To people who freak out about photoshopped/airbrushed photographs:

The topic of airbrushing seems to pop up every few months, if not right before every swimsuit season. Time and time again feminist groups, concerned parents, and the media (yes, even the same media that publishes said photos) harp on the dangers and immorality of airbrushing. They cite that it “creates unrealistic expectations for young girls”, that it is “dishonest and deceiving”, and I have a bone to pick with those people.

While I understand the concern I still think the outrage, worry, and anger is most times, if not always, unwarranted. But let’s break down those feelings and the reasons behind them for a moment and try to rationalize it all.

As a young, American female I’ve been bombarded by the media’s obsession with perfection just like many others like me. I’ve probably seen tens of thousands of airbrushed images framing women with “the ideal body”, and yeah who hasn’t thought to themselves “wow, it’d be great to have a body like that.” But never, even as a young child, did I believe for a moment that people actually looked like that.I knew for a fact that I had never seen a person who looked nearly as perfect as those on the faces of magazines.

People seem to have this unfounded fear that airbrushed images hurt young women. That they push them and force them to feel insecure and inadequate. We say to ourselves that this must surely be the cause behind all of these eating disorders we hear about so often. What else could possibly do this to young women?!  The recorded history of eating disorders goes way back to the 1300’s, long before computers and mass media were a part of the human experience. Let’s face it, women have been doing weird shit to their bodies in the name of beauty since the beginning of time. This is a shout out to you corsets and neck rings! Anyway, it has been well documented that eating disorders are typically onset by other causes such as abuse (sexual, emotional, physical), poor parenting, genetic predisposition, and hormonal imbalances. In my mind airbrushing and eating disorders are two distinctly separate issues.

Now that I’ve pulled the eating disorder card for you, we can move onto logic…

A lot of people will argue that airbrushing is dishonest and a gross misrepresentation of what people truly look like. While the images night not be true to reality, I don’t believe they ever claimed they were. If anything it is about aesthetics. Are you going to harangue a photographer who took a photo of a tree because he photo shopped it, made it monochrome, sized it down, or changed the contrast? The answer is no, you would not. But why? Isn’t he misrepresenting how that tree REALLY looks?! How outrageous of him to try to make us think the world is really black and white!  That tree is not life-size! What a criminal! Now everyone is going to run around shrinking down trees and painting them in shades of gray because that evil photographer man made them think that’s how they should look!

If after all of this you’ve still got beef with airbrushing then I’d be really curious to hear what you have to say about:

• Makeup/cosmetics
• Hair dye
• Clothing of any kind (esp. pushup bras and things of the like)

The point I’m trying to make is that if you use common sense there is no reason you should be fooled or made to feel badly by an edited photo. Think critically and teach others, especially children, to do the same. Crisis averted. You’re welcome.