True...WOMENS ONLY COMMUNITY

Thanks didn't realise it was on all, I've added to the post that it's a women only community
- (some dude comments:) I've seen your posts in my feed a couple of times already, and I'm positively surprised there're not many troublemakers who get stirred wrong by someone asking for a safe space. The big reminder that it's a comm for women is, sadly, a goog idea for now on. Lemmy doesn't yet have a functionality to flag it like this, only to make a privated space with user vetting, that won't fly as high as an open community with posts in lemmy's Hot. Anyway, cheers, and please go on.
I want to add, there's no reason not to indulge in reasonable self-care, and everyone should be able to, within their means. No one should be unable. The skin is the largest body organ and our first barrier defense against illness and infection.
That said, we also need to take responsibility for our own ability to love ourselves, even if that means saying we love us until we get it. Because this isn't new, and we do often do it to ourselves, probably because of no small degree of conditioning. I watched a short (~40 minutes?) doco on Elizabeth I, she had a sweet tooth, a fear of dentists (who wouldn't, in those days?), and so rotten teeth. Because of the (not altogether true) hype of poets and paramours (which is a whole other ball of wax), women with perfectly (?!) good teeth began to blacken their teeth, to imitate Elizabeth.
TL;dr Our wounding isn't always our fault; our healing is our responsibility.
Thank you for your insightful comment, but this community is for women only.
- Hey driving_crooner (love the name) just fyi we're a women's only group so please don't comment again 😊

I worked in a gift shop, one thing we sold was lotions/creams and had testers on the counter. Then one day the boss brought in some magnifying mirrors, 3x on one side and 10x on the other. We set up one on the counter. Every woman looked into that 10x mirror and their face fell. Then they'd sigh and grab a tester and pat cream into their face. We sold a lot of cream and lotion, and all the mirrors! But I hated it. I was glad when they were gone, because I didn't like having a bunch of depressed customers. And I certainly didn't want to keep catching glimpses of my own face in there! Every tiny crevice looked enormous, like I was 100 years old.

Oh lord that says it all!
I spent so much time in front of mirrors like that as a teenager, obsessing about every black-head and pimple, etc.

The more "ugly" and "fat" they can make you feel, the more money they can snatch from you!

And they very quickly change the beauty standard goal posts.

It's a never-ending carousel of horror! 🎠🔥

- Thanks for your comment, but this is a women-only community.

I can believe this. Once I started appreciating myself, I didn’t need to buy so many potions, makeup, or any other weird thing that men think we need.

Off of the top of my head:

Makeup,
(Some types of ) clothing,
the diet industry - not saying hating your body is the only reason for a diet, but I suspect it’s 50-80% of the industry anyway
some parts of workout industry
some types of self-help books
cosmetic surgery

The diet industry is definitely invested in having women hate our bodies. An actual lifelong healthy diet does not require their products

I'd say it's equally true of most industries.

Thanks I thought it was clear from the fact that we're women only. I've edited it now
Rule 1 says "any woman-identified person" is welcome here -- can you explain how this includes trans men? But I could see bigender people feeling unwelcome from "men ... please do not comment" and that'd be bad.
Edit: nvm, just realized that rule 1 was changed.
- I know it can be hard to understand, but trans men sometimes remain members of lesbian and women communities even after transition and may even struggle with their identity this way. Reading Stone Butch Blues might provide some insight, as Leslie Feinberg was precisely one of those trans men who struggled with giving up their identity as a lesbian, and detransitioned and remained on that fuzzy line between man and lesbian.
  This space isn't here to exclude women like that, even if they are men. They have lived experience as women, they live as women, they might identify as women, and so on.
  Binary trans men who don't feel the need to continue identifying as women and who no longer have lived experience as women may see themselves as men and not participate based on that rule, but it's not because they are trans but because they are men who do not feel a need to identify and remain in a community of women.
  Bigender people and nonbinary people who identify as women are likewise free to post and comment here. The rule is meant to create a safe space for women, and we believe people who identify and live as women do not contradict this.

Thanks mate. We've been blessed with some amazing women posters and some lovely men have commented to show support. It can be difficult but so far we're coping