your pretty plastic skin, meant to look like porcelain, shines with the congealed grease of leftover dollars

So there has been a lot of talk about Dove's 'campaign for real beauty' and how laudable it is for taking a stand against portrayal of women in the media. I couldn't disagree more. I think that campaign is one of the worst things to happen to discussion of the female image in the past decade.

Portrayal of physical attributes (of both sexes) is a serious issue, especially with the rise of eating disorders. For instance, recent statistics suggest that France has upwards of 40,000 anorexics, most of them under 25. But encouraging people to be skinny is not the issue. If the standard of beauty was people who were overweight--like it is in some central African countries--then we would have teenage girls overeating to get towards that. Fashions in body types change almost every decade. Furthermore, people have individual tastes towards certain physical attributes. What I find attractive in a women will be markedly different from the next guy (or girl, if she's 10-20% of the population). While of course we should push for appreciation of the qualities that matter, physical attributes do exist, and outside of social constructions people will still have tastes--though they should be more divergent than we see now.

The real issue I have with advertisers is not they are encouraging a certain body type, it is that they are turning our bodies into products. It doesn't matter what body type they're pushing, it is simply the fact that they are constructing a standard which they can sell. We are being sold our bodies--being taught they are products, end results as opposed to constantly fluctuating processes. Own ownership of our own physical identity has been stolen.

So any beauty company is damaging because of that. Dove is even worse, the lowest of the low, because it doing more than the skinny models in magazines. Dove is not only making the body a product, but also politics. Critique of body identity, mostly pushed by feminist thinkers, has exploded in the past 30 or 40 years, and is reaching a fever pitch. So what does Dove do when this glimmer of independent thought begins to take shape, threating the very modes of thinking the company is based on? They peddle their stuff based on it! The people of Dove are not trying to redefine beauty, they're trying to get you to buy stuff by creating a false image that is palatable to your politics.

Here is a quick survey of the different types of products (usually 5-10 individual ones in each category) I found on the Dove website: day creams, night creams, cleaners, cleansing cloths, shower soaps, hand soaps, shower gels, facial masks, facial toners, body oils, hand oils, body lotions, facial lotions, hand lotions, and a shampoo for every conceivable type of hair. That sure looks like 'real beauty' to me. Empty wallets, too. If Dove really cared about redefining the standard of beauty to one more resembling reality it would have shut down by now.

Now, I'm not saying to not shower or get your hair cut. What I am saying is that to not think for a second that shopping at Dove does your part for the actual battle for physical identity. All it does is make that company money. Boycott these anti-aging wrinkle cream pushers--not just Dove, all of them. There are plenty of products out there that will make you smell nice and your skin soft without turning you into a patsy. Don't let yourself be lulled into a false sense of accomplishment while ignoring the real issue.

Anyone trying to sell you something is not on your side, simple as that. That includes products, religions, politics, and lifestyles. I'm not even on your side, I'm tying to make you come around to my way of thinking. It's even worse, though, when a company using a false image of social change to sell you things you don't need that contributes to the problem. Buying into Dove's lies only makes this problem worse.

As Desmond Tutu said, "I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights." Redefining the standard of beauty is not going to solve anything. We need to do away with the very notion that there is one beauty to move towards, and the first step is to make the people and companies who profit off of that fade away. Doing so will tear down a wall that has been put up by these people and one that has been standing far too long: the barrier between us and our bodies.