Boob Jobs, Gyms & Starvation: What won't we do?

The Venus of Willendorf,
carved 24,000 years ago.

I'm going to start by asking a question to which I do not have an answer.  Who decides what the feminine standard of beauty is going to be from one era to the next?  If someone knows, tell me, because I can only assume there is a small, elite group of avante garde types who decide what "the look" is going to be for the next ten or twenty years.  I suspect this elite group consists of representatives from the fashion industry and Hollywood.  Together, they review the current look and formulate the new one.  Then they turn to the ad men from Madison Avenue who have been sitting back waiting for direction.  "OK, we want women to start looking like this," they tell them.  "Go do what you do.  Make it happen."

Chinese men preferred small feet, so in adolescence, a girl's
feet were broken & the toes folded underneath the arch.
No decent man would marry her if she did not do this.

While I don't know for sure who comprises that elite group in the tower, I do know there isn't an average woman among them.  We're merely informed of our new look.  It's up to us to adapt ourselves appropriately.  If we need to altar the structure of our bodies to accommodate the new look, so be it.  Chinese women broke their feet and regrew them.  Wealthy Victorian women cinched themselves in with corsets to achieve the wasp waist.  Modern women get bags of saline inserted into their chests.  Historically, we have done whatever it takes--or die trying, which some of us actually do.

In the 1920's, the word came out from the people in the tower that the breastless, hipless tomboy figure would be the new feminine ideal.  In response, women cut their hair and wore the shapeless sheath dress, a garment that conceals all evidence of the female curve.  This long, slender, boyish look had to have been hell for the fashion-conscious woman with hips and breasts, but by God, they tried, even if it meant strapping their breasts down.  Unbelievable, but many did just that.

A rare nude photo of Elizabeth Taylor,
taken for her fiance, Michael Todd.
Liz was one gentle curve after another.

Fortunately for them, the tower people brought curves back for the 1940's and 50's.  In fact, an almost exaggerated femininity was called for.  There were long, stockinged legs with seams up the back.  There were bras that turned breasts into zeppelins.  Hips and butts were accentuated.  If a woman had done it right, when she stood sideways, her body would look like a big letter S.  With the right lingerie, it wasn't a difficult look to achieve, even for the woman who didn't have much in the way of T&A.

1950's goddess Jane Mansfield was the classic S-shape.

Raquel Welch had long
legs and curves.  Note
the soft, rounded hips.

Somewhere in the mid-1960's, another meeting was called in the tower.  "Enough with the T&A," they apparently said.  "We want them taller and a little thinner.  We still want some curve, but we want them to grow their legs longer."  We answered the call.  We went out and bought the miniskirts and boots.  To add another inch or two to our height, we teased our hair at the top.  The whole look was long: long legs, long hair, long eyelashes.  If it could be managed, the finished look was ultra cool.  Let me tell you, though, it was a rough era for short, round women, or for those who had been born with naturally big thighs. 

This 1978 photo of Cheryl Tiegs
represents a more toned curvy girl.

Forunately for the Big Thigh women, the long, leggy look was abruptly changed in the mid-seventies.  The new look would be something new, something we hadn't dealt with before.  "Skinny is still in," we were told, "but we want a different kind of skinny.  We want a toned skinny.  Off you go, now."

So off we went.  We "jogged."  We went to fitness centers and "exercised."  We put our hips and thighs in those bizarre vibrating belts to loosen our fat.  Then we did jumping jacks and sit-ups in groups.  We focused entirely on calories.  Nutrition wasn't much of a concern to us.  As long as we were following the food pyramid and burning calories, we were covered.

Janet Jones-Gretzky
epitomized the super
sculpted 80's body

Things got serious in the 80's.  Another decision was made for us.  Skinny was still in, but toned skinny wasn't good enough anymore.  The tower was requesting a more sculpted kind of skinny.  They wanted to see a little more muscle on us. 

