Women – is There More of Us to Appreciate?

In a recent conversation with a female friend we were sharing our appreciation of another. This may sound like a normal, everyday thing to do, however there was something quite spectacular and revelatory about our conversation…

As we shared and reflected about this person we discovered that there was even more to appreciate. This person was making an ever-growing amount of choices in their life that were supporting them to feel (in their own words) more like themselves than ever before.

The Truth of a Woman’s Body

I can pinpoint the exact moment that I first encountered women’s breasts being portrayed in a sexual way. I was about seven years old and was in the little village post office, come newsagent, come hardware store, come sweet shop, in the very rural part of North Yorkshire where my family lived. I was having my usual quandary as to how best to spend my ten pence. I could either get a little white paper bag of 10p’s worth of sherbet pips or I could get 10p’s worth of assorted 1p sweets. Invariably I went for the latter, as I loved the whole process of choosing ten different sweets. Black Jacks, Fruit Salads and Outer Spacers were always a non-negotiable part of my mix. Whilst pondering the almost magical assortment of different boxes and jars of sweets, I looked up at the top shelf and saw the front cover of a ‘girly magazine’. I distinctly remember the photo on the front, not of the woman’s face, but of her bare breasts and the fact that her arms were above her head.