I Made a Truce With My Hips
I was watching a show on Life Network here in Canada yesterday called "X-Weighted". I don't know if they show it in the U.S. or not. Anyway, it's a show that features a person each week who really wants to lose weight and pushes their body to the limit in order to do so. Yesterday, it featured a young married woman who weighed about 239 pounds. She wanted to get down to 160 and thought for sure she could do it in 6 months. (Sister, I admire your optimism, but unless you want to move to Ethiopia or go on the Dr. Bernstein diet ...)
Anyway, it struck me as I watched this show, and it has also struck me as I have watched similar shows, that this woman had an extremely pretty face. I would even go so far as to say she was beautiful. I thought to myself, Okay, you're a large woman, but you're far from unattractive. She was married, she had a cute husband and two adorable kids. She felt badly about herself, though. They had this self-esteem "expert" come in and look through her closet to assess her wardrobe, and her wardrobe definitely reflected her lack of self-esteem. She had no skirts. None. Her entire wardrobe consisted almost entirely of track suits and baggy tops and pants. Her comments really horrified me too. When the guy asked her if she ever dressed in anything sexy, she said, "God, no." She never showed her legs or anything. She obviously hated her body, and was totally ashamed of the way she looked. Yet I thought, and I'm sure most people who saw her would agree, she was a very pretty girl.
Believe me, I am far from happy with my body. There are parts of myself I wish I could hack off, I hate them so much. My hips, for one. I can't stand them. Ever since I was about twelve years old they have haunted me and made me so self-conscious. Yet, sometimes I can be compassionate with my hips. I feel that rush of disgust and hatred when I look at them, and then I think, You know what, hips? I'm sorry I say such awful things to you. I know if you could be different, you would be. You don't look the way you do to spite me. You are there for a reason. And I need to start thinking more about the reason you are there then how much I hate how you look. You're a part of me, and for me to hate any part of myself is really a sin. It's not right.
This woman was obviously in the mode of hating her body and not giving it any slack at all. It's so sad what we women do to ourselves. We are bombarded with bullshit at every turn telling us how we ought to look. Who the fuck is anyone to tell us how we ought to look? Why don't we all just band together and give them a giant middle finger? Why don't we get angry about it more often, why don't we rebel ... why do we keep taking it? Why do we keep trying to conform?
We need to be kinder to ourselves. We need to look in the mirror and see the beauty in us that other people see. We need to be grateful for it.
Anyway, it struck me as I watched this show, and it has also struck me as I have watched similar shows, that this woman had an extremely pretty face. I would even go so far as to say she was beautiful. I thought to myself, Okay, you're a large woman, but you're far from unattractive. She was married, she had a cute husband and two adorable kids. She felt badly about herself, though. They had this self-esteem "expert" come in and look through her closet to assess her wardrobe, and her wardrobe definitely reflected her lack of self-esteem. She had no skirts. None. Her entire wardrobe consisted almost entirely of track suits and baggy tops and pants. Her comments really horrified me too. When the guy asked her if she ever dressed in anything sexy, she said, "God, no." She never showed her legs or anything. She obviously hated her body, and was totally ashamed of the way she looked. Yet I thought, and I'm sure most people who saw her would agree, she was a very pretty girl.
Believe me, I am far from happy with my body. There are parts of myself I wish I could hack off, I hate them so much. My hips, for one. I can't stand them. Ever since I was about twelve years old they have haunted me and made me so self-conscious. Yet, sometimes I can be compassionate with my hips. I feel that rush of disgust and hatred when I look at them, and then I think, You know what, hips? I'm sorry I say such awful things to you. I know if you could be different, you would be. You don't look the way you do to spite me. You are there for a reason. And I need to start thinking more about the reason you are there then how much I hate how you look. You're a part of me, and for me to hate any part of myself is really a sin. It's not right.
This woman was obviously in the mode of hating her body and not giving it any slack at all. It's so sad what we women do to ourselves. We are bombarded with bullshit at every turn telling us how we ought to look. Who the fuck is anyone to tell us how we ought to look? Why don't we all just band together and give them a giant middle finger? Why don't we get angry about it more often, why don't we rebel ... why do we keep taking it? Why do we keep trying to conform?
We need to be kinder to ourselves. We need to look in the mirror and see the beauty in us that other people see. We need to be grateful for it.
posted by emily pound at 11:30 AM
3 Comments:
Hi Jennie,
Thanks for your comments. I don't know why the words "fat" and "ugly" became synonymous either. And what about "thin and ugly"? Have seen plenty of those.
I am not a political person, I hate all the posturing and pontificating, but even I can see the need to buckle down and really take charge of our rights. I don't understand why so little been done. I know NAAFA has done a lot for fat people, but evidently not enough, because there is still plenty of work to be done.
Dear Emily:
You see the problem.. this woman is beautiful and doesn't see it. The same is true if you watch a show about anorexics.. you look at them and feel horrible that they're painfully skinny, and yet they see themselves as too fat.
But... how about you? You are a beautiful woman about whom it would be correct to say you are fat and beautiful, not because the two are synonymous, but because both terms are applicable to you.
Don't make a truce with your hips. Be proud of them. They are curvy and beautiful, and more importantly they are a part of YOU. They don't define you, but they are a part of you. A truce suggests a continuing state of war. Make peace and love, not war.
One of the things that really self loving women of all sizes discover is that others perceive them as attractive in the same ways that they do. Those who aren't happy with their own bodies and looks project that negative body image to those around them who come to feel the same way.
Revel in those hips and all the other curvy body parts which are you.
Huge
Oh, Huge,
Why can't all men be like you?
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