Category Archives: body image

April 9, 2023 · 9:03 AM

Your body is not an object

Facebook is a weird place. Though I have my friends list pretty well curated, every now and then something comes through my newsfeed that at best raises my eyebrows, and at worst infuriates me. What follows is one of those times. It was accompanied by a picture of a young women from behind, wearing very short shorts (I am not including the picture), and was followed with cries of “Amen!”

Young ladies, this is for you!!!

A woman arrived in a store wearing clothes that showed her body all too well. The shop owner, being a wise older man, took a good look at her, asked her to sit down, looked straight into her eyes, and said something she would never forget for the rest of her life.“Young Lady, everything that God has made valuable in this world, is covered up and hard to see or find.”For example:

1. Where can you find diamonds?• In the ground, covered and protected.

2. Where are the pearls?• Deep in the ocean, covered and protected in a beautiful shell.

3. Where can you find gold?• Underground, covered with layers of rock, and to get there you have to work very hard and dig deep.

He looked at her again and said, “Your body is sacred and unique to God.”You are far more precious than gold, diamonds, and pearls, therefore you must be covered too. He then added: “If you keep your precious minerals like gold, diamonds, and pearls deeply covered, a “reputable mining organization” with the necessary machines, will work for years to mine those precious goods.

First, they will contact your government (family),

Second, sign professional contracts (marriage),

Third, they will professionally extract those goods, and tenderly refine those precious goods. (marital life).

But if you let your minerals find themselves on top of the Earth’s surface (exposed to everyone), you will always attract many illegal miners to come, exploit, illegally, and freely take those riches and leave you without the precious goods God gave you!

WOMEN, YOU ARE VALUABLE!! ❤ Remember – Class is more desirable than Trash.

Author – Diane Walls.

Holy moly.

First, the human body is not an object. Let’s just start there. I don’t care if you’re comparing it to pearls or gold or diamonds, objectifying it is problematic in and of itself. Do we want other people to think of us as objects or as people? We are more than our bodies! We are not “precious minerals” to be mined, and the whole analogy is creepy and unnecessarily sexual.

And this whole idea of contacting your family and signing contracts and being “extracted” and “tenderly refined?” Yikes. Your body belongs to you. Full stop. It does not belong to your family. It does not belong to your partner. It does not need to be hidden. It is not up to someone else to “tenderly refine” anything about you. You’re allowed to take up space, and to show up in the world in the way you feel the most comfortable. Your body has worth because YOU have worth. I don’t care what you are (or are not) wearing.

The last full paragraph reads like a page out of the Victim Blaming handbook. If we expose our body, we’re told, it will “always attract many illegal miners to come, exploit, illegally, and freely take those riches.” It is no different than saying that someone who was dressed “provocatively” was asking to get sexually assaulted. To be very, very clear: If someone is assaulted, or disrespected, or treated poorly, it is 100% the fault of the perpetrator, 100% of the time. Dressing a certain way does not give someone carte blanche to treat you the way that they like. Ever.

Finally, that last line?

“Class is more desirable than Trash”?

It is not classy to judge someone on their appearance. It is not classy to treat someone as lesser-than because they are dressed in a way you disapprove of. It is not classy to call someone “trash”! Dressing a certain way does not make someone trash, nor does a lack of covering up. Even if I’d agreed with the entire previous tome, she would have lost me at the last line. It’s not nice to call people trash. Also, class is more desirable than trash? I thought the whole point was to make yourself less desirable? Is it okay if you’re desirable if you’re dressed “classy?”

And make no mistake. If you feel more comfortable in conservative clothing, great! It’s your choice to make. The beauty is that we ALL get to choose how we’re most comfortable. When my daughter (15 at the time of this writing) asks me my opinion on what she’s wearing, my questions are simple. “Are you comfortable? Do you feel good in it?” If she answers in the affirmative, she is good to go. Actually now that I’m thinking about it, even if she’s physically uncomfortable, it’s still her choice to make. People make all kinds of interesting choices in the name of fashion. 🙂

I’m far more concerned with how we treat each other – regardless of how we’re dressed – than I am with how much skin Suzy Thompson happens to be showing.

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Filed under body image, hot topics

March 5, 2015 · 10:13 AM

I’m Pretty

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Last night when she was getting ready for dance class, Tegan looked in the mirror and said (as matter-of-factly as if she were commenting on the weather),

“I’m pretty.”

“You’re very pretty,” I told her, and the words came easily and confidently, not just as her mother but also as a human being who knows beauty when I see it.

Her statement was so lovely.  So simple, so accepting, as if there were never a question in her mind.  Of course I’m pretty.

And I couldn’t help but think…. when did I stop believing I was pretty?  Did I ever think I was pretty?  Did I think I was pretty when I was seven?  Did someone tell me I was pretty?

All I could remember were the negatives, like holes left from nails in a piece of driftwood.  The surface has long since healed, but the scars remain.

The comments that I was chubby, and (ironically) at other times in my life, too thin.

The reminders about calories, and fat grams, and exercising.

The girl at school who told me was my nose was too big.

The teasing that came when puberty hit, and along with it, horrible skin.

The friend who asked if it made me feel bad that I wasn’t as pretty as my sister.

The other friend who told me I was ugly when I didn’t pull my hair back.

The abusive boyfriend who told me my hair was too long and too poufy, my thighs were too big, and my boobs were too small.  And seriously, when was I going to cut my %&$@! hair?

The coworker who complained that I was stupid (which has nothing to do with physical appearance, but is somehow always there, along with the others)

When did I decide to accept this?  When did I start letting any of it define me?  All I knew was that at some point along the way, it shaped my truth.  It became my internal dialogue.  Did I ever make the conscious choice to CHOOSE to believe it?  Or was I powerless to stop it?   I didn’t know anymore.

