These women all have one thing in common: they go against what you would expect to find in an advertisement directed toward women. They challege the predominant logic of the female body in the media. As Susan Douglas says in her essay, “Narcissism as Liberation,” thanks to advertising, “the new woman was now sophisticated enough and privelaged enough to benefit from a scientific enterprise designed specifically for elite white women.” Those pictured above go against the stereotyped models we so often see in magazines and on tv commercials – they don’t appear to be rediculously skinny or to be battling eating disorders and compulsive overexercising. These women are just real, everyday women, who are not all caucasion or necessarily of the “elite” social class. They don’t punish themselves through starvation and don’t feel the need to receive several shots of botox or collagen in their faces to feel beautiful and happy with themselves. Although each of these women may be given “permission to indulge her prefeminist side, the one still obsessed with little commas and crow’s-feet,” she doesn’t follow through with it. She is much happier being herself, and will not degrade herself to the level of shallow and narcissistic women across the country who will spend a fortune on things designed to “better themselves,” such as injections, medications, exercise equipment, supplements, and, in extreme cases, plastic surgery.

Marilyn Monroe, legendary for her sexual and provocative body, represents a woman who has a curvacious figure and isn’t afraid to flaunt it. Oprah Winfrey is a woman that stands proudly as a role model for young girls everywhere. She is first and foremost, African-American, showing her bravery to make herself known in the competitive and judgmental world of entertainment. She also defies stereotypical women in show business, enhancing her body and herself not with fad dieting or surgery, but rather with the right makeup and a sophisticated sense of style that gives her the confidence and poise to be the important person that she is to so many people.

Although Jane Fonda may have said that “discipline is liberation,” these women prove that just feeling happy and at peace with yourself is the ultimate reward and liberation you can have.