“It felt strange to look at a picture of myself that is so different from what I look like when I look in the mirror.”
Kerry Washington wrote these words in a recent Instagram post expressing her thoughts on her latest cover for Ad Week magazine. The picture had been photoshopped almost beyond recognition, with defining characteristics like skin tone and face shape altered dramatically, causing the actress to be “taken aback by the cover.”
Unfortunately, this level of photo-altering is not foreign among celebrity portrayals in the media. Washington, who was proud of the interview that accompanied the photo, was “weary” at the misrepresentation on the cover.
In an era which preaches positive body image and authenticity among women, this type of “manufactured perfection” through Photoshop is a major roadblock in achieving those goals. The reality is these physical alterations create artificial, and therefore unattainable, standards for women.
On the one hand, society and the media encourage women to be confident and comfortable in their own skin and on the other hand, they throw these overly-photoshopped images in our faces on a daily basis. That sounds like quite the contradictory message to me. Empowering women begins with honesty and the embracing of imperfections. The transparency with which Washington composed her Instagram post is a step in the right direction.
In other news, Kim Kardashian recently posted another nude selfie (surprise, surprise), this time joined by actress Emily Ratajkowski. The photo featured both girls posing topless in front of a mirror, middle fingers in the air, with the caption: “When we’re like…we both have nothing to wear LOL.”
The celebrities defended themselves and the photo in the name of women’s empowerment and fighting sexism, with subsequent Twitter rants addressing the backlash it received. Their justification begs the question: What is so empowering about undressing in front of the world?
Aren't we passd this bs way of thinking? The whole goal here is to let wmn do what they want for their reasons. To have the power to choose.
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) April 6, 2016
Women are so much more than their bodies. We should be teaching young girls that empowerment stems from intelligence, kindness, and strength—qualities which demand respect rather than attract attention. Evidently, Kardashian and Ratajkowski fail to see the difference between the two.
Through actions like this, celebrities only feed into the over-sexualized nature of our culture, rather than foster a society which esteems women as men’s equals. Undressing for the public eye only serves to label women as objects of sex—the very label that we seek to be liberated from. Clearly, Kardashian and Ratajkowski methods for women's “liberation” are counterproductive.
The overuse of Photoshop and the over-sexualization of women in the media are just two societal flaws which cause our culture to take steps backward in the area of women’s empowerment. The focus must be taken off women’s bodies and placed onto their countless other beautiful attributes in order to make any progress.
