Dear Barbie, Cover Girl, and various other role models,
Thank you for every truth you whispered in my ear when others have only offered me placating lies to soothe my feelings. You were always kind enough to destroy my delusions and reveal to me the truth about myself. When you sat on my shelf when I was a child, beside Ken, with your silken, blonde locks and feminine curves, you played your role and you taught me mine, told me that my black hair and dark skin were as ugly and boring as the person underneath. When I was older, and I saw you appear on magazine covers along with such lines as: "9 easy ways to firm thighs" and "Say goodbye to unwanted fat," I learned that breakfast was an unnecessary meal, and that no one notices at school when you don't eat lunch either. Ribs like ripples on water, show in graceful lines across my rib cage, but I can still pinch the skin on my arms.
I've seen you appear in movies, posing on the walls of bus-stop shelter, and in all the Disney Classics: spreading the word to the masses with shinning teeth and musical words, while you hang on the arm of your daring and chivalrous hero. Every time I see your glowing face, you remind me to be pretty and pleasant in all that I do, and to further endeavour to assume the standard you have set for all young girls to meet. I watch her watching me with critical, half-lidded eyes; her lustreless black hair is a curtain shielding her face from prying eyes. Her self-consciousness bleeds through in the way she drags manicured fingernails over shirt hems and watches me out of the corner of her eyes when I turn away. You've told me she's chunky, lacking in girlish curves, and that her poise is as graceful as that of a day-old giraffe. She's homely, that girl in the mirror. Yet every day, I serve my long hour in front of the mirror, attempting to mimic those silken locks of yours and that colour that adorns your eyes and lips. I will know I have succeeded each day when at school, I appear like every other teenage girl in tight jeans and make-up. They all look so confident, and yet only one that wears their mask can feel the maggots crawling beneath the skin - eaten from the inside out - they too are beholden to you for your guidance. We dream longingly of possessing your bottleneck waist, flawless complexion, and artfully coiffed hair. You're responsible for the moulding of generations of smiling young girls into socially acceptable young women; may future generations only know better than ours.
Thank you for every truth you whispered in my ear when others have only offered me placating lies to soothe my feelings. You were always kind enough to destroy my delusions and reveal to me the truth about myself. When you sat on my shelf when I was a child, beside Ken, with your silken, blonde locks and feminine curves, you played your role and you taught me mine, told me that my black hair and dark skin were as ugly and boring as the person underneath. When I was older, and I saw you appear on magazine covers along with such lines as: "9 easy ways to firm thighs" and "Say goodbye to unwanted fat," I learned that breakfast was an unnecessary meal, and that no one notices at school when you don't eat lunch either. Ribs like ripples on water, show in graceful lines across my rib cage, but I can still pinch the skin on my arms.
I've seen you appear in movies, posing on the walls of bus-stop shelter, and in all the Disney Classics: spreading the word to the masses with shinning teeth and musical words, while you hang on the arm of your daring and chivalrous hero. Every time I see your glowing face, you remind me to be pretty and pleasant in all that I do, and to further endeavour to assume the standard you have set for all young girls to meet. I watch her watching me with critical, half-lidded eyes; her lustreless black hair is a curtain shielding her face from prying eyes. Her self-consciousness bleeds through in the way she drags manicured fingernails over shirt hems and watches me out of the corner of her eyes when I turn away. You've told me she's chunky, lacking in girlish curves, and that her poise is as graceful as that of a day-old giraffe. She's homely, that girl in the mirror. Yet every day, I serve my long hour in front of the mirror, attempting to mimic those silken locks of yours and that colour that adorns your eyes and lips. I will know I have succeeded each day when at school, I appear like every other teenage girl in tight jeans and make-up. They all look so confident, and yet only one that wears their mask can feel the maggots crawling beneath the skin - eaten from the inside out - they too are beholden to you for your guidance. We dream longingly of possessing your bottleneck waist, flawless complexion, and artfully coiffed hair. You're responsible for the moulding of generations of smiling young girls into socially acceptable young women; may future generations only know better than ours.