Yesterday I was driving home and listening to, what else, WBUR...specifically, the program Here & Now hosted by Robin Young. She was interviewing Joey Mazzarino, a writer for Sesame Street and who recently wrote a song for one of the characters called, "I Love My Hair." The character? An African-American girl muppet who sings forth with gusto about what she loves about her curly, kinky, free-flying hair. The inspiration for his song: his adopted Ethiopian daughter, age 5, who already was complaining about her hair to her parents. So, being a good dad, Joey decided to do something about it. Not surprisingly, women and girls across the country have been telling each other about this song and sharing it, and emailing this writer about how the song has moved them to tears. Why? From what I can gather, it's because African-American women and girls have long struggled with their hair and what it's not (long and blond, for example), and their self-esteem has suffered as they wage a lifelong love-hate war with their tresses. Now, a simple song on a children's show comes along, with the simple message that their hair, and therefore they, are beautiful.
It struck me as I was listening to the interview that women and girls of any and all backgrounds have a similar love-hate (or maybe it's hate-love) relationship with their bodies, and that we can probably do better finding ways to promote positive feelings about the female form. Maybe it's a song, maybe it's real life stories from girls and women about what they DO like about their bodies or a way in which their body has empowered them, and maybe it's photographs or other artwork that actually celebrates REAL women's bodies (rather than just those of super-models).
What do you think? Do you have a story about you and your relationship to your body that you'd like to share? Send me your ideas.
No comments:
Post a Comment