and Lindsay Lohan when she was thin. Now it's Kate Middleton and Kate Bosworth. When you put pictures of thin girls in their bikinis on the cover of tabloids and say things like "looks shocking at only 95 lbs." the message to girls looking at that tabloid usually isn't 'wow, that's sad,' it's more along the lines of 'why can't I be that thin/beautiful." Then you have plastic bitches like Megan Fox denying she's ever had surgery. Riiiiight. We can all tell she's had work done, so why is she perpetuating this idea she was born looking like a perfect, silicon blow up doll to young fans? Wouldn't it be better to say, 'I paid for this face, this isn't real'? I got thoroughly offended last week reading about some ridiculous diet of a Victoria's Secret model (Adriana Lima) prior to the VS Fashion Show. These women are underwear models because they are gorgeous with 'perfect' bodies; so to say that they feel they aren't runway ready and need to go on all liquid diets for two weeks prior to the show, what's that say to the 15 year old girls looking up to them? You can never be good enough, you can never be fit enough, toned enough, sexy enough, beautiful enough. Girls today have it even worse than the girls of my generation I think, with all of the social media available now. It's really sad, when 7 year olds worry about diets (I've seen it with my own eyes), and 13 year olds think that their puberty chub is 'fat.' I know this is a country of a very high obesity rate, and that's not ok either. Children shouldn't be fed McDonald's 3 times a week, it's not healthy and it's not responsible. It seems like there is no winning in today's world. I feel like girls are constantly told they will never be 'enough.' You have to be smart, but not smart enough to turn off boys and intimidate them. You have to be friendly and flirtatious, but not so much that you come across as a slut. You have to be nice, but not a doormat who gets taken advantage of. You have to be thin, but not so thin that people worry about your weight, you have to be beautiful/hot, because 'pretty' just isn't enough. Why do I always feel like I'm in a competition with all women? Is it the way I was born? I don't think so. I think it's how society molded me and every other woman my age.
I'd like to keep writing about reproductive rights (free birth control... brilliant!), over-population (if birth rates have gone down in the US, why is every single person prego?), adoption (help the population crisis and don't be selfish), the economy (were all fucked), and more shit (stray animals, people who shouldn't own animals...)... but I'm exhausted and have to wake up for an eye appointment at 8:30am, followed by cleaning house for an old lady from 10-12, then work from 2-11pm. When I get home at midnight, I will have to go to bed so I can get up by 6:30am and be to work by 9am saturday.... fuck me. All I want is my boyfriend and some time off. Maybe those Jeffrey Campbell 'lita' booties and a someone to publish my almost finished book. Is that really so much for a girl to ask for? Evidently it is. My Christmas gift to myself this year is going to be time off, I don't care if I'm fired.
