Guest Post! “This body is mine to love, not yours to criticize.”

Today I have for you a really great guest post provided by J of Imagine Today, a blog which discusses feminism and politics as well as body acceptance. She’s written about society’s perceived ownership of women’s bodies, and how we pretty much need to tell the world to fuck off so we can be happy with ourselves. If you liked this post, I encourage you to visit Imagine Today, as there’s more where this came from!

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At the core of the ingrained insecurity that so many women feel in regards to their bodies, lies the idea of ownership.

From a young age women are taught that our bodies are not really our own. We’re told this by legitimate news sources, when they feel that it is acceptable to print pictures of a young woman’s vulva for ratings, or devote broadcast hours to the plague of “cankles.“

We’re screamed this message by anti-choice activists and the lawmakers that help them to push forward restriction after restriction all set to remind women that our bodies belong to them once a fetus enters the picture (or even before, when you consider those who fight to hard to restrict the pill.)

We see this when strangers, family, and friends turn a blind eye and rapists are allowed to invade our bodies, without consequence, as the crowd of public opinion quickly jumps in to decipher just what we did to deserve this invasion.

We’re sold this message by companies that push and push to sell us diet pills, spanx, diet plans, diet books, clothing, makeup, lotions… anything, really, to cut us down to size and paint away our uniqueness.

We’re reminded by magazines that tell women who are small to eat a sandwich preferably, I gather, one stolen from a woman deemed too big. Magazines that say eat this, not that and wear this, not that and do this, not that; never content until we’re all eating, wearing, and doing what they’re getting paid to tell us to do.

We’re reminded in whispers by friendly voices sharing secrets. Would you look at her? Who told her that skirt was flattering? Poor girl… she’d be pretty if she just lost/gained a few pounds. We may whisper back but all the while we’re wondering: what do they whisper about me?

We’re reminded even when we’re using our bodies to care for another – as person after person harasses us for breastfeeding in public.

Every day each one of us takes this all in, and yet, we don’t even seem to notice. We wonder why are women do damn obsessed with their bodies? Are they just shallow? Is it genetic? Have they evolved to care more about their bodies? Why doesn’t this happen to men nearly as much? The answer to all of these would be so obvious if we could just take a moment to open our ears and listen to the ever-growing chorus of voices joining together to lay claim and control over other women’s bodies.

Don’t get me wrong: plenty of men have body image issues… but, it’s different. These men are the minority, it’s seen as weird when it happens to them, as a problem that needs fixing rather than simply the way things are. Men are encouraged to own their bodies and care for them, strengthen them, use them to fix and protect and live. They’re not expected to shave and pluck and diet and primp and paint, to cover and reveal just enough to please the endless sea of ever watching eyes. They just have to be and do. They are granted ownership of their bodies and when they lose that ownership it is a problem that no one quite knows how to fix just yet.

Women, on the other hand, have their ownership stripped away earlier and earlier in this modern society and if they try to take it back? That’s when we have a “problem.”

That’s when we’re called names, when we’re raped or assaulted, when we’re sneered at and avoided. When we stop dieting and we’re looked at like alien creatures, shamed back into counting calories as quickly as possible… unless, of course, we’re naturally small. Then we are envied, tortured in whispers and jealous glares. Or worse, made invisible, ignored because our bodies don’t seem to fit the mold.

No. fucking. more.

Its time we learn about nutrition – not to lose weight, but to feed our bodies what they need to grow strong. It’s time we learn the rights that come with our bodies – and fight for a uterus free to decide what will dwell within it. It’s time we own the pleasure that comes with sex, and make our own decisions about when, where, and who we will share that pleasure. It’s time we put an end to “figure flattering” fashion and wear whatever the fuck we want. Time we paint our faces in a rainbow of colors, or none at all… depending only on how we feel any particular day. Time we stop judging other bodies, and start loving the unique magic each figure contains. Time we tell the magazines, the TV pundits, politicians, protesters, neighbors, friends, parents… everyone that this body is mine to love, not yours to criticize. Then, we will be free.

The Pointlessness of the “Real Women” Debate

Finally it’s being discussed by a newspaper (the media! dun dun dun).

So apparently the real women slogan started out in 1997 with Body Shop’s ad campaign which said “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only eight who do.” GEE THANKS, BODY SHOP. As if supermodels don’t have the same body image problems us layfolk do. As I’ve said time and time again, every woman has body image problems.

Since then, women have been caught in a pointless feedback loop as we debate what does and doesn’t constitute ”real women”. That the bulk of it is a marketing strategy – Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty, which sold a lot of fake-tanner, is a case in point – appears to have flown over most people’s heads.

So true! It’s just a marketing strategy which some parts of the body acceptance movement took to heart. I’m not even a fan of “real women” even if it includes skinnies because it still excludes supermodels. You know, the girl on the street could be a supermodel! I knew two in high school and I’d have had no idea. Some might argue that the “real” in this case is in reference to the Photoshoping and makeup and everything but I’ve most often seen it used to exclude thin women.

That said, I don’t have a problem with Photoshoping lighting, blemishes, adding makeup, etc. I do think it’s ridiculous when they change things that wouldn’t be changeable without camera tricks or makeup. Advertisements are supposed to sell you an ideal world; no one wants a pock-marked woman with weird wrinkles in her clothes to sell you a beauty product. I accept that because that’s how selling something works. But stuff like shaving inches off of Rihanna’s waist is unacceptable. Especially because Rihanna already has an amazing body!

More than one feminist commentator has pondered what women could achieve by redirecting the energy spent worrying about our bodies into more rewarding pursuits. But debating which woman’s body is more real is not feminist commentary; if anything, it is precisely the opposite.

So true! I’m glad that this has been brought out into the public eye.

By now, everyone should realise that the only people out there who aren’t ”real women” are men.

Amen. I mean, awomen.