Countless celebrities have recently spoken out about how unfair it is that the media intensely scrutinizes women and their bodies, and the latest one to be added to the list is Jane Fonda. The actress and fitness enthusiast shared with Harper’s Bazaar that she learned looking perfect was the only way anyone was going to value her from her father, saying “I was raised in the ’50s. I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly. He was a good man, and I was mad for him, but he sent messages to me that a father should not send: Unless you look perfect, you’re not going to be loved.” How much of an impact this mindset had on her incredible success in the home video workout was not mentioned.
However today, Fonda seems to have gotten over excessively obsessing about her body and now finds life much more enjoyable now that that’s not one of her obligations anymore. She said, “I’m vain. My arms are thin, but I’m vain about loose flesh. And so I’m careful that what I wear will show off my best parts, which are my waist and my butt…I have people in my life who will say, ‘Honey, you’re trying too hard.’ I like being saucy, but I’m 73 and a half. I’m still trying to find my way between matronly and coltishness.” But it’s clear how truly empowered Jane feels because in her new book, Prime Time, she doles out lessons she’s learned over the course of her life in an expectedly spirited way (like the part where she warns readers of things like “the penis starts to get smaller with age” and so on and so forth). She also happens to be one of those celebrities who feels the latter years of life are infinitely better than being in your 20s and 30s, and maintains that thinking youth is better than age is the wrong outlook to have. She said, “Instead of viewing an arch — you rise, you peak, you decline — view it as a staircase. Your body may fall apart, but on every level that really matters, you can ascend toward enlightenment, wisdom and authenticity. That’s what I’m going for.” And according to her, we should be too.
Source: Harper’s Bazaar
