I'll post these notes in dining halls and bathroom stalls

When you chose how to dress this morning, who did you dress for? Where does your own personal definition of beauty spring from? Is the search through mirrors the right one? Or is it all just covered in smoke?

It seems like wherever you look there are 20 girls to everyone man, this may not necessarily be true, but media portrayals would have us believe it is. It’s not uncommon to see the blatant objectification of women when scanning the television screen. As University students it is easy to believe that we are above such crude models of behaviour. Most would scoff at the idea that such messages pervade our inner insecurities. But perhaps the message is not lost on us, perhaps we cannot escape media influence. Or maybe we just don’t want to. But that sounds ridiculous of course any intelligent woman can see these messages are ludicrous even shameful. Yet their voices, their outrage gets lost amid the screamingly absent minded laughter of the crowd of girls waiting in line to be Bikini Girls #8 in the next “Axe” body spray commercial. It is lost among the depressing sighs of the crowds of women waiting in line to get Jessica’s breasts, or Kiera Knightly’s lips. The number of women dissatisfied with there looks is no myth. The gut wrenching feeling of looking in the mirror is no imagined, and yet its never discussed. It’s not an issue I would argue that many men will tell you it doesn’t exist at all. Then why, you might ask yourself, do I starve myself? When did a good home cooked meal become “Carbohydratious” a fierce monster enemy from the planet ugly? Perhaps this is all just another phase in a long history of women being seen as objects, or images of untouchable, unimaginative and unintelligible beings. We prescribe to this stereotype in our silence and in our inability to articulate the pain and persecution that is born and thrives in a world based on superficiality. Yes, commercials are just commercials, but they are also the most intriguing source of social commentary that our generation has to offer. The implications of one man surrounded by many scantily clad women, not saying much of anything is not as irrelevant as one may choose to believe. In a world of one night stands and meaningless sexual encounters; have women come out on the bottom? In no way to I hold myself as a moral compass for women, but it remains to be seen that women still use their sexual liberation as a source of empowerment. I am not so sure that one night stand and meaningless sex, was the type of liberation 2nd wave thinking of in the 60’s. Not, certainly, if it left women feeling more used and more empty than ever. Sex, Sex appeal, Sexuality; they are powerful ideas, but they have always wielded a certain sense of misconception among women. It seems that one is never able to escape the Virgin/Whore dichotomy created in modern Western media and culture. Which am I? You may ask yourself? And you may conclude “I’m neither.” But according to whom? And again the voice of woman is lost, who is there to intelligently oppose the social norms we are all a part of creating? Why do we simply sit and watch as the situation unfolds; do you have the courage enough to comment on injustice when you see it? Does anyone? Maybe it’s too difficult as it stands to take down the system, seemingly a huge constantly churning machine. But at least we could talk to each other and have conversation beyond the normal rant about our non-conforming body parts. By simply reminding ourselves that; the title of “single” doesn’t necessarily connotate unhappiness, that beautiful cannot be categorized into rigid boxes, that woman is not an object and that femininity is without essence. It is up to woman to transcend the boundaries which confine, oppress and belittle her. Through commiseration with each other we can re-evaluate our own self worth, and rediscover ourselves and the subjects of our own lives. In control of our own existence and courageous enough to love ourselves in whatever form we choose to assume. Woman is a beautifully complex being, we have simply lost sight of this definition. Paris Hiltons Picture does not belong in the dictionary beside the word Beauty.