Exploring all things related to women, our bodies & the numerous forms of modern day torture we inflict upon ourselves in the name of perfection.. and all the reasons why we shouldn’t! Randomness ahead.. buckle up.
Why do I write? Read below. What do I write about? Click the “All Posts” link above!
*Update* 11/30/2015 – Everything going on in the last month here!
*Update* 10/23/2015 – We finally have a Facebook page! Click here to come Like us!
*Update* 10/6/2015 – Sorry for the long term MIA.. Here’s an update on why I have been gone so long! The Return of Stupid Stuff
*Rescue Truths: 1/19/2015* Those who know me personally know that I have a soft spot for rescue dogs. For the last decade, a large part of my life has been devoted to rescuing stray and abandoned dogs. I have decided to step it up a notch and start laying the ground work for a full time/full care rescue facility. To learn more or help support this goal, please visit the Rescue Truths page. http://womentruths.com/rescue-truths
Throughout the course of this blog, I will be confessing my darkest secrets, telling on my most embarrassing flaws and trying numerous ‘modern day miracles’ meant to solve all of womens woes, and reporting on the outcomes. Basically… I will just be silly and brutally honest at all turns with whatever gets thrown my way. Why? Read on…..
In recent conversations with some female friends, it has occurred to me that we are far too hard on ourselves. Of course, I am not telling you anything you don’t already know. Of course we are too hard on ourselves! What choice do we have though? Just because we might choose to go a little easier on ourselves doesn’t mean the world will go easier on us. There are standards that must be met! Perfections that must be achieved! Yeah… F all that.
Here’s my 5th grade education intro… “As we get older, our bodies change…” no shit sherlock. What they forget to tell you in 5th grade is that after that whole “becoming a woman” thing, the next stage is “attempting to stay a woman by world standards, less you want to become a troll.”
So goes our never ending battle with razors, waxes, creams, lotions, pills, curlers, sprays, concealers, electric torture devices manufactured by the little elves in hell, bad lighting and the never forgiving mirror. We are surrounded by unrealistic expectations that we must strive to achieve if we want to be beautiful. Thankfully, the last several years have seen a great shift in the social mindset, and the standard of beauty has been challenged. As empowered women, we triumphantly stand together arm in arm and scream to the top of our lungs “We are all beautiful! Every shape and every size!”
But that is a lie. It must be, because the next morning we still wake up and look in the mirror, find every flaw we ever hated about ourselves as well as three more new ones to add to the list. We spend endless hours watching youtube videos on how to achieve perfect __(enter most hated body part here)____ or how to look like __(enter celebrity here)__. We squeeze ourselves into little bits of elastic that I really believe started their life in a BDSM shop, but have found their way to mainstream, where they will enlarge, miniaturize, lengthen, shorten, firm or lift some part of our body so that, while fully dressed, we can look at ourselves in the mirror and feel brave enough to leave the house with our head held high.
Now, single ladies I feel for you, I really really do. I know that your lot in life is not an easy one in the circus that is the dating world. There’s a lot to compete with out there, and most of it is fake, so the only way to compete fairly in this day and age.. is to cheat. Bring on the spanx, the hair extensions, the sunless tanning and the fake eyelashes!
That being said though, the struggle of the married woman should not be counted out. Single women often live with the idea that married women have it easier. “You already got your man! He already knows what you look like naked and he is STILL with you!” and that is a fair argument.. to an extent. Single women think that single men have no idea what a real woman looks like and think all women should look like porn stars, so they are ashamed of their real bodies. Married women have the same issue. Yes, we have been with a man for years that knows (almost) our every flaw. Does that then mean that he knows what real women look like, or that he just knows what WE look like and must be thinking to himself “Good Lord, whats wrong with my womans body? She doesn’t look like the girls on T.V.!!” That is the constant struggle of the married woman. The sad truth is.. men are a lot less aware of every detail of our bodies than we think they are. My husband of almost 12 years still doesn’t even notice if I have changed my hair color dramatically, and it takes him 3 hours to finally say “Is something different about you?”. This man has no idea what I am talking about when I ask “Have you seen my purse?” and he says “Which one?” and I say “The same one I have carried every single day for the last 3 years..” and he says “I don’t know what it looks like.”…… oddly enough, this same man will notice instantly if I have purchased and am wearing a piece of lingerie he has never seen me in before. Go figure.
The point is… we are far more aware and critical of ourselves and each other than 95% of the male population is. We think men have unrealistic expectations that we should have to live up to. Then we hypocritically look at ourselves in the mirror and judge ourselves for not being good enough. We are setting for ourselves the same unrealistic standards that we curse men for putting upon us. We know there are a million other women fighting with the same body struggles as ourselves, but in the moments, in the bathroom, in the shower, in front of the mirror… we feel alone. We have become so conditioned to achieve perfection, that we can’t bring ourselves to confront our flaws half the time, much less confide to another woman about them. Why? because what if she doesn’t share in that particular bodily struggle? What will she think of you? Who might she tell? And of course.. we fear being judged. This is the thing I hate most about my female friendships. My male friends have no problem complaining about needing to reposition their wallet because they’ve got this giant pimple on their ass that is just hurting like a bitch and they cant reach it to pop it! When is the last time you heard one of your girlfriends tell you about that little secret? To every woman who has ever had a pimple on her ass and felt horrific traumatizing shame for it, let me say.. you are not alone! No, not every woman has this perfect firm smooth flawless ass like on a magazine cover. In fact, I have never once in real life seen an ass like that on a woman over the age of 25. (Beware all you youngins, your time is coming! 😛 )
We need to start being more honest. With ourselves and each other. I can think of three instances this week alone where I looked at a part of my body and thought “Holy shit, when did THAT start happening?” and really started to feel down on myself. I had those “Not good enough, wish I could be airbrushed in real life, I wonder if other women have this problem?” train of thought start running wild in my head. A quick search on google (like we all do every time our bodies go stupid on us somehow) answered that question for me. No, I am not alone. Lots of other women have this problem.. but I don’t know these women. Though I see their words on the pages of my web browser, and I know they are real people (most of the time), they are not real to ME. There is a world of difference in knowing a stranger half way across the country shares your dilemma, and knowing that your best friend half way across town does. And yet.. does my best friend share this dilemma? I don’t know. because we have never talked about it. Over a decade of friendship, and yet we have never talked about ANYTHING like that. And there ladies, is the problem.
We need to open the gates of communication and let down the walls of shame. We need to KNOW that we are normal. No matter how many companies try to air campaigns on TV telling us that we are all beautiful, there are still little hidden limitations in those ads. We praise them publicly for what they did in breaking away from the media cookie cutter image, but honestly, did that ad make you feel any better about you? Really? If you answered yes, then you are a better and more secure person than I, and kudos to you for that. For the rest of us though, that ad didn’t mean shit. You know what would make me feel better? Drinking a cup of coffee and almost spitting half of it out when one of my girlfriends admits to something horribly embarrassing about her body because I am all to excited to scream “Me too! I have that too!” and share in that moment of female bonding at it’s finest. I hope that in sharing this with all of you, we will have some fun and a few laughs, but most importantly, I hope to encourage and inspire you to talk to your girlfriends about your darkest secrets and be able to discover a new confidence in knowing you really are NOT alone. It’s time we stop being made to feel like we are. And hey.. maybe we will discover that a few of these random ‘gizmos’ and ‘miracles’ I’m gonna try might actually work! 😛 Feel free to make requests!
womentruthsdotcom.wordpress.com 
It is a great blog!! So much truth!
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too much emphasis on physical shit 😛 (love, sissy)
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