“I’m pretty.”

And here is my daughter.  This confident, innocent, beautiful child, who I would do anything to protect.  I am careful – so careful!! – not to verbalize my issues in front of her.  No complaining. No degrading.  No self-deprecation.   When people have told me she looks like me I’ve completely resisted the urge to respond, “Are you kidding? She looks nothing like me.  Look at her, she’s gorgeous!”  And when she looks at me, in her honesty and her love and all her seven-year wisdom and says, “You’re so pretty Mommy”, I smile, and I say thank you. And in that moment… I feel pretty.

But it’s not enough, is it?  To pretend and smile and say the right things and grab the fleeting moments when they come?

I want what she has.  That thing I lost, so long ago.

It’s a lesson she’s teaching me, and will continue to teach me until I get it right.  Not just to feel comfortable in my skin, but to feel fabulous in my skin.  To OWN my skin.  To be able to look back at all those negative voices and say,

“YOU DON’T DEFINE ME.”

I’m working on it.  And if the lessons I’ve already learned, both from Tegan and the boys, are any indication, I’ll get there.  I’ll be able to join her in that mirror, and see a face that’s strong and confident and kind and smart and be able to say,

“I’m pretty”, and mean it.

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Filed under about me, body image, random, Tegan

February 14, 2013 · 7:53 AM

That Girl Needs To Lay Off The Cheeseburgers

Does that title make you uncomfortable?  Good.  It’s supposed to.  It made me uncomfortable to write it.  We’re supposed to be bothered by such derogatory comments, because we all know (or at least, we should know) that they’re unkind and hurtful.  I sincerely hope that if you’re reading this right now, that we can agree – whether you’ve ever said something like that or not – that picking on someone for being a larger size is not a very nice thing to do.

What I’m wondering then, is why on earth it seems to be so socially acceptable to knock someone for being very thin?  When did this become okay?

Hold that thought.

Last Sunday was the Grammy Awards.  I get more excited about awards shows than I rightfully should.  I love them.  I do.  I love music and movies and television and pop culture in general; I love the pomp and circumstance; and I love the revealing of the answer to the scintillating question that’s on everyone’s minds:  What will the stars be wearing??  It’s true.  There’s something strangely thrilling about watching pretty people in dresses that cost more than my car.

My husband, who would rather have extensive elective dental work than sit through more than 3 minutes of an awards show, was beside me in body but not so much in spirit… so I virtually watched it alongside hundreds of other people via Twitter and Facebook.  It was interesting following all the commentary in real-time.

Adele’s wearing color!

Chris Brown and Rhianna are publicly canoodling even after he assaulted her.

Oh. Em. Gee.  It’s Justin Timberlake!

And then came the body-shaming.  “Someone feed Taylor Swift a sandwich.”  “Nicole Kidman needs a cheeseburger.”  “Faith Hill’s gotten way too skinny.”

Again, I have to ask:  When did this become okay?  If we can all agree that it’s not right to negatively point out someone’s larger size, why shouldn’t the same hold true for those on the other side of the spectrum?  Why should we be critiquing others’ bodies at all?

The day after the Grammys, I was looking through a pictorial of the attendees’ dresses on a popular entertainment website.  On the side bar, two previous articles caught my attention:  The first, an article touting celebrities’ best-kept weight-loss secrets.  Right below it?  “The most scary skinny bikini bodies.”  Is it any wonder society is so confused, with that kind of disparity?  Lose weight, lose weight, lose weight!!  Too skinny, too skinny, too skinny!!

I used to be the “too thin” girl.  I’m not anymore  – my 39 year old body has resolutely decided to naturally carry 20 more pounds than my 29 year old body – but once upon a time I was the one being told to “eat a couple sandwiches.”

It’s hurtful, and it’s embarrassing.

I remember being at a holiday party once, all dressed up and feeling festive and pretty.  I was shivering, literally shaking, because it turned out I was coming down with the flu.  A friend of a friend looked at me, and said, loudly enough for the whole roomful of people to look at him, “It’s because you’re so damn skinny.  You need to eat something.  I can practically see right through you!”

15 years later, I can still remember exactly what he said, and exactly how it made me feel.

Dove has an ad campaign called “Real Women” that mostly features women with curves.  Real women have curves, these ads cry.  And you know what?  Sometimes they do.  And sometimes real women have no curves.  Sometimes real women are tall and lanky.  Sometimes real women have big boobs, and sometimes real women have no boobs.  Sometimes real women have no hair, and sometimes they have hair everywhere.  Sometimes real women have flabby thighs and flat butts and muffin tops.  Sometimes real women have big ears and stretch marks and bony knees.  Sometimes real women sit behind a desk all day and wear a size zero.  Sometimes real women spend all day in the gym and never get below an 18.

Sometimes real women laugh when they want to cry.

Can we stop with the body shaming?  I am so, so tired of a culture that fights so hard against a “thin is beautiful” mindset that it’s only succeeded in carving the second side of the same damn coin.

Thin is beautiful.

Big is beautiful.

Healthy is beautiful.

Strong is beautiful.

Vulnerable is beautiful.

Happy and confident and kind are beautiful.

We never know someone’s story just by looking at them.   Can I say that I again, because *I* seem to forever need to reminder?

We never know someone’s story just by looking at them. 

It’s easy and convenient to assume that a diet or a sandwich will cure someone’s supposed “flaws”… but it’s far more kind (and so much more productive) to never see them as flaws to begin with.

(I wrote about this same subject here)

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Filed under acceptance, body image, hot topics, judgement, love, rant, self image