First World Problems

Happy Tuesday!   I thought I'd do a blog before the wave of revision hits me. Thought I'd include some funny and interesting images.  

 So today, I read an article from the Daily Mail. It's been floating about on Facebook, Twitter etc and I  shared it with a couple of my friends (for laughs). Then decided to vent my views onto my blog as always. ;)

 It was by someone called Samantha Brick - I'd never heard of this woman until today and have resolved to never ever read anything she writes! Not only is she a journalist, but also a "high-flying" TV executive producer with a "six-figure salary" 

I thought: "Ok good on her, a successful woman, maybe she's written a heart felt, moving piece about a woman who has a self esteem issue. Let's see what this is about."
Little did I know, is that she is the woman with a self esteem issue, serious visual impairment and need of larger doors in her house to allow her ridiculously inflated head to fit through.
This my readers,  is a major case of First World Problems.

The article is humbly entitled:
"There are downsides to looking this pretty. Women hate me for being beautiful."


Here's the link, have a read: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2124246/Samantha-Brick-downsides-looking-pretty-Why-women-hate-beautiful.html

  

Great way to kick off an article right? I firstly thought: That's vain... But I decided to give it the benefit of doubt. It could have been about one of these women who has am unusual type of beauty or something like that. The headline itself is problematic - it indirectly groups women into a category of being jealous, beauty-hating gargoyles who dislike each other. This isn't entirely true, beauty means different things to different people and from what I've noticed: it's how you carry yourself, how you speak, your attitude that makes other click or turn away from you.
So I clicked. I'll be honest. I was expecting to see an unknown model, a quirky looking actress, someone like Scarlett Johansson, a potential Miss World competitor.
My jaw hit the keyboard (in a shocked way!) when her picture showed up, as I thought: "Huh?"

• It's a well known fact that according to science, beautiful people or at least photogenic people have symmetrical features. 

She has wonky teeth, an unsymmetrical face, virtually no lips, weird eyebrow shape and isn't very photogenic.  Bitchiness aside, she honestly is your average woman with a bit of slap on her face.
Some of my readers may disagree and say: "Actually, she's quite pretty and stop being such a b*tch."
Ok, we're all entitled to our own opinion. So I got over the initial "What the..." moment and read it.
I swear to God, with each line I found myself laughing at this woman!

Miss Brick then goes on to say how the "sisterhood of women" should be supporting her and not being "jealous" because she is such a beautiful woman.

 Let me clear something up about how the majority of women work: -
Women, in general, are by nature jealous and vain creatures (let's not kid ourselves) but when we see a woman who is truly beautiful - inside and outside - we do support her provided that she is decent, not up herself and is a kind, genuine person.


What women do NOT support is an egoistical, self-absorbed, arrogant, attention seeking person who sucks up for compliments.
Every single day, we are bombarded with airbrushed images of what women (and men now) should look like:

You should be tall, you should be slim, you should have lighter skin, you should have delicate features, you should have straighter hair because curly, ethnic hair is not beautiful. You should also have sky-high legs, dainty wrists, massive breasts, tiny waist and smaller hips...
When will this stop!?


It's bad enough that these images and mentalities are flying about in the public domain, but to have this article  being posted online? This just...oh I don't know...from where I'm sitting, I think it was a VERY bad decision.

And from what I've heard: the poor woman is getting a ton of abuse from people worldwide. I can't entirely sympathise with her; it's similar to blogging. If you're going to put a controversial article/blog on the Internet, it is going to get read and if it infuriates enough people then yes...they will tell you!
Different cultures, different people view beauty in different ways.  For me: I don't consider her to be a beautiful woman because I see beauty in a different light to what she considers to be beautiful. I felt that at the time of publishing, Samantha probably felt that it was a great idea (you know in that empowering Beyoncé diva-like mood) but I felt it was a very naive article to write and publish.
Beauty is a very subjective thing. It's also very vague - just look around at how different make up and fashion magazines try to fit their ideas of beauty onto us.

Sometimes I look around and think: "God what has happened to us?" I switch on my TV and programmes like Snog, Marry, Avoid (which is hilarious), ilk about Katie Price and the crew from TOWIE, Jersey Shore, Desperate Scousewives etc are being put out in the public sphere.
It's all for profit of course and for a few simpletons to get 45 minutes of public airtime, a sack of money and a bunch of paparazzi to stalk them. But they don't realise how much it's damaging a generation of kids, young men and women's relationship with their self esteem, self-worth, confidence and physical appearance.
It upsets and annoys me so much that as a group of people who are susceptible to this are not doing anything about it! We just keep getting sucked into this whirlpool of plastic fantastic and false glamour without struggling.
 Having read this pointless article that annoyed myself and provided a considerable amount of entertainment, I sat back thinking. One thought crossed my mind:

 Why would you do this to yourself?? -  do you not have a shred of self respect or dignity? I always have found that the most beautiful women are the ones who are modest, kind, humble and not big headed about it.
I'm still speechless (which is pretty rare) and honestly don't know what to make of the whole thing.
So...over to you :)