En una sociedad marcada por modelos de belleza "irreales" aparecen trabajos tan interesantes como los de Taryn Brumfitt, una mujer marcada por los standar de belleza, que ha luchado durante mucho tiempo por ser ese "modelo" de mujer" de revista; y que ahora trabaja en aceptarse con un cuerpo real y comparte su experiencia.
Baje de peso, reducir las arrugas, combatir la celulitis; estamos constantemente librando una batalla para ser alguien que no es lo que realmente somos.
Photoshopping excesiva, la sexualización de las mujeres en los medios de comunicación y campañas publicitarias que se aprovechan de las inseguridades de las mujeres - no es de extrañar que hay una cultura de odio y vergüenza del cuerpo de proporciones epidémicas en el mundo.
Las mujeres siempre se les dice que deben cambiar o ser diferentes - perder peso, combatir el envejecimiento, suavizar la piel, eliminar la celulitis.
Y si empezamos a trabajar la aceptación de nuestro cuerpo real, el que vemos en el espejo, en nuestras amigas, hermanas, familiares, las mujeres del día a día, de la calle, del metro, del mercado.
Una invitación a empezar a ver y sentir el cuerpo propio, nuestro, único, diferente. Un trabajo amoroso y respetuoso desde la aceptación con una mirada amorosa y "compasiva" de nosotras mismas.
Wobbly," "imperfect," "stumpy," "short," "frumpy," "disgusting."
Those are some of the responses Taryn Brumfitt received when she asked 100 women to describe their bodies in one word.
For that reason, Brumfitt is on a mission to convince every woman to love her body as it is, to stop buying into corporate messages about beauty, and to change the vocabulary listed above for good. She plans to do so by creating a documentary called "EMBRACE," that will explore why body loathing is so commonplace and what we can do to change that reality.
Brumfitt, a photographer and mom of three from Adelaide, AU, once hated her body. In the video for her KickStarter campaign, she talks about how she would stare in the mirror and tell herself how fat, ugly, and disgusting she was. In early 2013, she was considering a boob job and a tummy tuck when she had an epiphany, which she later wrote about on her website, BodyImageMovement.com. Brumfitt thought to herself:
How am I ever going to teach Mikaela to love her body as it is if her Mummy can’t do the same? How am I ever going to encourage her to accept and love the parts of her body that she doesn’t like without being a walking contradiction?
In that moment, Brumfitt decided not to go through with surgery, and instead, she would learn to love what she saw in the mirror without changing a thing.
In a HuffPost blog post, Brumfitt admitted that the journey from body hater to body lover was not easy. "It's taken a lot of effort, time and energy but I can tell you there is nothing better than a.) loving your body wholeheartedly, lumps and bumps and all and b.) telling society where they can shove their ideals of beauty," she wrote.
In May 2013, Brumfitt posted a "before and after" photo on Facebook that received more than 3 million "likes" -- but this side-by-side wasn't showing off a flat stomach post-weight loss. The "before" shot was from when she was in a body building contest, and the "after" was post birth. In the video, Brumfitt explains why she thinks the photo got so much attention. "Because heaven forbid a woman can love her body, after," she said.
Since that image went viral, she has dedicated her time to speaking and writing about body love through her project, Body Image Movement. Now, she's focusing her efforts on creating the documentary, and has turned to KickStarter to help fund its production.
If she can raise the $200,000 it will take for "EMBRACE" to come to life, Brumfitt is confident the film will help shift the way women perceive their bodies. On the fundraising page she breaks down what will be covered in the film from unethical marketing tricks to sexualization of women in the media.
In an email to HuffPost, Brumfitt posed an important question:
Women are always being told to change or be different -- lose weight, fight aging, smooth your skin, get rid of cellulite, I mean really, women are such amazing and dynamic creatures can we please change the conversation from this bullsh*t to something with a little more substance?