Don't get fooled by Photoshop

Photoshop claims yet another victim. Seriously, this woman
would be incapable of standing if her thigh muscles were
really that non-existent.

There’s no diet in the world that will make you look like the models you see online and in magazines. The models themselves don’t even look like that.

See, there’s this little thing called Photoshop.  And it turns out that, no matter how skinny a model or actress is in real life, the people who run the magazine or website want them to be even skinner. For their skin to be even clearer and their breasts to be even bigger. Wrinkles? They don’t exist in Photoshop land – a quick brush with the blur tool and they’re gone forever.

Sometimes, you don’t even need the “before” picture to tell. Those shots where the skin on their face looks so smooth and tight you could bounce a quarter off it? That’s not a magic skin crème – it’s someone in the art department who went a little too crazy on the computer. Not even Scarlett Johansson has that kind of face in real life, and if she can’t manage it that officially proves that it’s impossible to pull off.  

Besides, would we really want to? It kind of makes them look like aliens from another planet.
If someone ever invents a Photoshop that works on real life, they will immediately earn a gazillion dollars and legions of people would happily bow down to them as their new overlords. A quick swipe with the erase tool, a couple of taps on the “bright” slide bar, a little judicious stamping, and we could all look like those poor half-naked women draped over the couches in all those high fashion ads.

But right now, in a world where that kind of miracle technology doesn’t exist, we have to stop looking at those fantasy images and thinking that they’re something we need to work towards. That we need to be as skinny as those models we see in advertisements. That our chests need to be as round and as perky. That we can age in such a way where wrinkles don’t exist.

Those things are just as unreal as the idea of waking up in the morning with wings growing out of your back.

Think of those glowing, alien pictures of non-existent women in the same way you do paintings of nubile warrior women or ridiculously sexy space babes who were always inexplicably attracted to the hero. You’d never think you had to actually be one of those women, would you? If nothing else, those metal bras always looked incredibly uncomfortable.

Remind yourself of that, every time you start looking longingly at a Photoshopped waistline. Tell your sisters, friends, daughters and granddaughters, and repeat it until you see it start to sink in. Trying to twist, tighten or shove your body into a shape that doesn’t actually exist in nature can only bring you pain. At best, it leads to heartache and constant frustration. At worst, it leads to eating disorders and the kind of self-hatred that can screw up entire lives.

Exercise so you feel healthy and strong. Use that skin crème because you love the way it makes your skin feel silky soft. Change your diet because you want to wake up with more energy in the morning.

Whatever you choose to do, you’re showing the world how awesome, beautiful and powerful real women can be. In the end, that’s so much more amazing than any magic Photoshop can pull off.  

Fight Like A Girl

Saying that someone “fights like a girl” is a pervasive enough insult that even we women have been known to use it sometimes. Everyone knows the unspoken images behind the words – a useless slap instead of a solid punch, ridiculous angles and no follow through. In popular culture, to fight like a “girl” means you’re no good at it.

But have you actually seen women fight?

 I’m not talking about female boxers and MMA fighters, though those women are awesome and terrifying in their own way. I’m talking about the struggles an average women goes through in her life, and the challenges she’s able to take on without breaking a sweat.

 Our bodies are wonders of strength and design, able to accommodate an entire other person growing inside of us without breaking or becoming permanently mangled. We’re such great survivors that our bodies know how to not only keep one person alive for months, but two. And we can do it again and again.

 It’s not just childbirth that shows how tough a woman’s body is. Studies have shown that women overcome brain trauma faster than men, taking less time to heal from concussions and other injuries. We outlive men by an average of about five years, at least in the United States, and are less likely to be obese adults as well.

 Inevitably, there are a few areas where men have the edge over us. National statistics show that we’re at a higher risk of developing strokes, and more women suffer from osteoporosis than men. Heart attacks are more of a concern for women than many of us realize or like to acknowledge. There’s also breast cancer, the most common cancer in women and second to lung cancer as a leading cause of death for women.

 But real fighters know that just because you’re down doesn’t mean you have to be out. The fact that breast cancer is so common, but still isn’t our leading killer, is proof that it’s possible to fight back against even the worst illnesses. Breast cancer survivors are some of the strongest, bravest women I’ve ever met, banding together to support each other and pushing a major outreach to make sure other women get tested. Even if they’ve been hit by the disease, they don’t want to see other women fall.

 We can combat other illnesses as well. Research shows that potassium lowers the risk of strokes in older women. Knowing the warning signs of heart attacks for women – which are different than they are for men – and pushing for early detection can lower our risk for that as well. Making sure your calcium intake is high enough can help you avoid having to deal with osteoporosis later in life. Screenings of all kinds are important.

