Spring Break
Baring the feminine soul
Shannon King
Issue date: 3/4/09 Section: Opinion
There are some mornings where, no matter how hard I try, I cannot manage to zip up my pants. They just won't fit. Living in a world where the media controls and manipulates my every waking hour, I know that I am not alone in my struggle to survive such mornings. Last week, on one of those "my-pants-are-too-tight" days, I had the opportunity to explore the female image, in all its naked glory, in Frank Cordelle's photographic journey, The Century Project.
Gathered in this small exhibit are stories and photographs depicting real women in their real bodies. These images capture women at every stage of life, from a baby girl's emergence from the womb to a shot of a ninety-year-old woman dancing in the rain. Cordelle seems to consider no representation of the female body taboo, and chooses to include rape victims, cancer patients, transgendered individuals, menstruating women, women with physical scars or infections, obese women, and-perhaps most controversial of all-prepubescent girls.
In our North American society, we reject images of unclothed children, associating them almost exclusively with pedophilia. We avoid seeing the elderly naked, because we deem their bodies undesirable and too grotesque to look at.
The Century Project challenges these stigmatized thoughts by reminding us that all women are human, at every age and in every condition. This is what our bodies looked like when we were younger, earlier this morning, and sixty years from now. Why should we be afraid to look at these women who are so willing to bare themselves to us-unclothed, un-airbrushed, and unashamed? They give strength to the viewer by saying, "This is what I look like. If this is what you look like, too, then you're not alone. If this isn't what you look like, then that's okay, too. This is who I am."
These women reveal themselves at their strongest and at their weakest, reminding the observer that there are days when we feel like Amazon warriors, and days when we cannot get our jeans to fit. The battles women face (breast cancer, sexual assault, pregnancy, aging, accepting that we may never hit our "perfect weight") are all too familiar, both to us and to the women in our lives. By exposing these vulnerabilities and representing them as they are, Cordelle encourages us not to run from them or be afraid of them, but, rather, to embrace them-and, in so doing, to embrace ourselves.
Just like a pair of pants that is too small, our physical insecurities can be confining: inhibiting us, making us uncomfortable, and preventing us from being ourselves. If you wake up tomorrow and your jeans don't fit, either, then I hope you'll consider taking a page from Cordelle's book, and simply leave them behind.
Gathered in this small exhibit are stories and photographs depicting real women in their real bodies. These images capture women at every stage of life, from a baby girl's emergence from the womb to a shot of a ninety-year-old woman dancing in the rain. Cordelle seems to consider no representation of the female body taboo, and chooses to include rape victims, cancer patients, transgendered individuals, menstruating women, women with physical scars or infections, obese women, and-perhaps most controversial of all-prepubescent girls.
In our North American society, we reject images of unclothed children, associating them almost exclusively with pedophilia. We avoid seeing the elderly naked, because we deem their bodies undesirable and too grotesque to look at.
The Century Project challenges these stigmatized thoughts by reminding us that all women are human, at every age and in every condition. This is what our bodies looked like when we were younger, earlier this morning, and sixty years from now. Why should we be afraid to look at these women who are so willing to bare themselves to us-unclothed, un-airbrushed, and unashamed? They give strength to the viewer by saying, "This is what I look like. If this is what you look like, too, then you're not alone. If this isn't what you look like, then that's okay, too. This is who I am."
These women reveal themselves at their strongest and at their weakest, reminding the observer that there are days when we feel like Amazon warriors, and days when we cannot get our jeans to fit. The battles women face (breast cancer, sexual assault, pregnancy, aging, accepting that we may never hit our "perfect weight") are all too familiar, both to us and to the women in our lives. By exposing these vulnerabilities and representing them as they are, Cordelle encourages us not to run from them or be afraid of them, but, rather, to embrace them-and, in so doing, to embrace ourselves.
Just like a pair of pants that is too small, our physical insecurities can be confining: inhibiting us, making us uncomfortable, and preventing us from being ourselves. If you wake up tomorrow and your jeans don't fit, either, then I hope you'll consider taking a page from Cordelle's book, and simply leave them behind.
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