Our first order of business was the way we perceived food.  How we ate became very scientific.  We stopped focusing on calories.  We educated ourselves on carbs and electrolites and protein and muscle-mass.  Jogging was replaced with running.  Exercising was replaced with working out.  We picked up weights and got all kinds of physical.  Our hips and butts were acceptable, thank God, but they couldn't be soft; they had to be sculpted and rock-hard.  Our boobs were alright, but they had to be big; like, really big.  If we didn't have them naturally, we had to go get them surgically implanted.

Kendra Wilkinson embodies
the millenium ideal--
hipless and petite with
over-sized breast implants.

We went like that through the nineties and 00's.  The only change we've been asked to incorporate is a sort of downsizing of our body mass.  The tower people want us to continue with the body sculpting and big implants, but now they want us to be simultaneously tiny.  This has been rough, especially since nature rarely produces a petite body with really big boobs.  In order to get that look, you have to work out a lot, eat very little, and spend a lot of money.  The only ones getting on board with it are strippers, playmates, actresses, and the Real Housewives of Wherever.  The rest of us, not so much. 

There are a couple of reasons why average women aren't even bothering.  First, we're so far away from it.  Those tiny little bodies seem so impossible.  Second, as a whole, we're fatter than ever.  This does not mean we're all a bunch of slovenly, lazy hags, mind you.  With a few exceptions, we're not.  The truth is, it's more difficult to be trim and fit than it used to be.  The healthy, unprocessed food that was readily available at the A&P when we were kids is now considered organic and we have to go to special places to get it.  What is easy to find is food that is fatty, salty, and overly processed.

Even worse, the jobs that used to keep us running around all day now keep us seated in front of a computer for eight hours.  In order to get our metabolisms up, we have to go to the gym after work.  Most women now are single mothers, the primary wage earners, or the sole supporters of children, grandchildren, and sometimes even parents.  The gym isn't high on their list of priorities. 

As far as I know, this is the first time women have balked at the edict issued from the tower.  In fact, we're actively rebelling against it.  We want the option of being overweight in varying degrees.  We're accepting this in ourselves even if no one else is.  We're calling ourselves "curvy" and "real" instead of "fat."  If we are concerned at all about our weight, it is for reasons of health and well-being, and not because of anything the decision-makers in the tower have to say about it.

Swimsuit model Kate Upton
is controversial because she
is considered to be fat.

This rebellion is causing a lot of bickering between the fat camp and the skinny camp.  There's a lot of name-calling going on.  Men--usually the ones who have the final say on what makes a woman beautiful--don't always know how to handle it all.  They know what they like even if they can't define it.  They want a woman with curves, but they don't want fat.  They like petite but they don't necessarily like skinny.  They like big boobs, but they don't want the hard, melon-like things surgeons are putting on womens' chests.  It's a minefield.  The smart ones stay out of the fray and tell us we're all beautiful.

Model Elle Macpherson was considered
to have the best body in the business;
hence, her nickname "The Body."

I think we all need to stop arguing with each other and address our concerns to the elite group in the tower.  We need to tell them they really blew it this time.  They gave us a standard of beauty that few of us have the time or the money to attain.  Sure, we want the big boobs on the tiny body, but we're not willing to starve ourselves or go under the knife to get it.

Here's the thing, unseen tower people.  If you've got to dictate how we're going to look, at least give us something we have a shot at.  Let's start with the breast implants.  Can we take them off the table so to speak?  And can you allow for a little extra curve; at least the kind we can't diminish with diet and exercise?  If you do that, we'll meet you halfway.  We'll try a little harder to get trimmer and fitter.  We'll go to a reasonable amount of trouble.  Some of us will get the extensions and the weaves; we'll get waxed and manicured and spray tanned.  A few of us will get lipo and Botox.  If we can't afford that, we'll at least buy the anti-aging creams and all the rest of the crap that makes us feel like we have some control.  If you allow us to look a bit more like honest to God women, we'll hold up our end of the bargain by doing the tweaking.  Too much to ask?

Let's end with Marilyn, since she endures as the standard of female beauty.
Back in the days before breast implants, this was considered busty.
Today, she would be sent to a nutritionist for weight loss,
a personal trainer for body sculpting, and to a surgeon for breast implants.
However, even today, men say she was just fine the way she was.  Take that, tower people.