I wish I'd grown up with Caroline Heldman's list on my bathroom mirror.

(this film should should be a standard part of every middle school's curriculum, period)

So, these days, I have two sort of "pet obsessions" that I probably don't yak about nearly enough.

First off, I'm completely obsessed with the fact that we're attracted to people who look like us. I see it everywhere. Just like Mr Wonderful has his "three steps to love" philosophy that he's fairly certain will net everyone on earth their one and only, I believe in this sort of.....biological imperative that you're going to be a lot more successful with a one and only who has similarly structured facial features.

But that's a different topic for a different day. A more fun day.

My other pet obsession (and let's prepare ourselves for a Champagne Rising Soapbox Opus, of sorts):

The marginalization of women in media.

It's insidious, it's pervasive, and it's creating an absolutely devastating global effect on female-kind -- PARTICULARLY because this inescapable objectification sends women and girls an all-too powerful message about their worth, their station, their value as a human being.

What's that message?

You're simply an object who exists for other people's sexual entertainment.

This is an ENOURMOUS topic -- obviously -- and I could spend days damning everything from the under-representation of women in the film industry (specifically behind the camera), to the rampant digital photo retouching in print media that creates artificial representations of the female form that undercut girls' understanding of what "normal" looks like from the first time she stands in line at the grocery store and stares at a photo-edited magazine cover.

I could harp on the egregiousness of "comedians" like Daniel Tosh trying to make "rape jokes," but I'm not even going to get into that. Every woman on the planet (and, let's be honest, every man as well) should boycott that particular "entertainer" from here to eternity -- a quick Google search will tell you everything you need to know about that situation, I'm not going to lower myself to quoting him here.

I could gather up hundreds of advertising and PR images used recently that show women subjugated and sexualized in attempts to sell anything from jeans, to fragrance, to burgers.

I could direct us to lists like THIS ONE that evaluate women politicians on the basis of their sexual attractiveness rather than professional merit.

I could remind us that we set our kids down in front of Disney movies that create a fantasy world which we generally receive as fairly healthy and harmless, a world in which "princesses" abound, and are, almost always in need of either rescuing, marrying, or awakening by a prince, or a father, or.....a pet horse. You name it. These princesses can't help themselves out of a paper bag. But our girls want to be princesses, and we don't question whether or not they want to be EMPOWERED princess, or helpless slaves waiting for a leg up from their faceless prince.

I could point you to a well-read, rather popular celebrity gossip blog that's run by a gentleman who routinely disparages women with any extra meat on their bones, and the readers who routinely comment on those disparaging posts with equally disgusting perspectives on how women ought to look.

And let's not talk about our global "post-partum weight loss obsession" in the media that marginalizes a healthy mother and child and valorizes a "bikini-ready figure" as soon as the placenta drops.

But today I don't want to get bogged down in the depressing details of precisely how low media has allowed femininity to sink -- we'd all be crying into our "skinny lattes" (without realizing what a social statement even our coffee makes about our self-image. Guilty as charged). What I want to focus on are some of the small, simple, positive steps EVERYONE can take to move toward a recognition of the ways we routinely give up our power, and give the media permission to put a gun to the head of feminism and pull the trigger. Speaking of feminism: while I feel like my millennial generation has dismissed the phrase as something belonging to our mothers, a brilliant writer named Caitlin Moran puts it beautifully in an interview with the New York Times:

The word “feminism,” Moran said, has for some reason gone off the rails to connote, incorrectly, preachy humorlessness and grim separatism. “When I talk to girls, they go, ‘I’m not a feminist,’ ” she said. “And I say: ‘What? You don’t want to vote? Do you want to be owned by your husband? Do you want your money from your job to go into his bank account? If you were raped, do you still want that to be a crime? Congratulations: you are a feminist.’ ”

It's that very spirit of practicality that compels me to share this fantastic list of suggestions that Caroline Heldman put together on her blog in a series that aims to raise awareness about and resistance to the rampant objectification of women in the media. It's a list of daily rituals we should STOP performing (and some alternate suggestions of what we might do instead). 

I wish I'd had this list taped to my bathroom mirror as a high school kid (the age at which I became keenly aware of my perceived low-ranking on the boys' pecking order of desirability among girls my age).

I'm going to excerpt one part of the series, but do yourself a favor and read her entire four-part tretise on objectification. It's an eye-opening read, not ONLY for women, but ESPECIALLY for women. As I start thinking about the culture in which my someday children will be raised, it's important to me to place a premium on protecting them against images and messages that devalue their humanity, that tell them they're not good enough -- and this list is something I'd like our family to be comfortable talking about. 

Yes, someone commented that this series is exceptionally hetero-normative. And that's true. But, frankly, so are most of the media images with which we're assaulted. And the sense of worthlessness that accompanies marginalization and sexual objectification isn't limited to those who identify as heterosexual, obviously. BUT, she had to start somewhere, and this list of suggestions could apply to behaviors and attitudes across the sexual spectrum. 

So -- onward with the list of Rituals to Stop. 

1) Stop seeking male attention. Most women were taught that heterosexual male attention is our Holy Grail before we were even conscious of being conscious, and its hard to reject this system of validation, but we must. We give our power away a thousand times a day when we engage in habitual body monitoring so we can be visually pleasing to others. The ways in which we seek attention for our bodies variesby sexuality, race, ethnicity, and ability, but the template is the “male gaze."

