CrossPosted on BlogHer
I admit it- I like to scan People.com a few times a week. It requires no thought, and I like looking at the pictures of the latest styles- styles I will not have the good fortune to wear, but I like to look at them anyway.
Last week I saw this article on Eva Longoria’s new look. Evidently she has gained some weight and has cut her hair to play her character on Desperate Housewives. I haven’t watched DH in a few years, and it sounds like her character, Gabby, has kids now.
Longoria’s rep made this comment to People on her client’s new look, “She’s making herself look like that as her character has let herself go. Gabrielle has gained weight and cut her hair,” Liza Anderson tells PEOPLE of Longoria Parker’s character. “She’s a worn out mother with two kids.”
Anderson continues on Longoria’s weight gain, “And even that was not enough. She’s also wearing butt pads and a stomach pad to play the part.”
Is this what TV and networks think of mothers now? That we let ourselves go, and the only way to accurately portray this, is to have a petite actress who is now playing a mom, don butt pads and a stomach pad to look like a tired, worn out, mother who has let herself go?
I don’t argue that a lot of mothers are tired and worn out- show me a mother who isn’t and I will say she is probably in the minority. But the assumption that a mother may have put on weight, because she has automatically has let herself go is insulting, and degrading. Maybe the mother just doesn’t have time to work out like she used to. Maybe it is taking longer for her to lose baby weight- there could be plenty of reasons why a mother has gained weight.
I also take exception to the whole “letting yourself go” concept. Women are held to such a high standard, and are under such a microscope at times when they become mothers. If they don’t look adorable, cute, and look like they have gained enough weight during pregnancy, then they are looked down on because certainly they are not eating for two and risking their baby’s health. Yet, women that don’t immediately shed their baby weight in less than a month, are viewed as “letting themselves go.” God forbid if a mother decides to simplify her life a bit and get her hair cut short too!
Most mothers I know, would love to go to the gym and work out. Reality is they can’t- they are taking care of their children and are working. Most mothers do have a period where they have to adjust to being a mother, and figure out how to balance it all again in time.
But in the meantime why the double standard? Why single out mothers like this? No one says a fit-in shape, and stylish mother is a bad mother, because if she has time to work out, then she isn’t taking care of her kids. Why do we have to assume that a mother who has less than a perfect body “let herself go?”
What do you think- is this fair to put women into this category, or is this just a situation a lot of women are in that Desperate Houswives is trying to portray?