Kristin Otts has issued a challenge:
The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, perfection is boring as hell. We are human beings. We are as diverse as the earth we live on. And we need to embrace it.
So, lovely readers, I have a challenge for you. I challenge you to help me start a wave of positive body image – a celebration of pimples and glasses and freckles and curves.
Post a picture of yourself – sans makeup, fashionable clothing, or a fancy-schmancy hairstyle. A picture of yourself in your PJs, hugging your teddy bear, making a stupid face. A picture of YOU.
It won’t be perfect, but that’s the beautiful truth about people. None of us are.
There was a time, age 12-14, when I did not wear shorts. I did not wear shorts because my knees were “fat”–thick and dimpled around the joints. All July and all August, too. I hid my body. I didn’t see that those were strong legs: legs that I hiked with, that I walked with (that same summer that I was thirteen, after my sister left for college, my mother and I walked every night at sunset the entire length of the town, my favorite thing about that summer, that stage in my life when there were few things to love, when I felt so unlovable). I don’t know where I got this idea, but I had it: fat knees, fat knees, had to hide them away.
There was a time, years and years and years, when I tried to smile with my mouth closed. This boy–a friend of a friend-turned-enemy–made a webpage about me when I was sixteen. “Phoebe’s teeth are attacking someone,” he said, and I knew what he meant, of course I knew what he meant–my “gummy smile,” the one that the orthodontist told me he could fix when I was 11, when my mother told him that my smile reminded her of my father’s. We can fix that, he said, but it will mean breaking bones, gum grafts, surgery.
I hadn’t even known there was something wrong with me. I hadn’t even thought I needed fixing before that. So for years, I smirked in photographs, but if you know me, you know that I love to smile, that I can’t help but smile, that everything shows on my face, especially joy. To this day, I can’t help but cringe at my grin, my genuine grin, in photographs.
Do all women–do all people?–feel like this about themselves, to varying degrees? Do we all think we need to be fixed, hidden? This has been a part of my thought process for so long that even now, when I try to change my attitudes, I still whine to my husband, “I’m fat, I’m fat, I have a double chin.” I don’t know how true any of it is–or even how earnest I’m being, and I’m generally pretty earnest. I know he thinks I’m beautiful. I know a college boy driving by in his car honked at me this morning, said, “Hey gorgeous” and I felt momentarily bolstered even as I felt assaulted and annoyed. Validated. Why can’t I validate myself?
Because this is a part of every woman–especially every young woman–I know, I try to put this in my books. How we see ourselves but don’t see ourselves as worthy. How something happens in our brain between the moment we see ourselves in the mirror and the moment we process the image of ourselves. I know that these thoughts are rarely accurate, and even if there are vicious people who would agree with them, that it’s all so, so subjective.
So this is what Irene thinks of her legs:
Irene pulled the drawer open, grabbing clean underwear, then the wrinkled black polo shirt and short cotton skirt that made up her work uniform. Irene hated the skirt. It was short enough that the male customers stared—she supposed that was the point, but it still made her feel self-conscious and lumbering, like her legs were huge, jiggling tree trunks.
And this, of course, is different from what Loril thinks:
Irene was an entirely different sort of wild. Her hair was coarse and unkempt and sheared short, like a man’s, as if she couldn’t be bothered to wear it any other way. Her long, finely muscled legs seemed stronger to him than any writhing, swaying tail. He imagined how they must have been forged—on land, running barefoot, the sand burning her toes.
He liked that image. He kept it in his mind when he spread himself out on a bench that night with his hands propped behind him to try and sleep. Irene—running through the surf, looking back at him and laughing, even beckoning to him to come join her. But he’d have to stay back, away from the water, feet firmly in the hot, dry sand.
Author: Phoebe
About Phoebe
Phoebe North is a 26-year-old writer originally from the fantastic (and possibly mythical) land of Central New Jersey. She currently lives in northern Virginia with her husband, her cat, a ukulele, and a comically large television. Though she doesn't put much stock in astrology, she, like most Capricorns, is stubborn, hard-working, and resourceful, and she dislikes ignominy and ridicule--though she suspects that most people dislike ignominy and ridicule, anyway.
Love it! And love that you included something so subtle yet so realistic to your writing.
I love the comparison! It’s so true to life, too. Alas, it always seems harder for us to believe we’re beautiful than for other people to think we are…
Also, this reminds me of houndrat’s post yesterday on Flaunting Your Awesome ( http://www.houndrat.com/2010/05/03/flaunt-your-awesome-day-thank-you-karen-healey/ ). Great minds think alike? Or maybe good body image is just the topic of the week
Ooh, I missed that–I’ll take a look!
Thanks, Kaitlin! Though I wish the world were a different place, that sort of constant self-criticism (and awareness of body) seems so endemic to young women to me that I can’t imagine leaving it out.
