"Target Photo Shopped Pictures Seem to be Endorsing the Thigh Gap Trend"

"Target Photo Shopped Pictures Seem to be Endorsing the Thigh Gap Trend" I saw this on Yahoo! News last Wednesday while I was attending a Drug Endangered Children Seminar. Once you get over the fact that I still rely upon Yahoo! News, please read on. 

At the time I read the article and viewed the corresonding photo, I was sickened, saddened and shocked. My initial reaction was true to my rather blunt nature and went something like this: "C'mon ladies, we are creating our own prisons here." What I mean by that is that we, as individuals, choose what standards we accept and incorporate into our lives. I am not an advocate of obesity, but I am also not an advocate of the opposite extreme which requires women to adhere to such restrictive patterns of eating that meals become a source of discomfort. There was a time when breaking bread together was a communal experience. Now it seems that meals have become more about what we can or cannot consume, or worse, a struggle to exert control in a relatively out of control world. And for what end? To obtain a thigh gap? Something unnatural that is no more worthy of our time and efforts than Chinese foot binding once was? But we, as women and girls, make the choice to internalize, enforce and accept this unrealistic standard of beauty. We have been taught that we have normalized obesity. However, I think the reality is that we have criminalized it, and in doing so, we have idolized an equally unrealistic standard. If we as a gender refused to accept these self-imposed standards, perhaps we could all begin to break bread together and focus on being healthy rather than whether or not we have thigh gaps.  But Jill, you say, men won't like us if we don't meet this unrealistic standard.  To that I say, bullshit--another self-imposed myth.  Again, I am not advocating obesity for either gender.  What I am saying is that at some point, we as a gender won't be able to get any smaller or weaker  and so perhaps we should think about redefining what it means to be beautiful as a woman.  I know plenty of women who don't have thigh gaps that I would consider beautiful, amazing and powerful.  Now that's a standard I can get behind and a standard that I would hope would allow our gender to blossom and bloom, instead of wither and die. 

The other reason I was sickened is because I had sat through two days of intensive training about the risks that children are exposed to when their parents use drugs -- hence the term Drug Endangered Children. Children have been horribly abused and even killed by parents who are high on some kind of substance. Why is it that thigh gap is even worthy of our time and attention? Why do we continue to elevate irrelevant, materialistic concerns over more worthy causes? How could I possibly even begin to care about a thigh gap after reading about a father who ate out his son's eye while high on PCP? I understand we can't be serious all the time and that we can't constantly focus on depressing or serious issues. At the same time, however, so much of our energy and talent seems to be wasted on perseverating on things like "thigh gaps." Women, we have the power to change the damned world. But society, through our acquiescence, has us so focused on irrelevant matters that the status quo prevails. I challenge each and every one of you to consider whether diverting our attention to irrelevant matters is simply a covert way of maintaining a white, male dominated status quo.

Jill