Super Women - International Women's Day 2016

In honour of International Women's Day 2016 I thought I would talk about five women that have inspired me, entertained me and who I think are just five amazing people. There are thousands, millions of women to choose from, but I tried to limit it to five women from the world of entertainment that have impacted on me personally.

Beyoncé

I have been a major fan of this woman since the first time I heard 'No No No (Part 2)'. She has been a trailblazer in the music industry for nearly 20 years, she has shown strength in the face of adversity and she goes out and gets what she wants. You think everything in her life was handed to her? No, how wrong you are. She is one of the most hardworking women in the industry; a legion of fans, a discography to rival your favourites, an IMDb page filled with great roles and hands in multiple other pots testify to that. She never shies away from controversy, but she never creates it for petty matters. It is time to get in formation behind this great women and to enjoy the show.  She has taught me to be myself, I don't need to bend to public opinion because whatever you do you will always have people that love you, and those are the only people that matter.

Victoria Beckham

As an original Spice Boy I feel I have the right to talk about my Queen Victoria. I was there from the beginning when she was still Victoria Adams and 'a real lady' ('Wannabe' reference). She has since made the jump from international pop star to fashion darling. It can be quite shallow to say but I really believe she has it all. This isn't said to diminish the work it took, but I look on her with her beautiful children, happy husband and ever growing empire and I can't help but turn green with jealousy. Back when my sexuality was a grey area she was my ultimate crush, she is classy, smart, funny and savvy. I would lay my coat over a puddle for my Queen V. She has always been an inspiration to me because when she made the career swap it could have failed, she worked hard - not to change people's opinions, she worked hard to achieve her dreams and it just so happened that people loved it.

Amy Poehler

Amy was well on her way to the top of her outstanding career way before she was on my radar. I was slightly late to the SNL party and she was on her way out when I fell in love. Then came 'Parks and Recreation', and I don't think it would be naive to say that it was one of the best television shows to grace our screens - a jewel in the new golden age of television's crown we are currently experiencing. Her book (Yes Please) is one of the best memoirs I have ever read and it is filled with great life advice and mantras we should all be saying to ourselves everyday. I still get excited about any project I see her name connected to and I can't see it ever changing - I am shaking with excitement for whatever she does next. There are so many things to learn from Amy but I think she says it best herself; 'There's power in looking silly and not caring that you do'.

Taylor Swift

When I first saw her music video for 'Tim McGraw' way back in 2006 I suddenly fell. There was this young 16 year old women, writing her own songs and spilling her emotions out to the world, I was intrigued from the get go. It was just when I first started getting in to country music, she was the perfect bridge in to the genre as it was easy listening with the country grace that I have come to love. She has since evolved into an international pop star, she made the leap from country to pop with huge success. In a selfish way I am gutted I will never get another country album from her ('Fearless' is still one of my favourite albums of all time) but I am so happy for her and what she has achieved. What I have learnt from her is that you should never give up, people will try and put you in a box but that is what they want, doesn't mean it has to be something you want. 

Lena Dunham

It seems like Lena is in pop culture news a lot lately, just today she has apparently took a stance and decided she never wants to be photoshopped again - she wants to see herself whilst looking at herself. And bravo to her. There is one quality I have always admired about Lena and it is her courage. I don't think it is unfair of me to say, or even that she would disagree, that she doesn't fit the mold of what a TV star normally is. She didn't break the mold, she just took a left and ignored it. People were shocked when she revealed herself on her hit HBO show 'Girls', some people found it weird because it was so rare to see a 'normal' woman in a state of undress, having sex and not just been the 'best friend' or the girl who takes her glasses off to reveal the hot girl she always was. She is unapologetically herself through and through. She sees a problem and she addresses it, I crave her confidence - I am guilty of seeing something and not saying anything. I want her career, I want her bravery, I want her talents and most of all I want to be comfortable just once not to edit my own photos. 

More Like Him

I may not be the manliest of men, I don’t fit the criteria that is often expected of a penis owner. However I do think I have one thing in common with a large part of the man race - insecurities. We all see every single day a new study, a magazine article, a news bulletin all about female beauty and how society is killing women because they can’t meet these standards - but we never/rarely hear about how society judges a male appearance in the same way. You have probably never seen an article about how we need to see more ‘real’ men on the covers of magazines or in movies, yet you can’t flick through a female magazine without seeing someone mention how real women aren’t represented in media. The latest Dove soap commercials all feature ‘real women’, magazines are celebrated when they put a ‘real woman’ on the cover and female TV stars are applauded when they come out and announce that they love their bodies the way they are.

It isn’t the same for men though. If a man puts on weight then the thought of the nation is that he has just given up on life. Almost every advertisement for a male product is fronted by the ‘ideal man’. He has washboard abs, a jaw that could cut glass and the perfect quaffed hair. Nothing is said about this. The only advertisements that feature slightly chubby men are adverts that are trying to be funny, like beer or pasty advertisements. Even an advert that advertises clothes for the ‘larger’ man feature a sports star who only fits the criteria because he is tall. Men that don’t meet the male beauty standard are always cast as the best friend or the man with unrequited love in film and TV, when they do eventually find love in these shows/films it is applauded because he beat the odds, not because the guy got the girl.

In recent years eating disorders amongst boys and men has sky rocketed, but not much is said about it - instead they will use it as shock statistic when they are doing a piece about eating disorders in a general way. I read somewhere that boys were killing themselves to look like the guys in ‘300’. It’s disturbing that this wasn’t talked about as much. I am not blaming the creators of ‘300’ for perpetrating this myth that men should look like this because in this story these warriors would look like this. It isn’t just that film that shows off men’s bodies this way that was purely just an example of something I found. Almost every leading man in a film or a TV show is a good looking man, a thin/buff man.

I am not going to get out my soap box and demand that all men should be represented, because no doubt someone will come along and push me off it with facts that argue mine. This is just something I have noticed. I don’t want overweight men to become a norm because that would just highlight an unhealthy lifestyle, what I do want is for it to become more freeing for men to get the help they need. When they see these men in media they need to know that it would have taken months of intense training to look this way and a very strict diet, it isn’t something that is achievable for all men. There are so many images out there of these men that all look great, like they never stepped out of a gym, we can’t all live in a gym - some of us would prefer to be at home and putting the dinner on.

This comes from a personal view because I spend too much time obsessing over men that I will never look like. It takes up much more time then it should, sometimes I even get thoughts that I will need to look a certain way to achieve certain things in life, like love or a career - and isn’t that just sad. I should be happy with what I was given but I am not. I see Zac Efron and Harry Styles (not blaming them for anything) and I want to look more like them. I want to be able wear a t shirt and not be pre-occupied with how my boobs will look in it. I want to be able to wear any clothes and feel comfortable enough to go outside in them, I think my family will agree that I dress a lot differently in the house then I do outside.

We are all celebrating the slow changes in media for representation of women, I would just like the same to happen for men. Abs do not equal beauty, the perfect tan does not equal beauty, the perfect hairline does not equal beauty. Men come in all shapes and sizes and as we age our shapes and sizes all change. I would like to see a wider range of healthy men to be represented in media, we need the pressure taken off us just like our female counterparts.

'Skinny guys are seen as weak. Bald guys are emasculated and impotent. And so it goes, men chase the unattainable standard of beauty portrayed in the media as well. We spend billions of dollars with the hope that we will be desirable and accepted by society, only to find out it’s never good enough.’ - V Pauni