You vs Me vs You vs Me vs...

I'm having a debate...well, not really sure you can call it a "debate", but rather, a discussion, over on Facebook with a young friend of mine...now, she might take exception to being called "young", since to my children she's ancient (and she is married and has a baby), but she is young enough to be my daughter (and in actual fact, I am older than her mother-gulp!), but she is a beautiful young woman who raised an interesting point late last night...she (who shall remain nameless, until or unless she tells me I can use her name) updated her status to read (I'm paraphrasing here) that she is sick and tired of seeing ad campaigns for "real women" as though those women who happen to be without muffin tops are somehow seen as being less real...

Hang on a second here, I thought...I've watched (and been tormented by) image after image of those celebrities who are lauded if they lose weight and are thrown under a bus if they gain even five pounds...are you calling me fat and lazy? 'Cause I can assure you missy that I am not! I work really hard and still will never look like Halle Berry! I...

Whoa, dragon...how 'bout you step back a second Lilley and breathe for a minute?

Now, my friend will interpret those ads based on her own life experiences, and I will judge them based on mine...and the thing is that neither of us should have to feel tormented by them...when are women going to get it together long enough to realize that we are all beautiful?  That we all deserve to be loved, no, make that adored, no matter what we look like? 

I understand and appreciate how some advertisers are finally getting on board with trying to show a realistic view of women's bodies...or more specifically, that most women do not bounce back three weeks after giving birth, despite the vast number of Hollywood starlets who seem to do just that. (I knew a young mother, about 7 years ago, who did in fact look like she'd never been pregnant when she was two weeks postpartum-she chalked it up to genes inherited from her Polish grandmother)

I know that after each of my pregnancies, I was more than a little shocked to discover that despite everything I had been told, breastfeeding did not mean that the pounds simply melted off me...by the time the twins were born, you'd think I'd have learned/remembered, but no, somehow, it still came as a surprise...

The problem with these ads is that they still end up pitting woman against woman in the never-ending debate of who has suffered more in this no-win argument...and that is the really sad part of all of this...because if we, as women, can't stand together to tell the media and advertisers and Hollywood producers to go take a flying leap because we are all beautiful, when will it end?