Because swimwear inclusivity is in 🙌.
And she even colored it herself.
Women don't give themselves permission to fall apart and we certainly don't want to be seen as not having our shit together. That's become taboo in a culture that, for women especially, demands the lie of seamlessness, of perfection, of freedom from blemishes and funky lighting and embarrassing angles.
She likes her freckles, counting them and eagerly searching for more with me at the end of one of those long summer days. When she does this, I can't help but think of all of the time and agony I could have saved if only I counted the freckles instead of trying to scrub them away.
It's important to teach kids about the reality behind the images that surround them. Empowering kids to see behind the photo spreads and the advertisements can help combat the negative effects of these images.
The notion that cosmetic surgery is a "simple beauty treatment" is a contradiction in terms, a paradox of sorts. Surgery is almost never simple, physically or psychologically, and the more we believe it's a solution to our beauty needs, the less beautiful we tend to feel.
I'm not going to say that social media was our demise (I myself enjoy Facebook too much to make such a brazen statement), but I do think that with the rise of these sites came the sudden commanding impulse to look awesome in photos. After all, we want our 500-plus friends to think we're beautiful.