 Sure, men may be physically stronger than you are. But strength is only one factor that matters when surviving a physical fight, and when it comes to the battles life throws at us it’s often the least important one. The ability to survive, to take care of yourself and others, and to heal and move on can be far more important. And we women excel at all of that.

So the next time you hear the phrase “fight like a girl,” tell the person that they’re using it inaccurately. Because girls are some of the best fighters I know.

The Writing Life: The Perils of God Mode

Being a god involves a surprising amount of paperwork.

            

I won’t pretend that we writers aren’t attracted to the craft, at least in part, because of raging control issues. In real life, most of us only have a limited number of things we have any real authority over, and most of those fall under the category of what to eat for dinner.

            

Writers, however, have absolute power within the boundaries of our particular world. If we want the sky to be green, all we have to do is say so. If someone annoys us, we can kill them off in as grisly a fashion as our heart desires. We can fill a thousand different conversations with the things we wish we’d said in life.

            

It takes a little time to realize that having all the power means more than just being able to do what you want. You have to do *everything,* from keeping track of each and every character to making sure that they have everything they need to give you the ending you want.

            

One character may keep a gun in a drawer next to his bedside, but if you don’t make certain he stops by his house to grab it before the final battle then he’s going to go in unarmed. You also need to make sure he has some skill at actually shooting the gun, and come up with a reason for him to have that training that makes sense. Making note of all these little things, and assuring that they’re both in place and believable, is the literary equivalent of a police officer filling out paperwork after a case.

            

The more complicated a story, the more paperwork you have to do. My Sleeping Beauty, Elena, is a sorceress, which means I’ve had to hear far more about magic than I ever wanted to. More specifically, I have to study magic, figuring out why a particular spell works and what will happen when I introduce this outside element to another spell. Because Elena would know, and has a tendency to explain such matters in a far more technical language than I use in describing anything, ever. Since she knows, I have to as well.

            

Most of the time, I adore dealing with even the finickiest of details. It’s like building an enormous, world-spanning dollhouse, and it takes someone who finds equal delight in making sure the walls are structurally sound and writing tiny little headlines on the fake newspaper on the coffee table. You have the power to send a bedset plummeting off the third story, and it can be fun to watch it smash on the rocks below. But you also have to be the one to sweep it up, and make sure that the upstairs bedroom gets a replacement bedset at some point.

            

Of course, you could simply blow the house up and solve all your problems. But then you’d have to figure out what kind of device would cause the right amount of damage, smuggle it into the house without anyone noticing, and decide whether or not you want there to be any survivors.  Depending on the answer to that question, you’re left with a whole new set of problems.

If being a god was easy, anyone could do it. 

Flash fiction #2: Gods of the Party

Artemis, like all goddesses of the
hunt, tended to be a little too fond
of camping. (Wikipedia)

One of the groups that gets mentioned in “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” is the National Association for Retired but Still Mighty Gods and Goddesses (NARSMGG). They don’t get much play in the book, but the idea just fascinated me.

Gods of the Party

by Jenniffer Wardell

They let Hephaestus and Aphrodite plan the Winter Solstice party.

Hephaestus was a god of building things, and unlike most of the pantheon knew how to plan for things that didn’t involve smiting. And goddesses of love and beauty always knew how to throw great parties, even if it was just so they’d have the proper setting to shine in. Also, most of the club members couldn’t remember hearing the two scream at each other very often, which was a rare thing among married deities and always a plus.

(What no one said out loud was that they were quickly running out of options. A giant snake broke through the wall and crashed every party Odin and his family tried to throw, and Coyote couldn’t be trusted to stick to a budget. Everybody agreed that Osiris was a nice guy, but after last year everyone also agreed that gods of the dead should never be left in charge of party planning. Kali was a fun girl, especially for a goddess of destruction, but she tended to throw chairs.)

It turned out, though, that the reason Hephaestus and Aphrodite rarely screamed at each other was that they were rarely in the same kingdom at the same time.

“I’m not building you a new sound system! The old one works just fine!”

“It’s fine for normal gods, you lump, but I need something as magnificent as I am!”

“Well, whatever you come up with had better be pretty small, or there won’t be room for both it and your swollen head!”

“Ares thinks my head is gorgeous!”

“You idiot, your head isn’t what he’s looking at!”

In the end, the only way to avoid bloodshed was to have two smaller parties. The quieter gods went over to Hephaestus’s place for hot chocolate and a cozy forge fire, while the wilder gods went out drinking with Aphrodite.

The fact that the club building was still standing at the end of it all automatically made it the most successful party the gods had ever thrown.  Hephaestus and Aphrodite were unanimously voted as the club’s permanent party planners.

Well, almost unanimously. But there was no pleasing even a godess's mother-in-law.