My friend Lauren shared a photo she took of me in Belize. I am in a pool, sun shining, mojito in my hand, a huge smile on my face. When I look at it, I am transported to that perfect moment, can smell the sunscreen and hear the howler monkeys nearby. I probably looked at it a dozen times before it occurred to me that all I saw was happiness.
This is a milestone my younger self would never have imagined because younger me would have only noticed my belly. A little pouchy from menopause or too many cocktails or a bad angle or … whatever. I just didn’t see it. And once I did? I still don’t care.
Do you remember the exact moment you learned to hate your body? I was in high school, the only freshman to make the varsity cheerleading squad. I overheard some football players talking about me, and heard one comment that I wasn’t “hot enough” to be on the squad. Another added that, “If she would lose ten pounds, she’d be f*ckable.”
I want to tell you how I walked into that room and told all of those stinky, stupid boys that lions aren’t concerned with the opinions of sheep, especially sheep with terrible acne and no prefrontal cortex.
But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. What fourteen year-old girl would?
That night, I studied my naked body in the mirror, seeing my body as if for the first time. I felt shamed, vulnerable, scared, unworthy, and fat.
I weighed 108 pounds.
For the next two decades, my secret mantra became that I was always only 10 pounds away from being f*ckable. I exercised. I deprived. I straightened my curly hair and shoved my breasts into push-up bras and endured the daily, debilitating pain of huge astigmatism contacts (because my dumb younger self thought that hot girls don’t wear glasses). I learned to make do with salads when I wanted the pasta. All the while hating my body, living with a toxic combination of both wanting to be seen and wanting to be invisible.
Every woman I know – regardless of skin color or cultural background – has a similar story. Our capitalist, colonized, patriarchal society has taught women to hate ourselves on a cellular level. We are told at puberty to start shaving off any hair that dares to grow anywhere except our head. We are told we need “sanitary” supplies, as if menstruating is a dirty and embarrassing thing. We are told that everyone with a vagina is in direct competition with each other for the male gaze and attention. And if you’re Black or Latina or wear a hijab? Forget it. No matter how beautiful you are in reality, you’ll never quite be white or thin enough for this country.
We are told to be small, act small, worry only about how we look and constantly ignore how we feel. How many moments of love and joy and awe did we miss because we were just so hungry?
Deep down, women know this. Still, we compare ourselves, find ourselves lacking and then, in our insecurity and grief and rage, we lash out at each other instead of fighting the very foundations of society. We judge each other’s body shape, cattily wondering if she’s had work done or is on Ozempic (I do not understand the shame surrounding GLP-1 medications, but that rant is for another time).
If we would invest half as much time, money, and energy into building an authentic life as we do into becoming some unreachable image of perfection, we could really change the world.
I imagine many of my male readers scratching their heads here, completely baffled. What a privilege to truly not understand this level of self-criticism (though social media is involving you in this nonsense too, especially if you’re gay or trans or – god forbid – starting to lose your hair. If there is profit to be made from anyone’s self-hatred, America will throw your sense of self under the capitalist bus).
It’s taken me many years of real work – and a daily meditation practice – to come to a place of such peace. “Aging out” of the male gaze certainly helps. If I do something to “improve” my looks (a pedicure, some hair highlights, whatever), it’s now because I like the way it looks. It’s none of my business what you think of my appearance. I look the way I look, and my appearance is the least interesting thing about me.
And if I know you, I think you’re beautiful. But that beauty arises from who you are and not how you look. I also think you’re smart or brave or funny as hell. Ask me about any of my girlfriends and I will tell you how she loves George Strait or how she will drop my name in a room of opportunities. I’ll tell you how she just kills it on the dance floor or how she brings me freshly baked bread.
Stories are powerful medicine ladies. Share yours below.
Do you remember the exact moment you learned to hate your body?
When was the first time you were cat called?
Are you a Me Too survivor (um, almost all of us are)?
Do you feel personally victimized that Oprah – inarguably one of the most powerful women on the planet – is still talking about weight loss incessantly?
P.S. This is a personal story, written with the understanding that everyone is going to have an opinion about the accompanying photo. But other people’s opinions of my body have taken up too much headspace for yearrrrrs and that isn’t healthy is serving my own sense of self-love. So please do not comment on my body. I don’t need reassurance that I looked “good enough” to be that happy. I was happy.