Opinion: You’ve been lied to, a pretty face is not enough

When we look at the media in general, which includes television, radio, the internet, the content of lyrics, music videos and so on; it is shocking as to how women are portrayed.

There is still a systemic devaluation of women in our society. Our safety is still being compromised; our bodies are still victimized, objectified and commoditized. When women are abused, violated, raped, assaulted, molested, kidnaped, we realize that they get the minimal media attention around their stories. This tells us the value society has placed on us.

The trend of nudity in the entertainment industry has generally penetrated into every aspect of our lifestyle and has become acceptable. Anyone that speaks concerning it is seen as either not open-minded or archaic.

We have become too cool, too 21st century, too modern to protect our youths from the long lasting harm that is being ingested into their inner core. Instead, we depict the trend, applaud and invite them to red carpet functions and events, thereby becoming destroyers of the last remnants of the African woman’s mystique and majesty.

To gain cheap popularity we promote post of females’ exposed breasts and protruding backsides for ratings. We promote products that insist that a woman has to be a certain way to be beautiful.

The WE of both sexes should refuse to accept things as it is and do our part to seek the things as it should be and start demanding better.

We deserve better music, better entertainment, better materials to stimulate our minds and better standards. We need to get off the bandwagon which is a prison without uniform that stifles originality in the name of marketability, looking like everyone else and satisfied with being fed the basic. Once you believe you deserve better, you would be given better.

The people being worshiped today would have been examples of what not to be ten years ago.

We are here to send a profound message to promote self-worth and self-love to everyone that they are more than meets the eye.

WE ARE HERE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO

NO, your sex does not inhibit you from being intelligent.

NO, you are not created to fulfill any human’s fetish.

NO, you don’t have to choose career over family you can have it all.

NO, the fact that you have purpose does not make you a burden or disrupts the set norm

YES you are beautiful regardless of your skin colour, body shape, size, age, cultural background, features.

We need to cancel the lies that have been told to these females.

We need to let females know that it may not be all rosy being a woman, but it does not matter what challenges you may face once you know that you are designed for greatness.

You are more than a pretty face because you have so much potential, because your power and your resilience will cause a ripple effect that will help to mend this world.

We have been given this responsibility to mold, revamp, and recreate the mindset of the budding females. We cannot afford to let ourselves down.

What PROJECT NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE aims to do is to showcase positive role models. We bring to light hard working individuals that have and are accomplishing their dreams positively. We need to encourage young females to know they should not be led by fear. We need to introduce role models to young females so they say that “because she can, I can”.

The reason is because hard work, determination, relentlessness, ambition, driven and beautiful individuals deserves to be applauded. We ought to channel our mindset to not just the outward but inner beauty and reconstruct our perception of what counts.

We would be building the self-esteem and self-worth of young women by changing their outlook on life, broadening their horizons and providing tools for self-empowerment and efficacy.

We would teach them to realize the power of their voice as early as possible. We would teach self-respect because when you respect yourself, you learn how to respect others.

We are everyday people trying to accomplish extra ordinary things.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Opinion article written by Jennifer Kaja who can be reached via @projectnotjustaprettyface

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