July 14, 2015 - Written by: Olivia Lowry

Today is My Angry Day…

Today is an angry day. I went to bed angry. I had a brief window of not angry in the morning and then I saw the front cover of the Daily Mail. All the anger of the night before returned in full force.

What has made me so gosh darn angry? Am I hangry? Horngry? Rangry (road rage angry…so I’m told). Perhaps the frustrating impracticalities of having a broken hand have been bubbling up inside me, ready to boil over, without warning, at the nearest inconvenience.

Perhaps it’s the family’s new adorable pug puppy who seems to love all in this world except for the bottom of the sofa and my toes. Both have been decidedly mauled by a fat little sausage that looks like the bat from Disney’s Anastasia and falls asleep whilst eating.

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Instead my angry day stems from something much deeper and cannot be salved by paracetamol or extra-thick socks.

Let us rewind to why I went to bed angry.

I made the detrimental error of scrolling through Facebook pre-sleepy time. Oh the curse of the blue-light! But it was not the blue light that robbed me of sleep but a post that was aimed at being progressive and well-meaning and even celebratory of the female body. Alas:

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The arrows. The body comparison. The body shaming. The arrows. The arrows. . . The anger.

I see no celebration here. I see no reason to rejoice in this poster.

It undermines itself at every turn. To say f**k our society for promoting a thinner body as the only one to be ‘beach-body-ready’ by body shaming and comparing one woman’s body to another’s, to point, to stare, to objectify; when were those acts EVER good, progressive, or healthy?!

If we are concerned about the impact of the ‘beach-body-ready’ posters on the mental and physical health of young women, why would the counter-active solution of this be to incite the idea that they should point, stare and compare their bodies to each other?

Should we make them feel that any time they don a bathing suit or bikini that the world’s eyes, their peers eyes, strangers eyes will be marking them with arrows of comparison. Should we let them believe that anyone has the right to do that?

Fk Society indeed when your answer is your problem.**

So this anger I slept on, woke up. It woke-upon glancing on the front cover of the Daily Mail and its predominant picture, Amana Holden in a low cut dress. ‘AMANDA, FLAUNTUNG IT TO THE LAST, SEE PAGE 3.’

Doth mine eyes deceive? Has the fact that a WOMAN has BREASTS become news? Headline news? Is this really a NEW fact? Is it not, actually, been known for a while now? Like, since human’s developed self-awareness. Yet here we are. BREASTS are headline news.

The FACT that Amanda Holden seems to be comfortable with the fact that she has a pair, is acknowledging and owning it, is however, apparently disturbing. SHOCKING. SCANDAL. NEWS. It would appear women are allowed to have breasts as a fact but not a reality. Especially not in reality T.V. No, no, to do that means you are a ‘page.3’ girl.

In the ‘news-worthy’ reports of the low cut dress causing 190 complaints, it is Ms Holden who is slut-shamed. Her fellow presenter, woman and self-acknowledging breast owner, who also wore a low-cut dress is sometimes pictured but not so prolifically shamed. Why? Amanda Holden is 44, and the latter is 36.

It would appear that a woman over the age of 40 is DEFINITELY NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE BREASTS OR A SEXUAL IDENTITY. Perhaps 190 complaints is a lot but out of 12 million viewers…perhaps not. SO WHY IS THIS NEWS?! Why do we as a nation, in England, with our Queen –a woman and breast owner- have such an ISSUE with a woman’s body? Or rather, a woman acknowledging that she has one.

When the 2014 TIMES 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE listed Beyonce as no.1 and their magazines cover, outrage ensued. Not from misogynists but from some feminists. WHY they lamented, would she undermine her achievements by posing for the cover in underwear-type clothes. THIS.IS.NOT.FEMINISM. They cried. Bad Beyonce. Naughty. And to top it off with sexual lyrics in her songs too. BAD FEMINST BEYONCE.

So much for progression.

It would seem even some of the well-intended of us, still have a conflict between a woman acknowledging her business success, body and sexuality. We seem happy for her to have a child, but not acknowledge how that little bundle of ADORABLE JOY came into the world.