"to the maXX," is a reflection of women and their associated stereotypes, and how these stereotypes are generated via consumerism. As a group of four females, we noticed that many of our experiences were similar and harbored a sense of importance to us. From infancy, consumerism displays gender specific roles that have been laid out for us years in advance. Advertisements tell us to play with toy kitchenettes and makeup. We grow up with the expectation that we will be ballerinas, stay-at-home moms, and secretaries.
Each individual photograph is meant to display a different aspect of women-targeted consumerism and the insecurities that come with it from a woman's perspective. Out title in itself conveys a woman's point of view by the capitalization of the "XX," which is representative of the two X chromosomes each woman has, and that links us as a gender. Additionally, titling our blog "to the maXX," also incorporates the need to buy in excess, a trend we are seeing more and more often. Now not only are women being told what role to play and what items to buy, but that the more they have, the more successful they will be in their quest to become that "ideal beauty."
This pressure that women constantly feel to internalize the world's perfection can often serve as a driving force, propelling them into scrutinizing and fixing. They buy products that claim to fix it and continue to criticize themselves until they feel that the flaw in manageable. While the majority of can examine themselves and carry on with their lives, the pressure can be detrimental and dangerous for some. Every day we are witnesses to a multitude of advertisements regarding depression, news stories about eating disorders and even death, conditions that are easily linked to self-image. Perhaps if the world were less focused on playing the part of the ideal female, we would see a decrease in these issues.
Our photographs allow our topic to come full circle as they display a different aspect of the pressures women face from today's consumerism. The magazines and shoes are representative of the mounting struggle to attain all that is deemed acceptable for us to own. The photograph featuring the makeup shows the process of transforming into society's ideal and how we internalize that by what we see in the mirror and in everyday life. Lastly, the pills represent how we manage both our feelings and our image.
