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Old 08-25-16, 09:09 AM  
hch
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Join Date: Mar 2002
TED Talk: Meaghan Ramsey, "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you"

This is from October 2014, but I didn't find it until recently.

Video:
https://www.ted.com/talks/meaghan_ra...ou?language=en

Subtitles and Transcript:
https://www.ted.com/talks/meaghan_ra...pt?language=en

Ramsey mentions some statistics: a majority of girls choose not to do things "because they don't think they look good enough," and 17% of women wouldn't go to a job interview "when they weren't feeling confident about the way that they look."

"If you actually want to make a difference, you have to do something. And we've learned there are three key ways: The first is we have to educate for body confidence."

"An education is critical, but tackling this problem is going to require each and everyone of us to step up and be better role models for the women and girls in our own lives. Challenging the status quo of how women are seen and talked about in our own circles."

I'm not sure of what the third is, but this is my best guess:

"Ultimately, we need to work together as communities, as governments and as businesses to really change this culture of ours so that our kids grow up valuing their whole selves, valuing individuality, diversity, inclusion."
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"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

The Velveteen Rabbit
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Old 08-26-16, 06:09 PM  
Chomper
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
This is such a great talk, thank you for posting it.

My initial thought is imagine what a huge change we could make by just not making appearance judgments (good or bad) and comments in our families and in front of our kids and younger relatives. Instead of "you're so pretty," we could say "you look happy today." Which might spark an interesting conversation.

I have members of my extended family who made critical (and positive) comments about other people, even strangers. Practically everyone I know does it. (I cherish the few who don't.) They modeled that it was ok to do that for a younger generation.
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Old 10-04-16, 02:44 AM  
hch
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chomper View Post
This is such a great talk, thank you for posting it.

My initial thought is imagine what a huge change we could make by just not making appearance judgments (good or bad) and comments in our families and in front of our kids and younger relatives. Instead of "you're so pretty," we could say "you look happy today." Which might spark an interesting conversation.

I have members of my extended family who made critical (and positive) comments about other people, even strangers. Practically everyone I know does it. (I cherish the few who don't.) They modeled that it was ok to do that for a younger generation.
You're welcome.

Your words here remind me of a number of things. For example, I saw an image on another site. On the left side, words like "small" and "delicate" are crossed out; on the right are words like "smart," "funny," and "kind."

I've also heard advice to avoid speaking of our own body dissatisfactions in the presence of our children to avoid giving them the wrong ideas. I wonder: if these body dissatisfactions are bad for children, how good could they possibly be for us?

What reminded me of this thread just now is a BBC news story from today. It reflects the TED talk:

Pressure to look perfect hits girls' confidence, say Guides [i.e., Girl Guides, an organization similar to Girl Scouts in the United States]

Quote:
Girls in the UK are markedly less confident about their looks than they were five years ago, research by Girlguiding suggests.

[...]

And these feelings were far more prevalent among the more than 1,000 11- to 21-year-olds who took part:
■80% felt their looks were the most important thing about them
■66% felt they were not pretty enough
■93% agreed women were judged more on appearance than ability
■47% believed their looks held them back most of the time
■61% felt the need to be perfect

Girls told the researchers lack of body confidence not only stopped them wearing certain clothes and having their pictures taken - but also prevented them exercising, speaking up in class and socialising.
(Yes, exercising.)

The article links to the the survey site, which in turns links to the page about body confidence. That page begins with a quotation:

Quote:
The way you look is seen to be much more important than worrying about any other problems. - Girl aged 11 to 16, Girls’ Attitudes Survey
Also:

Quote:
54% of girls aged 7 to 10 said ‘stop judging girls and women on what they look like’ was one of their top three priorities for change.
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"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

The Velveteen Rabbit
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Old 10-04-16, 09:15 AM  
gjv
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Sorry, I changed my mind about what I posted! Too personal, what was I thinking!
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