Fictitious Reality
Fandom Enthusiast, Bibliophile, Psychology Student, Married, Transplanted Pacific Northwestern, ISTJ, Cat Aficionado, Make Up Fanatic, Cyclothymic and Feminist.
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Link reblogged from Stop Femme Hate!
(CNN) — My daughter occasionally goes on a hugging and kissing strike.
She’s 4. Her parents could get a hug or a kiss, but many people who know her cannot, at least right now. And I won’t make her.
“I would like you to hug Grandma, but I won’t make you do it,” I told her recently.
“I don’t have to?” she asked, cuddling up to me at bedtime, confirming the facts to be sure.
No, she doesn’t have to. And just to be clear, there is no passive-aggressive, conditional, manipulative nonsense behind my statement. I mean what I say. She doesn’t have to hug or kiss anyone just because I say so, not even me. I will not override my own child’s currently strong instincts to back off from touching someone who she chooses not to touch.
I figure her body is actually hers, not mine.
It doesn’t belong to her parents, preschool teacher, dance teacher or soccer coach. While she must treat people with respect, she doesn’t have to offer physical affection to please them. And the earlier she learns ownership of herself and responsibility for her body, the better for her.
[…]
Would you want your daughter to have sex with her boyfriend simply to make him happy? Parents who justify ordering their children to kiss grandma might say, “It’s different.”
No, it’s not, according to author Jennifer Lehr, who blogs about her parenting style. Ordering children to kiss or hug an adult they don’t want to touch teaches them to use their body to please you or someone else in authority or, really, anyone.
“The message a child gets is that not only is another person’s emotional state their responsibility but that they must also sacrifice their own bodies to buoy another’s ego or satisfy their desire for love or affection,” said Lehr.
“Certainly no parent would wish for their teenager or adult child to feel pressure to reciprocate unwanted sexual advances, yet many teach their children at a young age that it’s their job to use their bodies to make others happy,” she said.
[More at the source.]
Lessons about sex and sexuality start at a very young age. Great read & ideas for how to teach your children to grow up positively.
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Photo reblogged from Confessions of a Crazy Person
Glamour Magazine Body Size Stereotypes Survey:
What the Glamour Magazine poll shows about the assumptions women hold
Heavy women are pegged as…
“lazy” 11 times as often as thin women; “sloppy” nine times; “undisciplined” seven times; “slow” six times as often.
While thin women are seen as…
“conceited” or “superficial” about eight times as often as heavy women; “vain” or “self-centered” four times as often; and “bitchy,” “mean,” or “controlling” more than twice as often.
Even the “good” labels are unfair.
An overweight woman may be five times as likely to be perceived as “giving” as a skinny one. “But it just fits into the stereotype that thin women are not that way,” explains Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D. “It’s still putting women in a box based on their body size.”
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This is so interesting… and really sad. The fact that heavy women ALSO judge heavy women and thin women judge other thin women is so disheartening.
Hopefully places like Stop Hating Your Body can help change this even a little bit at a time…
(click on the image for the entire article, it is worth the read!)
It’s very interesting that the article is about stereotypes, and yet both the women shown here, while their body sizes are different, are both white, blonde, and what the media would like to push as being ideally ‘beautiful’.
Yes, I understand that the two bodies should be otherwise similar to drive home the point that the size of the body is the only thing affecting the opinion. But still, why choose a white, blonde, ‘beautiful’ person to begin with?
That being said, however, the article does make a good point. People are far too eager to place people in a box strictly on what the shape of their body, and it’s not okay. The only way to change is to question what you’re made to think, and why.
Not strictly science but still, for a poll done by a beauty mag it’s happiness.
