First Order of Business

I spent plenty of time debating how to get this project rolling, tossing about ideas but always reluctant to commit to one thing. Tonight, my answer appeared quite clearly on my Facebook news feed. What better issue to christen Body Paragraphs with than the sick and public marring of the mere principle of positive body image?

That's right.

Tonight (or rather early this morning) I logged on to Facebook for one last check before bed. That's when I noticed a disgusting, degrading, graphic image on my news feed. I stared in absolute confusion, realizing that this picture (and others similar to it) were coming up under the heading of a virtual event I was attending called "Tell Her She's Beautiful."

The event, entering it's second year, was inspired by a woman explaining to a friend how the media made her feel like she wasn't good enough and that she thought she wasn't beautiful. This friend started the Facebook event to encourage people to reach out to someone in their lives and remind them that they are beautiful. Nice premise, right? This event had noble goals, and I liked it's attitude. It's definitely the kind of thing that will take us in the right direction.

Why, then, were there disgusting, degrading pictures coming up on my news feed whenever a friend of mine agreed to attend the event?

You see, the event was "public" and the privacy settings allowed anyone and everyone to upload whatever they want to the page.

These images were awful.

Oral sex, nude pictures, even photos of the naked and battered bodies of murdered women. I felt sick and so overwhelmingly sad that this was even possible today. In 2011.

We haven't come such a long way from the subservient housewife days of the fifties if people do this to someone's valiant attempt to tell women the message most men get the minute they're born: Yes, you are good enough.

The pictures weren't the only scary part. The comments on the event's wall were awful, too.

One, from James, read:

"Kitchen or c** dumpster, these are the two roles of women that will make her beautiful. It isn't degrading or discriminative, it's just what females are born to do. I'm not a chauvinist, I'm just stressing the truth."

Another, from Bob, read:

"Want to hear a funny joke?

Women's rights."

Perhaps just as frightening is the fact that the event's description actually included a disclaimer that said:

"NOTICE: If someone is spamming the wall and being too disrespectful, don't provoke them. Just report them please! :)"

This kind of behavior was expected! It was anticipated! It was prepared for!

We of the Facebook generation have been so numbed to the disrespect that comes with every women's rights joke and pornographic image that we even stick a cute little " :) " on the end to make sure we don't sound too harsh.

This scares me. And it should scare you, too.

Because it has showed me through the sick and violent images that will flash though my head as I fall asleep tonight that we've got a lot of work to do. Yes, we've made strides in legislation-- we can vote, we have civil rights. But that doesn't change the way people think. That's what needs to change.

If I could just figure out how to go about doing that...

-E