I LOVE both the post and the teasers.
Thanks, Kristin! I enjoyed your post and your call for posi body image love!
Awesome post. I love the snippets of your writing.
Love it! I like how you incorporated the body-image aspect in with your teaser. Nice job.
Thanks Becca! I love when other bloggers and my writing are on the same page. Great minds, or something.
Great post – and the part about smiling with your mouth closed for years was sad…because you have a stunningly beautiful smile
Aw, thanks–that’s sweet.
I liked this post a lot but it also made me so, so sad because I could never, ever have the balls to post a picture of myself without makeup or anything. I had the usual body issues in high school, “normal” quirks, but now I am so unspeakably self-conscious it’s like a nightmare. It took me TWO HOURS to take my profile picture for Facebook because I just kept deciding they were ugly when they all looked exactly the same. Normal and pretty-quirky. I have no clue how to fix this. :/
P.S. That’s one of the things that I like the most about you, you have so many pictures of yourself and you always look like you’re having fun in them. I can not take a picture of myself.
Aw, Janice. I think, like any other anxiety-related thing, part of it is just jumping in. I decided a few years ago that I would no longer untag photos of myself on facebook. I’m not sure why, but it just felt important to me to be honest about my appearance to others (of course, an old roommate claimed that was “easy” for me because I’m in a relationship; it’s definitely NOT easy when you’re feeling down about the way you look, which definitely happens to me.) To a certain extent, it comes down to pretending to be who you want to be. I want to be perceived as a happy person who’s comfortable with myself, even if I don’t always feel it, because I know that the more I hide, the worse I feel. So I fake it.
That’s good advice, I think I’ll try it. I never really thought of it as an honesty issue, but I guess it is in a way.
“Do all women–do all people?–feel like this about themselves, to varying degrees? Do we all think we need to be fixed, hidden?”
It’s not just women. You just hear women *talking* about it more because they’re allowed to.
Yeah, you’re right, of course. Productive, positive conversations about body image are rare enough, though, that I’m not sure if the social acceptableness of the conversations are really a plus. Often, it just ends up being “I hate my butt,” “I hate my thighs,” and so cyclic and intensifying.
Oh, I’m not saying the fact that the conversations happen more among women than men *helps* women. I think the norm of women being as openly critical about their appearance as they are is a pretty bad thing overall. I’m saying it skews the evidence about what’s actually going on in men’s and women’s heads. My point is directed at objective commentators like you and me; it’s not meant to be a consolation to women in general.
Also, even if the question is who is in a better position, it’s not obvious to me whether women or men are better off. Everyone — not just women — is held to high standards about appearance. It matters for everyone. But men aren’t allowed to even mention it, let alone complain about it. Just look at how John Edwards was ridiculed over a short video clip where he was having his hair done. That wouldn’t have happened to a woman. Yet, it’s not as if he had an option of just not caring. Men are between a rock and a hard place: if they care about their hair (for example), they’re subject to ridicule that would never be applied to women — but if their hair looks bad, they’ll also suffer.
Women at least have an *open possibility* to aspire to the happy medium you’re describing in this post. I would submit that it’s not as available to men.
Just look at how John Edwards was ridiculed over a short video clip where he was having his hair done. That wouldn’t have happened to a woman. Yet, it’s not as if he had an option of just not caring. Men are between a rock and a hard place: if they care about their hair (for example), they’re subject to ridicule that would never be applied to women — but if their hair looks bad, they’ll also suffer.
I don’t know, John. The minimum amount of grooming and fretting that women are supposed to do in our society to look socially passable is pretty high, unfortunately. I mean, look at Janice’s comments here about her facebook photos and how she has to gussy herself up. I’m not minimizing the pressures men feel, by any means, but in our society (more so in some geographic areas than others) there’s a very high level of maintenance–make-up, dieting, shaved legs, well-maintained nails and complexion–that’s necessary to even leave the house. I read an article somewhere once about how every choice a woman makes regarding her appearance (even if it’s to forgo maintaining her appearance) makes a strong political statement, that every choice a woman makes about her appearance is assumed to say something about her philosophy or sexuality or whatever. This, I think, is really the reason women talk about it more, and why it’s more acceptable. They’re immersed in it, at all times. The monologue is constant and takes up a surprising amount of time and effort.
Men’s choices make statements about their philosophies or social status or job or what not, too, but often these are muted statements, and there’s a lot more wiggle room. My husband will go months at a time without shaving his beard, and that does not become a statement about his sexuality or political alignment or socioeconomic status. The same can’t be said about, say, my deciding whether or not to cut my hair short, or brush it.
(The husband doesn’t even own a comb!)
That’s not to say that I can’t see what you’re getting at: these pressures and insecurities are universal. I just don’t know if it’s so weighted with men, and if the onslaught comes from all directions, and constantly, as it does with women.