Dove ads: Fine, but what about boys' self esteem?

Submitted by mens_issues on Sat, 2008-07-12 17:28

Dove has a series of TV ads intended to improve the self esteem of girls and women.

While they may have a point about unrealistic body image expectations for girls and women, they seem to imply that boys and men have no such similar issues.

Does that seem right to you?

What about the unrealistic and often unattainable body image expectations for boys and men? The image of being muscular (as in men's bodybuilder magazines) or handsome (as in magazines like GQ). The pressure to turn to illegal and dangerous methods of attaining a muscular body (i.e. steroids). Or the complete opposite of this (i.e. what not to look like) as shown all too often in commercials and sitcoms portraying men as obese slobs, or otherwise unattractive.

Think about it.

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

I used to see those commercials and I thought to myself "guys go through that too." I know because I did. In fact, I still have issues with how my body looks, but nothing like how I used to. I used to suffer from a very poor self-image and body image. It's too bad that no company will try to make boys feel better, and point out that most images of men in the media are extremely unrealistic, probably even more unrealistic than images of women. Then again, I suppose that us men are expected to keep that kind of thing bottled up, b/c that's weakness in society's eyes. On the other hand, in a society that's ridiculously backwards anyway, why should we care what they think? And therein lies the first step to curing poor self-esteem.

Evan AKA X-TRNL
Real Men Don't Take Abuse!

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by xtrnl on Tue, 2008-07-15 03:18