Heterosexual male attention is actually pretty easy to give up when you think about it. First, we seek it mostly from strangers we will never see again, so it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of life. Who cares what the man in the car next to you thinks of your profile? You’ll probably never see him again. Secondly, men in U.S. culture are raised to objectify women as a matter of course, so an approving gaze doesn’t mean you’re unique or special. Thirdly, male validation through the gaze doesn’t provide anything tangible because it’s fleeting and meaningless. Lastly, men are terrible validators of physical appearance because so many are duped by make-up, hair coloring and styling, surgical alterations, girdles, etc. If I want an evaluation of how I look, a heterosexual male stranger is one of the least reliable sources on the subject. 

Fun related activity: When a man cat calls you, respond with an extended laugh and declare, “I don’t exist for you!” Be prepared for a verbally violent reaction as you are challenging his power as the great validator. Your gazer likely won’t even know why he becomes angry since he’s just following the societal script that you’ve just interrupted. 

2) Stop consuming damaging media, including fashion, “beauty,” and celebrity magazines, and sexist television programs, movies, and music. Beauty magazines in particular give us very detailed instructions for how to hate ourselves, and most of us feel bad about our bodies immediately after reading. Similar effects are found with televisionand music video viewing. If we avoid this media, we undercut the $80 billion a yearBeauty-Industrial Complex that peddles dissatisfaction to sell products we really don’t need. 

Related fun activity: Print out sheets that say something subversive about beauty culture — e.g., “This magazine will make you hate your body” — and stealthily put them in front of beauty magazines at your local supermarket or corner store. 

3) Stop Playing the Tapes. Many girls and women play internal tapes on loop for most of our waking hours, constantly criticizing the way we look and chiding ourselves for not being properly pleasing in what we say and what we do. Like a smoker taking a drag first thing in the morning, many of us are addicted to this self-hatred, inspecting our bodies first thing as we hop out of bed to see what sleep has done to our waistline, and habitually monitoring our bodies throughout the day. These tapes cause my female students to speak up less in class. They cause some women to act stupidly when they’re not in order to appear submissive and therefore less threatening. These tapes are the primary way we sustain our body hatred. 

Stopping the body-hatred tapes is no easy task, but keep in mind that we would be utterly offended if someone else said the insulting things we say to ourselves. Furthermore, we are only alive for a short period of time, so it makes no sense to fill our internal time with negativity that only we can hear. What’s the point? These tapes aren’t constructive, and they don’t change anything in the physical world. They are just a mental drain. 

Related fun activity: Make a point of not worrying about what you look like. Sit with your legs sprawled and the fat popping out wherever. Walk with a wide stride and some swagger. Public eating in a decidedly non-ladylike fashion is also great fun. Burp and fart without apology. Adjust your breasts when necessary. Unapologetically take up space. 

4) Stop Competing with Other Women. The rules of the society we were born into require us to compete with other women for our own self-esteem. The game is simple. The “prize” is male attention, which we perceive of as finite, so when other girls/women get attention, we lose. This game causes many of us to reflexively see other women as “natural” competitors, and we feel bad when we encounter women who garner more male attention, as though it takes away from our worth. We walk into parties and see where we fit in the “pretty girl pecking order.” We secretly feel happy when our female friends gain weight. We criticize other women’s hair, clothing, and other appearance choices. We flirt with other women’s boyfriends to get attention, even if we’re not romantically interested in them. 

Related fun activity: When you see a woman who triggers competitiveness, practice active love instead. Smile at her. Go out of your way to talk to her. Do whatever you can to dispel the notion that female competition is the natural order. If you see a woman who appears to embrace the male attention game, instead of judging her, recognize the pressure that produces this and go out of your way to accept and love her.

 - Via Caroline Heldman

So, there we have it.

I should clarify: I don't post any of this to demonize Man -- absolutely not. I bring it up to shine some light onto the ways mass media tell us we should feel and think and look and to what beauty ideals we ought to aspire.

The film preview at the top of the post is an important piece of my...."crusade," as well -- from the MissRepresentation.org website:

The film Miss Representation exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths. 

In response we created MissRepresentation.org, a call-to-action campaign that seeks to empower women and girls to challenge limiting media labels in order to realize their potential. 

We are uniting individuals around a common, meaningful goal to spark millions of small actions that ultimately lead to a cross-generational movement to eradicate gender stereotypes and create lasting cultural and sociological change.

Now THAT'S a cause I can get excited about. And THAT'S a cause I'd like to see more women mobilize behind. If we stop consuming the damaging media (yes, that includes websites that exist primarily to speculate about what women are wearing on the red carpet, how they look in a bikini, and whether they look like they've gained weight, or fashion blogs that paint women as little more than paper dolls, meant to be dressed up and photographed like pretty little decorations), and if we become more aware of the damaging self-monitoring we perform on a constant basis, and if we decry the damaging competition between women that degrades our self-confidence and fractures our mission for equity, then we're making small steps in the right direction, and creating an environment that will begin to empower our children and level the field, ultimately paving the way for more equal gender representation across the globe. 

Next I'll make my case for the "YES, your look like your husband, and YES, he's attracted to you partially because you look a bit like him" cause.