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Women;s bodies have rarely been shown as objects of beauty. Now, I understand that the word object in this question is problematic. A woman's body is not an object, and the purpose of objectifying a woman's body is always oppression and suppression. However, I will ignore this problematic wording as a symptom of the general insensitivity of the culture. Instead I wish to focus on the fact that women's bodies are rarely considered beautiful, and our 21st century Western culture is the worst sinner in this regard.

First of all, women do not in any way resemble the hormone-fueled fantasy of artists, photographers and Madison Avenue. Real women are not anorexic twigs. Real women do not have perfect air-brushed thighs, hairless armpits and legs. A woman's legs are not disproportionally long compared to her torso. A healthy woman does not have breasts that are larger than her head. Women are made to feel degraded and ugly because of the images of beauty with which men adorn their walls. But these are fantasies and not reality.

Compare this to primitive images of women and you can see the difference. When people worshiped feminine images of fertility they were generally fecund and healthy, abundant. That they were generally ovoid fits the way endomorphic women, women who are naturally fertile and bear children easily, are shaped. We have glorified images of women who are nearly incapable of having children. The anorexic models, who themselves do not possess enough beauty to avoid the skllful air-brushing of the artist before their pictures are used to advertise liquor and tobacco, are neither healthy nor beautiful.

And the opposite end, the women who sell sexuality through surgically augmented and airbrushed anatomy are not real. They are shaved, puttied, taped and air-brushed. No one fits the ideal, and worse of all, the ideal is skewed and sick. Surgically enhanced breasts have never been a healthy option. Quite the contrary, most women who have breast surgery for health reasons seek breast reduction.

The Greco-Roman ideal of women was voluptuous and feminine. The Renaissance vision of woman was zaftig and succulent. The modernist glorified what was inherently ugly and stillborn. The post-modern has been obsessed with the pre-pubescent and the skeletal. But what has been completely lacking in all these images is the reality of women. A woman's body is inherently beautiful. Whether athletic or chubby, hairy or smooth, the body is lovely and precious. But we have cheapened and dirtied women so much in American culture. We have shamed women into thinking that they must be a certain size, fit a certain mold. The truth of the matter is that the women of the modern world need to concern themselves more with shaving their neuroses more than their pits, they need to reduce their guilt-obsessions more than their dress sizes, they need to augment their educations more than their breast. If women could lengthen their self-esteems with a more natural body image as easily as they lengthen their legs with crippling high heels, then perhaps we could instill a stronger perception of the beauty of women on the cultural consciousness of a very ill world.

Learn more about this author, John Devera.
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