Romance for Real Women

Real women are always informed on salient issues, so on the off chance you’ve missed the controversy regarding the Dove “campaign for real beauty” I thought I’d, dare I say, weigh in on it.

Dove is a brand belonging to the Unilever Company, a multi-national consumer products company. Unilever manufactures products ranging from tea to mayonnaise, including deodorants, ice cream, diet and skin care products, soup, detergents, etc., etc. You have Unilever brands on your shelves, in your refrigerator and in your bath and laundry rooms.

In 2004, in concert with its advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, Dove launched its real beauty campaign aimed at “inspiring women to enjoy their own beauty and individuality.” Two overall strategies underpin the campaign. First, the use of “real women” in its advertising and the source of the controversy and second, the Dove Self Esteem Fund aimed at teens and young girls.

The controversy developed after a celebrity photo re-toucher, Pascal Dangin, asserted in The New Yorker this month that he’d airbrushed the pictures of the “real beauties” used in the advertising.

This has struck a nerve, apparently a deep one, and hundreds, if not thousands, of articles have been written about the possibility that Dangin airbrushed the tushes, thighs and boobs of the women in the ads who are pictured grinning broadly in identical sparkling white bras and panties.

My own callow reaction is “Who cares?” I know I’d want my tush airbrushed if I was going to appear on a billboard in my underwear.

Far more troubling is the Dove Self Esteem Fund aimed at reaching “the lives of five million young people by the end of 2010 with at least one hour of participation in our self-esteem programs.”

The notion that parents would actually encourage their children to spend an hour participating in a program developed by the beauty industry, the same industry by the way that Dove is castigating in its campaign, is not only ridiculous, it’s a little scary. (And do any of these people concerned with the airbrushing issue recognize the hypocrisy of this campaign?)

But the company claims results. Dove says it’s reached over three million kids with its self-esteem programs, a fact much more alarming than any airbrushing Dangin may or may not have done.

Do we really want the giants of global industry developing self-esteem programs for our children? Do we want them developing any programs at all for our kids?

Nope. Not me. Not ever.

Real women love weddings. Even the most cynical among us forget our own disappointments and empathsize, however briefly, with hope, joy and love symbolized by the wedding ceremony. And, I would suggest men feel exactly the same way, even if they don’t bring a handkerchief, just in case.

Weddings make us feel good.

So, I think it’s an appropriate question to ask why President Bush and his family are refusing to let any of us share in the pleasure of his daughter’s wedding.

Yes, I know, reportedly Jena doesn’t like the press. And, after all, it’s her day. She’s going to do it her way.

Nuts to that.

Whatever your political persuasion and I’m not going to tell you mine, the president asked the country to share in the grief and sorrow of a difficult and protracted war. Households are feeling the pinch of high food prices occasioned at least in part by ethanol mandates he signed off on. High gas prices and the mortgage crisis, while not really his fault, are further squeezing all of us. And, the country is suffering through a long and unpleasant political season.

So why on earth is the Bush family refusing to share even the most banal detail about the wedding? They’re having fun. Why can’t we share in just a little of it? I know it’d take my mind off the cost of a dozen eggs.

You’d think someone in the White House could figure this out.

Again, whatever your political persuasion, you’d probably admit that the Bush’s are a close and loving family. In the few comments she’s made about Jena’s wedding, Laura seems genuinely delighted. So does the President.

So why aren’t we permitted even a moment’s inclusion in the family’s happiness?

I can understand why Jena didn’t want a White House wedding. Really. The pomp and circumstance would be off putting to someone who hasn’t sought and isn’t comfortable in that kind of fishbowl.

But who would it have hurt if the White House had released, say, the menu for tonight’s dinner party? Maybe a picture of the wedding cake? Is that asking too much?

The White House had no problem embedding dozens of reporters with the troops in order to cover Operation Shock and Awe.

So why can they embed just one reporter, a friendly, to dribble out details during Operation Happiness?

It’s like they’re thumbing their noses at us.

I would go so far as to say I understand that with the President’s approval ratings in the twenties, lower than any president’s since polling began, a certain bunker mentality might prevail over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Although it’s too late now, I’d tell them to get over it. To bring themselves to raise the curtain just a few inches on their happiness. To include the country in an event we can all enjoy and support.

But, the wedding is tonight and we’re not invited.

Stupid.

Real women should take note of a study that could actually give them useful clues into the psyches of their partners. Clues, I might add, that apparently didn’t even occur to the researchers themselves.

The study on postpartum depression in men was conducted by researchers at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA. It was published in the August, 2007 issue of the journal Pediatrics although interestingly, the general media have just reported on it today, May 6, 2008, which really goes to show you how the Democrat primaries have saturated the news.

Nevertheless, apart from the cognitive dissonance real women might feel upon hearing that men suffer from postpartum depression, the study does yield some interesting findings. But only if you know how to look.

The researchers studied more than 5,000 two-parent families. Got that, ladies? Two parent families.

It found that one in ten of these new dads suffered from postpartum depression.

The reasons?

Anxiety over supporting a family.

Anxiety over relationships with their wives.

Worry over the cost of raising a child to twenty-one.

Have you got that, everyone?

These are the good guys.

In another study, the University of Chicago reports that 31% or 22.5 million of the nation’s children don’t live with either parent. Add to that the 18% or 11.9 million children who live with only one parent, usually the mother.

You can betcha those guys don’t suffer from postpartum depression.

One question the folks at Eastern Virginia don’t seem to have asked is when these new dads last had a good night’s sleep.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not belittling depression. But my advice to real women whose husbands are adjusting to the new kid by worrying about how to support their family is to uncork the champagne, pull on some sexy lingerie and dim the lights. After the fun, let him sleep all night.

He’s a keeper.