Ok, but brace yourselves, because this is actually a serious post that I have been thinking about for a while. I wrote up some thoughts on the topic a couple months ago, but Kathy's visit, which brought with it a number of serious chats about body image, gave me the impetus to actually proclaim what has become a cultural taboo as of late:
I do not love my body.
Typing that, having it written, seeing the words, I feel this urge to clarify, "I mean, I don't hate my body" or "I respect my body's physical abilities," but these urges get right to the heart of the problem that I think really needs to be addressed.
We are bombarded with what are, from most arenas denounced as unattainable bodies, published in magazines and sashaying on television. It has become so pervasive that we often times don’t even realize how horrifically thin an actress is unless a tabloid points it out. Surrounded by air brushed bodies and an elite who can devote unending time and money to their physical upkeep, there has developed a defensive coping mechanism amongst so-called average women. Women have begun to proclaim that they should not compare themselves to that standard of beauty. True beauty is to love yourself, cellulite, love handles, arm hair and all. Instead of prosecuting the fashion and entertainment industries, your average North American woman has opted to denounce the women who let this impossible standard of beauty make them feel badly about their bodies. We start writing off women who order salads, "side dress, hold the cheese and croutons," as shameful and shallow and perpetrating a body type which is so difficult to attain and fraught with frightening implications for young women.
This mechanism, which my friend Kathy so appropriate posed as the question "Can a feminist go on a diet?" has the potential to do almost as much damage as the industry which has lead to unhealthy body images and mass body dismorphia amoungst young women. When I told Kathy that I just had no perspective on my own body, and that it scared me that I perhaps had some sort of body dismorphia, she responded "I'm pretty sure all girls our age have some form of body dismorphia." Sometimes I am truly repulsed by my body, particularly when I am in cobbler’s pose in yoga, where my impressive flexibility allows my forehead to touch the soles of my feet, providing a panoramic view of my folded-in-half gut: I shudder in revulsion at what is going on with this body of mine. Self-depricating? Perhaps. But honest. And not, given all the images that pervade our social consciousness, unreasonable or inexplicable. I don't consider myself ugly, there are just times, lots of times, when I wish my body were different than it is.
My friend Claire confessed to me a while ago, “Sometimes I just wish I was rail thin. I mean, I love being curvey, but I wish I could wear a sack sometimes and have it look stylish.” I was kind of shocked by this statement for two reasons. One, I considered it to be a self evident fact that most people would rather be thin. If you disagree, I am sorry, but you’re a damn liar. This society privileges the svelte. It is easier to live in Western societies if you are blessed enough to be thin – this point is not up for debate. The second thing that surprised me was how instantly Claire felt guilty about having confessed this, and felt the need to amend her statement with a retroactive prologue - "I mean, I love being curvey..." - to assure me that she still was content with the body she has.
Why are we so ashamed about not liking our bodies? We have started to feel bad about the fact that we do, in fact, feel bad about our bodies. It is a perpetuating shame. Why?
We are told that if you are strong and confident, that those qualities are what make a woman sexy. That only the truly naive would believe that what they see in media is an achievable standard of beauty for average women. There is even an unspoken accusation of laziness; if a woman was really so unhappy about her body, wouldn’t she do something about it? I think it needs to stop.
We hate the women who hate their bodies. We condescendingly pity them and their obvious lack of insight and maturity.
Maybe it's because we see these insecure girls as the remnant which holds us back from being gloriously self-indulgent. As long as you have one friend who asks for dressing on the side of her salad, you will be nagged with guilt for eating a pint of Hagan Daaz. That girl with her dry greens is a bitch, making you feel bad about yourself. Bitch, bitch, bitch. And so we concoct self aggrandizing slogans about acceptance and comfort in one’s own skin, natural beauty, etc, etc. I even read in the February edition of Elle Miranda Purves explaining that “In your teens and early twenties many – I dare say most- women have days, or just PMS strained hours, when something about their appearance strikes them as intolerable, monstrous...By your thirties, hopefully your body has been loved by someone over the longer haul, and other priorities take precedence.” The implication of these lines is that a) unhappiness with one’s body is an immature, even teenaged, phenomenon which we grow out of once b) someone else loves our body or c) we just figure, “fuck it.”
It is being forced on us that we have to be happy with who we are or else we are immature and shallow.
Sorry, but fuck that.
I am not going to feel guilty that I don’t like my body anymore. It’s too hard. The shame of admitting to your friends “yeah I wish I was thinner,” just makes that longing you have for a fitter frame even more painful. It is as though if we admit displeasure with our body it will immediately lead to concerns about psychological health, the dreaded worry your friends will start whispering about “ssssp psssp ssssp...eating disorder...” And it does drive women who feel unhappy about their bodies to make it a battle they deal with when they are alone in the dark, out of fear that their friends will write off their complaints; "oh shut up, you look beautiful," or "you just need to be comfortable with the weight you're at when you're at it." Really? Thanks. If I could do that, I may not have confided to you that I loathe my saddlebags and think they are repulsive. But yeah, totally, mind over matter.
I don’t think I am alone in wishing I didn’t have cellulite and that my thighs were slimmer and my butt were rounder. Why do we ostracize ourselves from each other by refusing to admit it and turning into pariahs those who do?
An interesting website, which I am not entirely sure I support as a wholly healthy body image promoter, despite their mission statement being to give women perspectives on their bodies is My Body Gallery. Us average girls upload body shots and give our dress sizes, weight and height, and you can go forth from there to see what women with your proportions actually look like. It could be helpful for gaining insight and perspective (though it was really just disheartening to find that there were no images of women whose proportions matched mine...).
Group hug guys.
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