Since the rise of blogs in this digital age, women have emerged as some of the top bloggers in retouching controversies.

In 2006, the Dove Beauty campaign raised questions about the perceptions of beauty in the media and bloggers took to the web expressing their own opinions. One of the most well known female blog sites is “Jezebel” described as one of the top blog websites aimed at women’s interests.  The blog emerged in 2007 in the midst of all the airbrushing controversies and has helped expose the biggest retouching scandals in the past years.

In 2007, Jezebel revealed the retouching of singer Faith Hill as she was slimmed down on the cover of Redbook. From the before and after pictures, it is evident her arms were slimmed down, her waist was shrunk, and her wrinkles were erased. This revelation caused an uproar for many women who were fans of this magazine that empowered women and natural beauty. Recently the blog also posted photos and comments about Target’s botch cropping job of women’s bikini clothes. The poorly done retouching job is evident as seen in pictures. While this circumstance caused laughter for many, this truly shows how many of the models in media are Photoshopped. The retouching of models raised questions of what is true beauty and what is only created in the minds of women.

Jezebel has also done an extraordinary job showing that not all parts of the world accept the retouching of models. A blog in 2009 showed how British law makers were taking action against the airbrushing of models especially wrinkle crème ads featuring models such as Twiggy.  As the member of Parliament Jo Swinson said:

“Today’s unrealistic idea of what is beautiful means that young girls are under more pressure now than they were even five years ago. Airbrushing means that adverts contain completely unattainable perfect images no one can live up to in real life. We need to help protect children from these pressures and we need to make a start by banning airbrushing in adverts aimed at them.”

Blogs not only create traffic to a site but help change the minds of visitors and impact the way society thinks. In this world of retouching and artificial beauty, female bloggers are taking a stand and stopping this vicious cycle of low self esteem.

http://jezebel.com/278973/responding-to-redbooks-cover-lines/all
http://jezebel.com/5328736/british-lawmakers-take-stand-against-photoshop