(image via here. Trying to track down the source.)

And the girls, like this:

My Facebook friends were watching the Annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

I’ve only seen a snippet of it, but the part I saw included an interview with one of the “angels” (what they call the lingerie models.) She spoke about dreams and following them and how any girl can be whatever she wants to be if she just believes, etc. and generally, this seemed to be a large part of the feel of the show. Building self-confidence. Empowering women. And while it may empower the models in some ways, we can’t help but notice that it does quite the opposite to most of the female viewers. Again, you need only look at the Facebook statuses. Most girls and women I know who see a Victoria’s Secret model think not, oh that’s so empowering, I feel better about myself, but instead, oh wow, I’m so ugly. She’s so hot. How can I ever look like her?

..Often the answers involve some sort of reason for why the models aren’t really that great so that we can feel better about ourselves.. 

Some will answer the problem with the classic “every girl is beautiful” concept. Dove does this in many of their ads by taking “regular women” (makeup-less, different shapes and sizes) and having them model in underwear. But while many of us may feel comparatively better about ourselves because of this type of campaign, it doesn’t seem to be enough. We want to know why we’re beautiful. And we want to know we are beautiful even while standing next to a Victoria’s Secret model.

I am going to suggest that the answer to this problem lies in our recognition of the fact that we are sacred. There was a time when this was commonly accepted. There was a time when a man would kneel down and kiss every woman’s hand because she was a woman. But by the fault of both men and women we have created a culture in which women are either treated as men or as sex objects. Rarely something in between, and too often they are treated as both. Many women don’t like the idea of being labeled because of their womanhood. But the truth is, this labeling is the only way our daughters and sisters and mothers and friends—ourselves—will ever truly feel beautiful. We need to bring back the age-old concept of the woman as sacred. In Part Two, I will address how we go about doing this.” -Elizabeth Hannah (You can read part Two here.)