Each day of December, I am being moved to post by Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge:
Today is Day 30 Ad. What advertisement made you think this year?
Advertising makes me wonder where we’re going as a culture. To be honest, I don’t watch much TV. I don’t like to shop. I don’t read magazines. When it comes to advertising, I cringe from what I see. I feel outraged. I feel sad. I feel helpless to stop the objectification that continues to occur.
I’ve heard many young women say that they feel empowered because they now have sexual freedom. They equate power with sex. After all, most advertising encourages them to be the sexiest they can be. Everything seems to be about being sexy. Not just beautiful and thin, but sexy, too.
I see woman as beautiful, amazing, and strong. I am amazed by women. And, it makes me sad to think that women don’t see their own sacredness.
What is it to be a powerful woman? Is power only about sex? Maybe in our current cultural milieu it’s the brass ring, but what if true power for women was not about what we give away in order to be wanted, but what we honor and respect within ourselves?
Our sexuality is a powerful force. And, it is a sacred and mysterious force. We are bearers of life. We bring life into life. We are sacredly creative.
I’d love to know what you think about this. What will it take to respect and honor this within ourselves, even in the face of more and more negative advertising?
I wish I had an answer for this vital question. I’m still trying to figure it out myself. But I’m so thankful that it keeps getting posed.
this is a conversation i’d love to have . . . and it’ll take a while. (and way too many characters for twitter). as females, we ARE sacredly creative, and i, for one, am pretty damned sick and tired of apologizing for it. or being ashamed of it. or being embarrassed or feeling second class because of it. everybody makes a contribution to create and maintain this world we live in, and it’s high time we reminded certain people – including ourselves (speaking for myself, of course) – of woman’s important and invaluable role in that balance. we are powerful, yes, yes we are. but our power does not/would not/should not diminish the power of others. when we live our power – when we respect and honor that mysterious force within ourselves and other females – without apology or attack on others, we operate from a position of abundance. when we hide our power because others fear that our power diminished and reduces, we live in a position of scarcity. i, for one, prefer abundance.
yes, let’s have this conversation . . . and let’s keep having it until we’ve changed the world. let’s start with ourselves: let’s honor and respect and cherish and adore the sacred and mysterious creativeness that is us. let’s do it for ourselves, let’s do it for others, and let’s keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it until we have trained ourselves and others how to see. let’s keep doing it until we reach that special tipping point where it is the accepted way of being in this world – the only way of being with ourselves and with others.