Tag: body image

Inspiration

Image from Book Trust: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-features/features/2017/october/ten-of-the-best-feminist-books-for-children/
There are so many inspiring people in the world- so many people with a bigger audience and who speak far more eloquently than I can; thus I have been suffering from a bit of an inferiority complex or maybe I simply lost sight of the point. Reminding the odd person that vaginas are strong and give life, questioning the odd derogatory term and getting annoyed at political powers has seemed a little insignificant.

Listening to Helen Pankhurst speak was inspiring and my search history and friends know me well enough to send me lots of inspiring videos. So honestly I haven’t had anything to say that others haven’t said louder than I can.

However, as the majority of my Christmas presents involved symbols of feminist strength within reality and fiction. I was reminded that every voice is important and valid.

So my present to you is some hope and inspiration that can be found within these videos and links. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

May 2019 bring more opportunities for everyone to meet their true potential without restriction.

Anne Hathaway speaking at a Human Rights convention: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PeLNRMrAEUA
Part of Trevor Noah‘s show: Afraid of the dark:  https://m.facebook.com/heyrevelist/videos/1919572955022884/
For the record, anything Trevor Noah does is worth watching!
These women inspired me – a change in perception about body image is happening and these women played a part. http://huffp.st/XkcG92X
Children’s literature is helping to make changes in the younger generation: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-features/features/2017/october/ten-of-the-best-feminist-books-for-children/

Planting seeds

Female body image portrayed in the media is toxic. This isn’t groundbreaking news but apparently this common knowledge isn’t enough to stop it. So we each fight our own personal battles from the humiliating baseline that we are not naturally emaciated  as well as the female body generally considered shameful in one way or another. The other day a small victory happened from a surprising source which has given me so much hope.

My husband and I had a big wedding celebration in Johannesburg a few years back, in summer, so it was due to get pretty hot. I was helping my mum pack and she only had thick t-shirts and dresses with sleeves. My mum doesn’t do hot. She melts at anything above 23 degreesC.  I told her she needed vests and sleeveless tops, to which her answer was ‘oh no, I don’t like the tops of my arms and everyone will see my flabby bits’.

This was not a shock, I have heard it from women far younger and skinnier than my mum. I’ve heard it from myself plenty of times historically. However, since I decided to not give a fuck about what other people think of my body, I have become more comfortable and happy in my own skin; I have stopped trying to prove something through my appearance and have become far less self-conscious.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t got it cracked and I’ve certainly not a healthy BMI score. But I am happier. I do have more self-worth.

So I gave my mum the rant I have given so many times before to essentially brick walls: “who gives a flying fuck what other people think of your appearance? If they honestly don’t have better things to think about than your flabby arms or wrinkles at the top of you armpits, then I would be more concerned about their pitiful, meaningless lives than about your body.” This time I added, Mum, “you have fought cancer and won who gives a shit about other people. You are going to die in 35degree heat- wear a fucking vest top!”

So she bought vest tops and wore no sleeves for the full 2 weeks she was there. A massively significant victory for me and my mum. 

But here’s the lesson that has struck me. She now attends slimming world and is enjoying it, not for other people but for herself; she feels good. In the heatwave we’ve had this year, her fellow slimmers have admired her ‘courage’ in wearing sleeveless tops. When they comment on her ‘bravery’ she gives them the speech I gave her, just with less swearing. I don’t know if those ladies have gone on to show their armpit folds and bingo wings but the seed has been planted. And that seed was planted by my mum, which makes me excessively happy.

 

Jameela Jamil giving a perfect real-life example:  https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jameela-jamil-body-shaming_uk_5b9a249be4b041978dbff413

A post about the impact of negative female expectations: Negative distribution

Negative distribution

As I have reflected on my own thoughts and views of women, men, restrictions and equality, I have realised that many of the moments in the mirror – the self-doubt – sound an awful lot like the words of some women I have known.

Friends who have had distinct views on men and relationships have influenced me and shaped my thoughts at different times in my life. We are all surrounded by each others views all the time, especially now that we can give them from across the world. Even when you don’t agree with a view, it still has the ability to stick with you years on. One woman I knew viewed men as a tool who were not allowed to get too close; the other would bend and mound herself to what the stranger, aka potential husband, might possibly expect of her. When the relationship went south, one would blame the men for whatever slight she could remember and the other would blame herself for whatever ‘crime against perfection’ she could find in the mirror.

Here’s the clincher, both women were confident, funny, talented and beautiful, which they knew…until a man entered their lives. The patriarchal programming was jarring to me at the time and sickens me in retrospect.

I was once told by one of these ‘friends’: “if you don’t wax your arse, he’ll never want to stick his dick in it”. As if it was my responsibility to remove hair I didn’t know I had, just in case a guy I had just met wanted anal sex. My response was along the lines of it being ‘his problem’ but the shock from the depth of that statement has rung with me for a long time. The implication that if a man doesn’t want to have any kind of sex with me that it must be my fault! That something as natural as body hair could make me unattractive! That my appearance could be such a turn off after I had wooed them with my personality and wit!

In my darkest moments, I felt naïve that I had underestimated the aesthetic appeal, that I was a joke for thinking I could ‘compete with beauty’. However my façade, and now my darkest voice too, calls bullshit! My dad’s last argument against my first tattoo was ‘what if you meet a man who doesn’t like tattoos’, to which I responded ‘well I won’t like him very much either, so he’s obviously not the man for me!’  I stand by that. If you don’t like me for how I am, fuck off. I am not contorting, waxing, plucking, starving myself for anyone. I like me. I am funny, interesting, clever and strong, whether my legs are hairy or not. No “double agent for the patriarchy” (J Jamil, 2018) is going to tell me otherwise.

So I guess my point is that I am now much more critical when listening to well-meaning advice. For generations upon generations, we have been programmed by the patriarchy but at least if we can be aware of it and censor the programming from being redistributed from our mouths to other women, we stand a chance of evolving.

Read more about female body image: Planting seeds