Recently, Gold’s Gym declared July as “Cankles Awareness Month.” Yes, you read it correctly, CANKLES. What is that you might ask? Basically, its a word that further deconstructs and objectifies the body. In lay(wo)man’s terms “cankles” basically means”chubby ankles”. Yes ladies, you thought you only had to worry about your “muffin top” and your “crow’s feet”–now you can add “cankles” to your list of concerns.
See the video and Feministing.com’s analysis of this bogus “awareness” month here.
Imagine Today has taken the creative route and has deemedAugust as Self Esteem Month, in response to Gold’s Ridiculous campaign.
There is a calendar outlining each day in August that either seeks to change one’s mindset, actions or world.
Take today for example:
August 5th – Complimenting others is easy, complimenting yourself is the tricky thing (that is, until you’ve had some practice!) Lets play a little game to make it easier: make up a silly rule (like “every time I pass a mirror today I have to think one good thing about my body” or “every hour I have to think about one thing I love about myself”) and stick to it for the whole day.
Why not follow Image Today’s example and declare August “Self Esteem” month. Let’s not waste our energy on ridiculous marketing campaigns that tell us that something is wrong with our bodies and nitpick to the point where our ankles have their own “disorder”.
2 responses so far ↓
Never Enough « YWCA Hamilton: Voices // September 15, 2009 at 6:46 pm |
[...] reminder about the objectification and microscopic criticsm that women face every day. As if cankles month wasn’t bad enough, now we’re being told that our eyelashes need even MORE attention [...]
on beauty « Furtherdowntheroad’s Blog // October 27, 2009 at 9:58 pm |
[...] reminder about the objectification and microscopic criticism that women face every day. As if cankles month wasn’t bad enough, now we’re being told that our eyelashes need even MORE attention than [...]