http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/ Here’s another body image campaign called “The ‘Why’ Campaign” made possible by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs from Stockholm, Sweden. It’s another initiative against media and its effects on body image. In particular they target a younger age group, which emphasizes the urgency of conveyed norms and values in our society. The campaign’s goal is to have the general public question and be critical about mass media, and it tries to do so by allowing viewers to directly email the person in charge with that particular advertisement or media establishment. The concept works on several levels, but has areas of opportunity. It works because by voicing the public’s concerns to that particular person in charge it could possibly have some effects on the next decision he/she will need to make for future campaigns. However, at the same time ad agencies could use those comments against people like me, because it places everyone else in an extremist position with no grey areas to debate upon, or is there? Then of course there are campaigns such as Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/, which directly targets those who are in those extremists positions. It will take more than a realization to transform years of social conditioning into what we define as “real beauty”, and unfortunately standards do exist in our society as they do help maintain social order. Think about how hard it would be for us to get along if we all had different views of what beauty means? Are we then questioning the definition of beauty or the existence of that word?

Objectification Theory: the implicit and explicit sexual objectification of the female body in Western culture produces a multitude of negative consequences for women.

The primary psychological consequence of sexual objectification is the development of an unnatural perspective of the self known as self-objectification
- Women who “self-objectify” have internalized observer (surveyor) are anxious about how others will judge them and treat them.
- Increased body shame, appearance anxiety, disordered eating, diminished mental performance and capacity to achieve peak motiovational states
- Trying on a swimsuit for example shows signs of being on display when no actual observers were present

Calogero M, Rachel. A Test of Objectification Theory: The Effect of the Male Gaze on Apperance Concerns in College Women. London: William Clowes Ltd, 1972.

Download the full article here: http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/june_self_esteem.pdf

Other interesting facts/reads/theories: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/links.asp?topicID=7 http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_mediaeffect.shtml

Self-esteem (notes):
- causal direction is unclear, which means that they’re unsure if having low self-esteem causes youth to engage in problem behaviour or the other way around
–ex// Gang members have higher than normal self-esteem
- Ways to boost self-esteem
- Programs in 1960’s were designed to make youth feel good about themselves
- Don’t work on raising self-esteem for the purpose of reducing problem behaviour – this isn’t an effective strategy
- Telling someone to have more self-esteem won’t do it
- they will only feel better about themselves if they experience success in areas that they care about and are praised by people they respect
- Relationships with parents, friends social support groups
- Reducing disappointment

“Adolescent Self Esteem.” Research Facts and Findings os (2003): 1-4. 13 Oct. 2006 http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/june_self_esteem.pdf.

Perhaps we could use the idea of challenging the notion of being watched as the center of my research. The entire exercise of reading and researching is extremely useful in pinpointing the goal of this project. To begin I understand that I do want to make art that speaks about women, and the body image, but the challenge is to discover what I dislike particularly about it, what are its’ precursors and where I stand in the entire process. For example do I want to diminish the effects of the male gaze towards female physical insecurities, or do those events even correlate? Certainly the media has a lot to contribute to this subject as well, and I need and want to discover those things. What I am certain about are my concerns towards female insecurities, how it negatively impacts a woman’s way of life and her conditioned beliefs. By shifting the focus away from the vulnerable woman who looks away from the viewer we move into gestures and images of woman who are defiant of the gaze, she begins to question the idea of being looked at- submissive and passive. It becomes a two-way conversation rather than the viewer who is receiving what he wishes from the image of the woman. I am talking about women, self-esteem and how it has completely gotten out of hand. I do not ignore the fact that the reality is that women are seen as objects, commodity. I accept that as a fact because it is already too late to change what is woven so deep into our shameful, vain society. I want to be able to communicate something to the viewer that would show women empowerment, for them to be able to really think about how important these beliefs and standards of perfection are, and about conformity and to measure it instead of just accepting. By studying traditional methods of early Western European Paintings and applying them in a reverse matter by placing the woman in a pose that would render the viewer to react and question why and how are women standing up for themselves against these beliefs? Having said that it would be a bit more complicated to achieve those goals – because of the uses of very traditional art, and to be able to communicate that would be a little bit difficult. I choose painting as a medium because the viewer needs to make that connection between these images and the ideas behind the women portrayed in traditional paintings.