Body Acceptance: not just for fat chicks
Looking a certain way is not how people begin to like the way they look.
Out to lunch the other day, a woman of a certain age, who’d clearly had work done (whatever that means to you) and was of similar build to Ally McBeal was at a table across the restaurant from me. She was in a form-fitting dress and had her makeup done expertly. At the table next to me, two women (likely of a similar age to the woman across the restaurant) were discussing her.
“She thinks she looks so good. It’s gross when women think they are better than you, just because they are pretty.”
“Yeah- it’s annoying to see women who are so proud of how they look.”
I thought to myself, “does any woman feel so proud of how she looks?”
In my work with women who are learning to accept themselves, I have had clients who are in every different physical description. Tall, short, blond, black, larger, smaller. I’ve worked with athletes who dislike their bodies and I’ve worked with women who desire no more physical activitiy than is required in daily tasks of living. I’ve worked with women who dislike their bodies and are so underweight they’ve been required to seek medical intervention. And I’ve worked with women who dislike their bodies who are in bodies so large it is very difficult for them to simply stand up. The only through line I have seen in women who don’t like how they look is that they are women.
A Google search for “body acceptance” delivers several posts about how harmful it is for skinny women to post about body acceptance. The complaint is that the marginalization and discrimination faced by larger-bodied women is overshadowed when a straight-sized person talks about accepting herself. “It must be easy” for women who look a certain way to like who they look, is the assumption.
I don’t deny the challenges of not fitting in to chairs in public. Having to ask for a seatbelt extender in an airplane is not only an extra task straight-bodied people don’t have to do while traveling, it has a lot of feelings associated with it (couldn’t they just have extenders in a bucket to grab as you board?). Some people are denied raises and promotions because of their size. Weight stigma has hurt people financially, emotionally, and socially.
I also know of straight-sized women who have had signs taped to their backs reading “kick me, I’m flat,” who have been turned away from jobs for not being skinny enough, and who have been shamed for the size and shape of their nose or their feet or how pale their skin is.
Mikala Jamison writes about how prolific dissatisfaction with one’s body is among all women in her post Is any woman *not* a little fucked up about her body?
People who are infuriated with, disappointed in, and otherwise upset by the choices others make about their bodies are not people who feel entirely peaceful about their own. Agitation about a stranger’s body or body changes — whether they’re thin or fat, whether they gain weight or lose it — is not springing from true concern for their well-being, it’s springing from projection and damaged self-esteem. It’s OK to have damaged self-esteem. Welcome to the club. But we have to know what we’re doing.
Jamison talks about a fictional young girl “Zoe” who is so carefree in her own skin that she enjoys playing naked outside, and ponders if such a thing could be possible for a woman. She goes on to say: The body acceptance concept, obviously, is not bad. But some of the loudest voices in the room can be pretty bad.
The Zoes are probably not talking about bodies on the internet, anyway. They’re probably not thinking much about their bodies at all. They’re just out there, living.
Have you had a taste of this- of just living? No worries about your body or how you are perceived? To let go of this is truly going against the grain. Going against tradition, history, and the way many cultures have existed forever. So please don’t be discouraged that it is so hard to do.
And please remember: just because you think someone looks pretty or pampered or wealthy or thin or young doesn’t mean she feels good about herself. Doing things to alter ones appearance doesn’t usually equal self-acceptance.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
~Carl Rogers