Self-Help Group For Survivors of ‘90s Women’s Magazines
Calling All Survivors. For those seeking support, guidance, wisdom, or potential comedic relief.
Member Posting:
Am I the only one out here who’s not okay? When I close my eyes at night, it’s teenage Jessica Alba I see, selling me a Lipsmackers chapstick (Dr. Pepper flavored), or Jennifer Lopez, all dolled up and dancing on MTV. When I go shopping, it’s the pink Venus razor, promising silky smooth legs so that someone will (finally) want to touch me. I can’t even light a scented candle for the bath, without being brought back to potentially the most physically scarring article I ever read in a womens’ magazine: “Using Your Leftover Holidays Candles For Bikini Waxes.” Ouch.
I think I’ll save the candles for the menorah, thank you. And my legs aren’t gross for existing naturally. And though I haven’t fully been able to kick my Diet Coke habit, I don’t think I want my lips to taste like soft drinks anymore. Honestly, I’m ready to throw out these beauty standards that got handed to me, but I don’t think I can do it without flipping to the back and reading my Astrology.
When I really sit and marinate in my low self-esteem, and wonder why it can’t be fixed despite years of therapy, what immediately comes to mind is my mom’s coffee table full of Cosmopolitan– and soon my very own Teen magazines. This is why I’m starting a support group.
Listen y’all, I know that social media is not helping… but as a woman who’s formative years came in the pre-internet era, when we had no one else to turn to for learning “who” or “how” to be, or to teach us the ways in which ways we ought to harshly judge ourselves, or most importantly, how to keep the barrel of the acceptance gun firmly pointed at myself (as well as that weirdo girl Jenny in AP English class– please look at her and not me), I am desperately seeking the validation of a support group–or a reformed magazine editor– to help me figure out a NEW way to be.
Yes we all know that s*** was toxic. We got eating disorders from seeing models who were too skinny and we got told what was weird or odd (“Are Your Toenails ROUND or SQUARE, and What it Means About Your Psyche.”) We learned “What Men Really Want” (to be babies), and “How to Give an Expert Level Blow Job” (okay, that one might have actually worked. All my reviews are 5 Stars).
But in all of this media circus teaching us how to look critically down our noses at ourselves and others, no one actually taught us how to think critically about what we really want. I was positively furious when I saw that documentary about the man behind Abercrombie & Fitch. There was an actual freaking formula built to keep me feeling excluded, othered, and weak. But I had a brief psychotic break last week when my friend told me she swears by their maternity jeans– MATERNITY JEANS?! From Abercrombie???? And you’re supporting them?! Ya’ll I am not okay. We are not okay.
I know Jesus preaches about forgiveness, but I can never buy a pair of maternity jeans from abercrombie, nor a plus size bra from Victoria (I’m still bitter about her skinny girl secrets). The audacity to call their runway models angels when they represented the spawn of satan (I’m talking about underwire bras of course), is preposterous and reminds me of the scene in Revelation where they say “It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.”
I’m not trying to found a new religion, just form a support group to get us through the trauma of the 90s media onslaught, but honestly I’m starting to have second thoughts.
For all of us girls–now women– who are not finished with this conversation, let’s lead our sheep back to a simpler time when we could consult quizzes, polls, and articles– but this time, to figure out what it is we really want!!!
In the Church of Feminine we worship Critical Thinking & our patron saint Mary Tear-Up-Your-90s-Magazines. We will be meeting once a week to take new quizzes that shall be our gospel, and form small groups to review our results. We will make burnt offerings out of any quizzes where we don’t like the results.
Please bring snacks for Communion, I’m on a budget. They better not be those little 100 calorie packs of Oreos or Special K diet bars we ate in 1999, or so help me God, I will nail them to the cross myself, and they shall not be resurrected.
Our Commandments include existential questions to help you on your healing journey that I found carved into bathroom stalls and posted on spiritual sub-Reddit's over the past 15 years, such as:
- How Many Times A Year Is It Appropriate To Shave Your Legs? Is Two Enough?
- How Many Orgasms Should My Husband Get? Am I Selfish if Our Ratio is Me=6, He=1?
- What Kind of Teriyaki Chicken Are You? Butthole Hot, or Spicy Garlic Sauce?
- How Many Dreams Have You Manifested By Trusting Your Internal Monologues? (If your answer is zero, you need to trust your diary entries more than the wisdom of bathroom stalls).
- Representation in Media: Which Women-Centric Adult Cartoons do you feel seen and empowered by? (j/k there are none).
- Crossfit for Carrying The Emotional Load of Your Entire Workplace or Family. How to be fit AND strong.
- What’s Wrong With Me? (It’s Either Narcissism or Absolutely Nothing).
We will meet at Barnes & Noble on the second Tuesdays of every month, until our periods synchronize and we become one, powerful enough to howl at the moon in the wilderness, ne’er to return.