Tales of Our Bodies
Truthfully, the significance of a woman’s body is what continues to place it at the center of everyone’s gaze. It's innate engineering which spurs creation is why we gaze.
In front of the floor length mirror plastered behind my closet door, I stared at my bare body and took a deep breath. Before completely letting the air out, I stood there and admired my stomach. I’m not sure if it was the sight of my rib cage forcefully poking out of my skin or the pseudo curves in my waist line that I temporarily included as part of my silhouette. I held my breath for the next minute, or at least as long as I could before my lungs forced me to exhale.
Turning to the side, I started noticing my side profile, zooming in to see if there was any contrast from where my derriere ended to where my thighs began. Somewhat satisfied at what I saw, I was relieved my legs weren’t small enough to be touted as “chicken legs”. Though, I wasn’t fat enough to be curvy. I was just stuck in between.
It didn’t help that my friends and I were heading to the beach in a week where everyone either weighed more than me or were skinny enough that their androgynous body was seen as art. The size of my body shouldn’t have mattered. After all, self love was the only real love that mattered. But, at this moment, it did. And for many women, that moment in the mirror was not a vain, frivolous timestamp. It was a time to calibrate our body and the perceived desires of our body, all of which placed us somewhere on the spectrum of desirability.
I was ashamed to even think that way. My community would probably be perturbed to hear me succumb to the requirements of society’s gaze, especially the male gaze, but to pretend the pressure did not exist tends to feel a bit naive. Whether you claimed your voluptuous body or broadcasted your slender figure, it’s delusory to pretend like we all aren’t looking for some external validation. The less tempting our body is to be a subject of gaze, the less we feel as fitting of society at large.
To complicate matters even more, the new body trends continue to appear each decade further questioning our value and worth. This decade, it seems like the seams of crop tops crawl higher, revealing more of our torsos. Slowly but surely, editorial images have planted the message that a hyper skinny figure is the “new” standard to reach.
As for the rest of us, we’ll be staring aimlessly into our mirrors trying to meet unrealistic requirements as we decline the extra carbs at dinner and attempt to join the nearest fitness class. Some choose to blame the Kardashians for setting crazed expectations for one’s silhouette, as they sport (plastic, but) tiny waists with huge derrieres. Some choose to blame the fashion industry for setting trends that drive crazed diets and body aesthetics. Others choose to point fingers at the beauty industry for selling women dozens of beauty supplies to meet such pseudo standards.
It should come to no surprise that society defines a woman’s worth largely based on one’s physical aesthetics, which makes women so susceptible to body-targeted marketing. But, truthfully, the significance of a woman’s body is what continues to place it at the center of everyone’s gaze. It is the innate engineering of a woman’s body that spurs creation and brings new life into this world, which is the real reason why we gaze. A woman’s body is a malleable element, constantly expanding and condensing. Unfortunately though, in its most vulnerable moments, it’s easily molded.
Celebrities like Lizzo have tried to alter our understanding of body language by redefining what has historically been understood as “body normative” standards. I’d offer to the conversation that to resituate a woman’s bodies as a malleable force is what makes it powerful in that we have the autonomy to mold our body into whatever you want it to be.
When celebrity and music/fashion icon Rihanna continued to be in pictures with her pregnant body, she set a trend for many pregnant women to shamelessly reveal their baby bumps. What was so beautiful about those captured moments was the agility and flexibility of her body, constantly expanding while society gazed. The narrative of her belly was a celebratory one; we relished in her beauty, her fashion, and the new life that she brought into this world.
Likewise, I have to remind myself that my body’s silhouette tells stories of moments in time. As I think about the days when I was under 100 pounds in elementary school, when I struggled to gain weight in middle and high school, with growth finally making its way in my college and early adult years, it became more apparent to me that the silhouette of my body grew as I grew through life. As I look to the future, I try to not fret about how to maintain or alter my body weight. Instead, I choose to look at my body as a continuous narrative whose ebbs and flows will align with the journey of my life.
Our bodies, particularly a woman’s body, are a series of tales; they are physical manifestations of the stories from our lived experiences. As you peer at your own body, what story is it telling and what narrative will you claim?
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