Thank God I was not a mother.
And that was just me, a model you’ve never heard of. Imagine being a pregnant celebrity. The world finds out you’re expecting, and everyone waits on pins and needles to see if you gain weight. If (and when) you do, the media wants to know how you’re going to lose that weight. If you don’t lose weight at an unnatural pace immediately after giving birth, it’s inevitable that your career will suffer. Magazines offer hundreds of thousands of dollars to feature your post-baby body. If the only options are 1:“be labeled a fat cow and lose your career” or 2: “take time away from your children to torture yourself into losing a ridiculous amount of weight in time for that photo shoot,” what happens?
This is the world we’ve created. I say we, because women are the ones paying for the magazines, the makeup, the hair, the clothing, and the television shows that pick apart celebrities. The real victims of Photoshop are not celebrities – most of them have teams of people making sure they achieve these crazy weight loss and beauty goals without truly hurting themselves. The people Hollywood puts in danger are women like you and I, who see airbrushed photos and feel inferior. They’re mothers who feel like they aren’t enough, or that their natural bodies are unlovable.
Motherhood is a big deal. It’s one of the biggest decisions a woman can make. Kendra’s real act of bravery was childbirth – bringing another human being into the world. The media should recognize women for that accomplishment, instead. A woman is more than a single-function sex machine. The female body constantly fluctuates, shifts, adjusts, grows, shrinks, dances, destroys, and creates. Your body is meant for a lot more than just sex. Why won’t the media acknowledge that?