Written by Angie King

standard set by men for their viewing pleasure. We are always being told we are too fat, that our noses and breasts need “work,” that we need to buy wrinkle cream to look younger, etc. Girls absorb this message early in their lives; over half of 4th grade girls have been or are on a diet. Not only are these messages wrong and damaging to women’s self-esteem, they’re also a way for the cosmetic industry to make money. Here are some comparative costs:
For the price of breast implant surgery, you could pay for a year of college tuition. A set of salon hair highlights would pay for two weeks’ groceries. The cost of a pair of designer jeans could instead pay for a lifetime ski lift ticket; acrylic nails would pay for a day at an amusement park; a tube of lipstick could pay for a long distance phone call to an old friend.
But, it’s not enough to celebrate something like “Love Your Body” day once a year where we say all the right things and then go back to our lives as usual. Instead, we must fight the mainstream imposition of gender conformity, of submission to what the patriarchy has to say about how we look, how we act, how we live.
Most importantly, each of us has to get that silent critic out of our own head and re-energize ourselves to eliminating the oppressor in ourselves as well as in those who seem to be in charge.
Only when we really acknowledge what’s happening, take responsibility and openly discuss how we need to change, can it occur, because society isn’t outside us – it is us.  We’re the mothers who give our daughters fashion magazines, buy them tickets to concerts and take them to movies where the only images they see are airbrushed unrealistic role models. We’re the mothers, sisters, aunts, friends who carry and pass on the disease of gender oppression, which at its base is to teach us that to be a girl is to be less than perfect.
Take Action!  You know what to do. Just Do It.
Angie King is the Coordinator for the San Luis Obispo Chapter of NOW. You may write to her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .