It’s Time We Stop Allowing Corporations to Teach Young Women to Mistrust Their Bodies
Shouldn’t we have the unassailable right to experience our bodies as normal?
Like many young women, I was ushered into womanhood with the help of teen magazines. I was so eager to be one of the “grown-ups,” to have real boobs, and long, painted nails, to look like Whitney Houston in her I Wanna Dance with Somebody video or Elisabeth Shue in Adventures in Babysitting.
You know…I wanted to be a real woman.
Imagine my horror, though, when I read through those ads and discovered that being a woman was…gross. Even the slightest glimpse of underarm stubble was considered vulgar? Our legs would never feel truly smooth unless we ripped out the hair by the roots, and by using that method, we’d be plagued with ingrown hairs that would turn into unsightly bumps and lesions on our skin?
And our periods smelled? Really? We had to put up with bleeding and it smelled — so bad, apparently, that anyone in the same room with us might notice?
Imagine my horror, though, when I read through those ads and discovered that being a woman was…gross.
