Alyssa Hammel is an Environmental Science undergrad at Pace University and a native of Woodstock, NY. She is active in Amnesty International as well as numerous animal rights groups. “Clitoral Truth” author Rebecca Chalker opened her mind to the sexualization of girls while teaching a Woman’s Studies class in the fall semester. This piece was written in response to Jean Kilbourne’s film “Killing Us Softly”.
As I wait in line at Whole Foods, I am bombarded with images of beautiful, scantily clad women. Almost all the magazines have pictures of what a woman is “supposed” to look like. When I was younger, I wanted desperately to look like these models. I was unaware of how utterly unachievable those looks were. I constantly had low self-esteem because I didn’t look like a model. My friends were no better. They would go on cranberry juice diets to try and lose weight. At the age of 11, none of us needed to lose weight or go on a diet. I remember being really upset that I had pores. All of the models in the magazine lacked pores, so why was I punished with such ugly skin!? For the first few years of my adolescence I had extremely low self-esteem because I didn’t understand why I didn’t look like the models on the magazine covers.
Change came when Victoria’s Secret Model Alessandra Ambrosio came into the store I worked at. She was one of the models I had always envied. But the girl that walked in looked more like me than any picture I had ever seen of her. She was a little shorter than me, and I am 5’7”. She had a pimple on her cheek and believe it or not, SHE HAD PORES! It was only then that I realized that it is unrealistic to try to look like the models, because they don’t even look like that in real life!
It pains me to see young girls going through what I did. It also makes me angry. Who said that this narrow definition of beauty is what girls should aspire to? I hope one day I can walk into a store and see a real woman on the cover of Vogue.