Last week I heard about a new book titled UNCOVERED: Baring It All by Jordon Matter. It is a breathtaking collection of photographs featuring ordinary women of varying shapes and sizes baring their breasts in different NYC settings, such as parks, street corners and parades. Those portrayed then wrote essays about this vulnerable experience of publicly embracing their feminine form. The inspiration for the project came, in part, the author/photographer explained, from his daily photo shoots with high paid NYC models who, in theory, have the ideal figure, but, surprisingly still loathe their own bodies. He observed that regardless of how skinny, how photographed, or how sought after they are, these “model” women are still not content with how they look.

This made me wonder, if these size zero, sickly thin twigs aren’t happy about how they look and this is the western iconic image that is being shoved down every woman’s throat, minute by minute, day in and day out, how are any other women supposed to be satiated with their appearance? Is “being a slave to fashion” a very literal problem in the United States and are we even aware of it?

Hopeful to learn more about the transformational experience of the female participants who bore all, I headed to the network media website promoting the book. Once there, I found a haunting milieu of headlines, “Overweight? 5 reasons it’s your fault” “Kids as young as 3 can have chronic depression, Antidepressant use doubles in the U.S.” “How to get a better butt” “Women turning to hormones to look younger” “Skinny jeans leaving women numb” and “Teens and plastic surgery.” Seriously?

If this is truly the primary focus of American women (and I have to believe it is because network media is producing what sells) and we have been free to make our own choices for almost a century, are we really conscious of what we are choosing? What messages are we absorbing that create a constant obsession with our external appearance seemingly to the detriment of developing a strong, healthy inside core. And, furthermore, what messages are we truly sending our daughters if antidepressant use has doubled in the US and teens are turning to plastic surgery at alarming rates? It appears that since 1920, skinny jeans have merely replaced corsets and we have traded diets for voting rights as the latest shackles that hold women back.
While I applaud Mr. Matter for his effort to lift women out of this new bondage that we have converted from old patterns and beliefs, it is going to take much more interior effort on the part of women themselves to shift from this exterior obsession slavery to accessing the authentic beauty and freedom found only on the inside.