Open Post – Facebook, magazine covers and more

Lana - Mamamia Wednesday 22 February 2012 11:10am

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Today’s Open Post is really going to be a little journey into my mind – because there’s a lot on it today. So I’m going to jump right in and I urge you to do the same

The office

First a look at what’s been happening around the office

Whenever Mia has a column to write, she comes into the rest of the editorial offices to hang out and not write.

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Facebook

Our Facebook page is becoming quite the happening place. We have tons of give aways happening, impromptu chats with our publisher Mia Freedman and soon we will be announcing live chats with our other columnists.  It’s different from the conversations we have on the site as it’s immediate and direct. Actually quite a lot of fun. So how do you take part in all this wondrous activity that happens only on Facebook? It’s simple. You just like us here, keep an eye out on  and voila – next thing we’ll be chatting over a prize.

While we are talking all things social media don’t forget to like our Pinterest Boards here. You will get plenty of behind the scenes shots of life at Mamamia. But don’t worry there’s also plenty of actual interesting things as well.

The Magazine Covers

Every time I do my shopping I am bombarded by women, perfectly toned flawless women and while I don’t know them they all look very familiar. They don’t talk to me physically but Lord they say a lot – they are the women on the covers of the magazines.  Even without words they tell me how a woman is expected to look, they tell me that the woman who count, the women who are as the “ideal” look a certain way. She has a very small waist, long legs and no body fat. She also has no freckles and no pores and for some reason she is not very happy (you don’t see many smiling faces on magazine covers).

I see these women so often that I have started to ignore them, just like I manage to ignore the stain on the bedroom carpet. It bothers me when I see it, it irritates me that it is still there but I can walk into another room and forget that it exists. Simple.

But when that stain gets smaller, or starts to fade – I rejoice a little inside. And I rejoice a lot when I notice that there are changes on the covers of the magazine.

When I saw Robyn Lawley on the cover of Madison I literally beamed. Not because she’s Robyn Lawley or because she is “plus size” or for any other reason other than the fact that she looks different. She is not the same body that has been greeting me at the supermarket for as long as I have been old enough to pay for my own purchases. Yes she’s photoshopped and that makes her look a bet samesy but her body is still the same

Robyn Lawley on the cover of this month's Madison

And then I saw this – Tara Lynn on the cover of French Elle

Tara Lynn on the February cover of French Elle

And I thought she was simply gorgeous (albeit heavily airbrushed to have “plastic” skin). I would be happy to see her  at the supermarket. But why the label?

Why does she need to be known at “The Body”?  Every person has their own shape, their own look, their own expression. I don’t want to be told how THE body “should” look.  I just want to see lots of different bodies – lots of skin shades, body sizes and facial expressions – so I can differentiate one from the other. And so that I don’t have to deal with the pressure of having to “be” any of them.

As soon as we start seeing different bodies and colours and sizes and shapes on the pages of the magazines, on the billboards as we drive and on the ads that permeate all our public space we will start to feel less pressure to conform to that ideal. After all if there are so many images to choose from we can feel confident that there is no ideal body shape – that we are okay. Just the way we are.

And a gallery of some other magazine covers that give me hope. All the images on these covers have been photoshopped but all  the bodies are not the same.

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The Video

I can’t stop watching this video. Yes the crying gets to me. But oh the sleeping babies. Is there anything more peaceful than a sleeping baby?

What’s on your mind this week?