Strong Is The New Sexy — And We’re Done Pretending Otherwise

This Latina woke up spicy today. And I am not apologizing for it.

Let me tell you what set me off.

I was scrolling through images of women the world holds up as goals — women our daughters look up to — and I felt something shift.

Because on one side of my screen I saw women who looked like they needed a sandwich and a hug — fragile, hollow, disappearing. And on the other side I saw women who looked like they could carry the world on their shoulders and ask for seconds — strong, luminous, completely alive.

And I thought: when are we going to stop pretending these are the same thing?

When are we going to say enough?

I Know. I Know. We Don't Know Their Health Struggles.

I hear you. I really do.

I am not here to shame any woman for the body she lives in. Every woman's relationship with her body is her own and I respect that completely.

But here is what I cannot respect: a culture that holds up skeletal as aspirational. That says disappearing is beautiful. That puts images of women who look like they haven't eaten in a month on magazine covers and calls it glamour.

I have a daughter in her thirties. I have dozens of nieces. And they are growing up in a world where some of the most celebrated women look like a strong wind could carry them away — and those women are held up as goals.

Our generation already had to endure this.

We survived the era of heroin chic. We survived supermodel worship. We survived the message — drummed into us at every turn — that smaller was better, thinner was prettier, less was more.

And now two generations after us are getting the same message dressed up in different packaging.

I am so done with it.

Be the hero a young girl needs. Remind her that beauty comes from within.

The Women I Idolize Look Like Warriors

You want to know who I look at and feel something light up inside me?

Salma Hayek at 57 — curves, strength, unapologetic presence. A woman who takes up space and owns every inch of it. A woman who looks like she has lived, eaten, loved, and laughed and is absolutely not finished.

Hannah Waddingham at 52 — talk about curves. Curves that go on for miles. Sculpted arms. Legs that look like they could take down a WWE fighter. Her strong body and confidence makes her a role model for women and girls. She’s a Goddess, and she owns it. Give me more of that Rebel goodness every day.

That is beauty. That is power. That is what I want my daughter and my nieces to see and say: that is what I want to be.

Not a goal weight. Not a dress size. Not a number on a scale.

A woman who is so fully and completely alive that she lights up every room she walks into.

What Society Gets Catastrophically Wrong

Here is the thing about women's bodies after 50 that nobody in Hollywood seems to have read the memo on:

I’m lifting for my health. For longevity. Because strength = HAPPINESS! Every young girl should know that.

Muscle is life – Strong Women Live Bigger Lives

Not metaphorically. Literally. After 50 muscle mass is our greatest health asset — it protects our bones, our balance, our independence, our longevity. The women who are still hiking at 75, still traveling at 80, still playing with their grandchildren at 85 — they are not the thinnest women. According to The Mayo Clinic, they are the strongest ones.

 The women I know who are living their absolute best lives right now — the ones who are vibrant and vital and fully present for everything that matters — they eat. They lift. They walk. They garden. They travel. They seek out adventures. They carry their own luggage.

They are not disappearing. They are showing up.

Every. Single. Day.

This Is Bigger Than Celebrity Culture

I know what you're thinking. It's just celebrity photos. It's just entertainment. It doesn't really affect real women.

It does.

Study after study confirms what most of us already know in our bones — the images women are exposed to shape what they believe is normal, desirable and achievable. When the women our daughters see celebrated are uniformly thin — not slender, not lean, but visibly malnourished — it sends a message — according to a USA Today opinion piece that has sparked significant conversation

That message is: this is the goal.

And it is not the goal. It is not healthy. It is not normal. And it is not something we should be celebrating.

Our daughters and granddaughters are watching us. Our nieces are watching us. The younger women in our lives are taking notes on what women do with their bodies, how women talk about their bodies, what women believe their bodies are for.

What are we showing them?

Share the philosophy of health over perfection with your daughters.

What We Owe the Next Generation

Here is what I want my daughter to know. Here is what I want my nieces to understand. Here is the message I wish someone had handed our generation forty years ago when we were young and impressionable and drowning in images that told us we were never quite “twiggy” enough:

Your body is not an ornament. It is an instrument.

It is the thing that carries you through your life — through the hard parts and the glorious parts and the ordinary Tuesday mornings and the extraordinary moments in Spain when you stand in a cove and think: I am here. I am alive. I am completely here. I’m getting in the water.

Take care of it. Feed it. Move it. Strengthen it. Rest it.

Not so it looks a certain way in a certain outfit.

So it can take you everywhere you still want to go.

The Rebel Age Standard

Here at The Rebel Age we celebrate strength. We celebrate health. We celebrate women who eat real food and lift real weights and walk real miles and live real lives.

We celebrate Salma Hayek and Hannah Waddingham and Dame Helen Mirren. We celebrate the woman at the gym who is 68 and doing things with her body that would make a 30-year-old reconsider their excuses. We celebrate the grandmother who swims laps every morning and feels completely free.

We do not celebrate disappearing.

We are not interested in getting smaller.

We are interested in getting stronger. Getting bolder. Getting louder.

We are Rebels. And Rebels take up space. Lots of it.

What You Can Do Right Now

Talk to your daughters. Not about their weight. About their strength. Ask them what their bodies can do — not what they look like. Celebrate capability over aesthetics.

Model it yourself. The most powerful thing you can do is let the women in your life see you eat well, move joyfully and talk about your body with respect rather than contempt.

Challenge the narrative when you see it. When a magazine cover celebrates a woman who looks unwell call it out. Gently, thoughtfully, but clearly.

Celebrate the right things. When you talk about women in the public eye talk about what they do — their work, their strength, their courage — not what they weigh.

Be the Salma in someone's life. Be the woman who shows up fully present, completely alive, taking up every inch of the space she has earned.

Gather the women you love from all generations and talk about food as fuel.

A Final Word — From One Spicy Rebel to Another

I woke up angry today.

I am angry that we are still having this conversation. I am angry that my daughter grew up in a world that told her the same lies it told me. I am angry that my nieces are navigating the same nonsense in new packaging.

But here is what I know:

The conversation changes when women like us refuse to be quiet about it.

When we tell our daughters — loudly, clearly, without apology — that strength is beautiful. That health is gorgeous. That a woman who is fully alive and taking up space is infinitely more powerful than a woman who is disappearing.

When we model it ourselves — by eating, by moving, by celebrating what our bodies can do rather than punishing them for how they look.

When we say — out loud, in public, on blogs that people actually read —

Skeletal is not a goal. Strong is.

And we are done pretending otherwise. I don't aspire to disappear. I aspire to be able to carry my own suitcase through the airport, hike to the overlook in a national park, lift my future grandchildren, and walk a 5K with my husband. Give me strong over skinny every single day.

With Rebel Love — Jeannie

P.S. — Salma Hayek if you're reading this: you are everything. Never change.

💬Are you fired up about this too? Do you have daughters or nieces navigating these impossible standards? Tell me everything in the comments. This is exactly the conversation The Rebel Age was built for.