"Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something. Anything."

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

Hello Readers, this entry is dedicated to ACTIVISM in light of all of the recent global and local activity devoted to making the world a better place.

First of all, this may be coming a little late, but – my prayers go out to Japan. It’s exactly one month after the deadliest quake in modern history, and through all of this, I would have to say that I am deeply in awe. Amidst all the death and destruction, the people of Japan, as far as I have seen, have been nothing but poised and supportive of one another. I’ve also heard and seen many inspirational stories from friends and on the news in the past month that have demonstrated strength like no other. Even though the hardships are not yet over, Japan, the world will hold you up. The global relief effort is amazing. I know that a few weeks ago at my university, they held a nice bake sale that raised over 360 Euros in one afternoon for disaster relief in Japan. For the small little community that we have, that is a lot of money and that is a lot of heart. Good Job Guys!

On another note, as many of you know, I was doing a study for my gender studies course on the connection between body image and altering one’s own physical appearance. It was a part of the Activism Day activities for one of my classes. I think many of you will find the results pretty interesting. I will outline the study in the following passage.

The Study

I handed out my survey to 24 people, who consisted of 12 females and 12 males in between the ages of 19 and 27. The participants were predominantly white Americans, with roughly 50 percent of the participants being from other ethnicities, including Italian, Nigerian, African American, Filipino, Korean, Indian, and Jewish. The purpose of the survey was to make people aware of their views on the role of physical appearance in their own society and to gage how acceptable they felt it was to alter physical appearance by any means.

The survey I gave to participants had two parts. In the first two questions, the participants had to rate (from 1-10 – 10 being very important, 1 being not important at all) how important it was for men and women to be physically attractive in our society. The next six questions were open ended and asked participants:

- in what ways they think they are discriminated against for their physical appearance,

- the body part they are most self-conscious about,

- the physical feature they believe is the most important to the opposite sex,

- what measures they believe one should go to “fix” their physical appearance (here I gave suggestions such as Flattering Clothes, Makeup, Stereroids, and Plastic Surgery)

- in what cases do they think it is OK for someone to have cosmetic surgery, and

- do they believe cosmetic surgery helps in improving one’s body image?

I received a wide array of answers, and at first, the data was rather hard to sort through. In the end, I ended up separating the information based on gender rather than ethnicity or age, since there seemed to have been more of a pattern present, and more commonalities between the responses given.

For the first two questions, what I found was that the male participants on average, gave a 6.9 average of importance to men in society and a 7.8 to women in their society. The female participants gave a 6.5 average to men in their society and gave women an 8.3. From this, we can see that both genders came to very close averages and both came to the consensus that it is actually more important for a woman to be physically attractive.

The open-ended questions gave a little more room for the participant to speak about their experiences of discrimination, insecurities, and thoughts on altering their physical appearance. First I will speak about the male participants’ answers, and later about the responses of the female participants.

The male participants believed that they were discriminated against for their physical appearance for factors such as height, looking ethnically different, and being too thin. They mentioned being the target of negative stereotypes that misrepresented them and made people less interested in speaking to them (being seen as a “gangster”, “jock”, “douche”, or “fratty”)

In the order of frequency they appeared in their answers, the male participants felt most self-conscious about their face, arm size, chest, abs, love handles, hair, skin color, with teeth and ears coming in last. When it came to the opposite sex, they felt that women looked mostly at height, face, eyes, muscles, physical fitness, big arms, abs, genital size, and bottom.

They felt that the farthest one should go to “fix” their appearance should be clothes and/or makeup. Two participants said they prefer people to be as natural as possible, while three participants said surgery would be acceptable if that is what they really wanted. Most of the male participants, besides those who found surgery to be acceptable in general, added in the next question that they felt it was only okay for someone to have plastic surgery in the cases of accidents, medical reasons, or birth disorders. When asked if they thought that cosmetic surgery improved ones body image, the participants were divided almost evenly, with most responding yes to the question.

(Male Response: "Flaunt what you've got, but don't get fake shit to flaunt.")

The ways the female participants felt they were discriminated against for their physical appearance differed a bit from the male participants, although I should note that there were many similarities. The females also felt they were discriminated against for looking too exotic or foreign, not having pretty hair, being too short, and for being too thin/fat. They also felt they were the subject of stereotypes (“girly-girl”, “bimbo”, “bitch”) that made people treat them differently than they felt they deserved.

The female participants were most self-conscious about their hair, thighs, shoulders/arms, skin color, legs, hips, and feet. Some participants mentioned being self conscious about almost every part of their body. When it came to naming the body parts they felt were most important to the opposite sex, most thought the face was the most important physical aspect. However, they also named breasts, legs, then features like eyes and bottom, but many emphasized the importance of having “the whole package” and not just one great feature.

Almost all of the participants said that clothes, makeup, even weight gain/loss were acceptable measures to “fix” their appearance. Two participants accepted surgery as a way to help someone become more confident. When asked if it was okay for someone to have cosmetic surgery, all but one participant said that it was ONLY acceptable for medical reasons. However, in the end, all but 3 participants said that plastic surgery does help in improving one’s body image.

(Female Response: "The nicer I look, the nicer people treat me.")

This study has given us insight into the issue of body image, and our society’s fixation with reaching and worshipping perfection. We are taught to love the beautiful, yet many of us disdain many “extreme” measures to reach physical perfection.

In this study there was a large contradiction in people’s attitudes towards plastic surgery for non-medical reasons and whether we believe plastic surgery helps in improving one’s body image. Most of the participants were against non-medical plastic surgery, however, they believed it helped in making a person more confident and recognized that people have great results when cosmetic surgery is “done right.” It seemed that there was a tendency and emphasis on speaking highly of personality, inner beauty, and confidence that comes from being “who you really are” even if the study was specifically on physical appearance. Most of the participants mentioned that inner beauty was more important than physical beauty, yet many of the same people also accepted surgery as a way to be most confident with yourself, by also saying that it would help in improving body image.

First of all, is feeling inadequate physically speaking, just a part of someone’s mindset or is it a real societal standard that you either have reached or haven’t reached? Secondly, how can changing someone physically change their body image – and how can it change their identity? Should people think of going under the knife if inner beauty and confidence (which the participants deemed more important) can be cultivated through soul searching, therapy, or by other means?

From the ratings in the first two questions, we can agree that people generally hold physical attractiveness in high esteem, especially for women. What we look like is a large part of our lives and our identities. It is no wonder why we obsess about our physical appearance and strive to change it to put our best foot forward. The question is, how far should we go? How far do you think is acceptable to alter your image, and in reality, do you support your belief with your ideals of inner and outer beauty?

I think that my study (which I mainly carried out during Activism Day on campus) can really affect those who have taken the survey as well as those reading the results. In the very least, it allows people to really think about the subject, and their own views surrounding it. It is a start. Calling attention to a certain issue in the world that you are dissatisfied with is a form of activism. I think it is important to talk about these particular issues in the public sphere - and to not only to talk about it or think about it, but to look at the situation critically, to have a goal, a plan, a belief, and to implement it. Walk your talk! Activism can change lives – you never know whose decisions you could be affecting by just standing up for your own beliefs.