Body issues

Womens body identity is an issue close to my heart, and is something that I've been meaning to write a post about for a long time, and it was when I read this , that is spurred me to say something. I have in the past had very black and white ideas about female beauty and how we feel about ourselves and our bodies. On one hand my business is in fashion, an industry notorious for promoting the anorexic look, and ignoring anything resembling a narural female body.In college I shaved my head, didn't wear make up for years, never wore a bra, and generally wore mucky drab clothes. Somewhere in my head I thought this was a statement about female empowerment and an unwllingness to conform to an idea of what a woman should want to be. It was something I needed to do at the time, but I was denying myself a lot through my militant feminism. I wasn't willing to let anything 'girlie' in for fear that I would become trapped under a preasure to be beautiful.
Most women I know don't like their bodies, thankfully as I get older the women around me grow enough to learn to accept what they have and hopefully at some point they will love it. I've seen too much of anorexia to know that the path of self loathing only leads to destruction. I'm not sure what this post is about except that I have a great sadness inside after the things I've seen friends do to themselves, something has to change about how we live as women. Especially at this time of year when every ad on tv is trying to tell you another way to feel inadequate about yourself. I don't diet, I don't feel guilty about food, and I refuse to berate myself about how I look...maybe it's a start.

You might find this interesting on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUUAgZ8f1OU