Blog 8 - Check My Title

The most interesting read to me in Body Outlaws was "The Butt: Its Politics, Its Profanity, Its Power" by Erin Aubry. I come from a family (well at least on my mom's side) that are all petite with wide bottoms. It is something that I have had to deal with my entire life, or at least since puberty hit. Unlike the author of the piece, I am plagued with wide hips more so than a large derriere but overall the lower half of my body is much more prominent than anything else. What my butt says, goes. It took me a while to start to appreciate my body in its entirety. When I was younger (middle school age) I was the one in the group with the largest posterior, which is still true today, and people often commented on it. It's like I walked around with a sign on me, saying wide load on my back, and that made it okay for people to say whatever they wanted. As I have matured and become more comfortable with all my body has to offer, I understand that my butt is just a relatively large part of a whole package and any person who wants to be in my life has to accept me, butt and all.
Now, after reading the end of The Beauty Myth, I do not feel one ounce of closure. I know there is not a lot the author can do to change the problems that we have today with body image and female confidence, but I feel like she just beat around the bush when it came to the ideas and didn't face them head on. Wolf gives the option of eating what we want and wearing what we want to combat the negative influences that dominate our lives, but if it were the solution was that simple and passive, than why hasn't it already happened. I am a firm believer in confronting the issues head on and I think Jessica Valenti is definitely the kind of reader I want to stand behind. In class, I know a lot of people felt assaulted by the use of profanity in her text, but I think it just gives people that extra shock that makes people take notice of what is going on around them. A person can use professionally and highly educated language everyday and never really get down to the root of the problem. I think that Valenti just made the feminism issue that much more relatable to a lot more women all across the world.