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Too Muscular, Not Muscular Enough, And How Women Can't Win

I came across a link on one of the blogs I follow, and was ticked off enough to rant.

Celebrities are now being airbrushed and Photoshopped to look bigger. Umm… seriously? Shape posts a slideshow of examples – arm definition gone, back muscles disappear, emaciated faces are filled out, bust enlarged.

For God’s sake, you can’t win. First, GQ decides that Kate Winslet is not quite gorgeous enough the way she is for the cover, thus, Photoshopping 1/3 of her weight off, and now we are removing abdominal definition off Cameron Diaz, because it looks too masculine. Excellent.

Right… First, muscles are masculine, and then we discuss why women cannot do pull-ups. Give me a break. Here’s a message – you must work out, but make sure nobody can tell. Yet another reminder why the images we see are about as real as Cinderella.

An Olympic cyclist had her back muscles smoothed out for a magazine cover. She says: “I wore a dress that exposed my whole back, and when I saw the photo on a screen at the shoot I thought “Wow! My back looks muscly,” and I felt really proud. But when the picture was printed, my back was smooth and practically muscle free.”

Ha! I can’t imagine what they would have to do to my back.

She continues: “They”d softened it all, and I was so disappointed because I”d put a lot of work into that! I guess, in their opinion, being muscly isn”t that attractive in a woman. But surely if you take a picture of an athlete, you”d expect to see some muscle, wouldn”t you?”

I would.

Signing off, SOLO

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