"If I'm the Seated Woman with the Parasol, I Will be Safe in My Frame..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

I am angry. I am really goddamn angry.

Because we live in a world that gets up every morning and says to women, "We've created a standard of beauty. If you don't conform to this standard of beauty, we will make you feel valueless and unlovable. And we will do it at the same time we assure you that it is the cultural norm to feel that you don't conform to this standard of beauty no matter what you do to achieve it." We live in a world that cheerfully fucks you up and tells you it's normal and acceptable.

We do not try to make women feel beautiful. We make them feel insufficient. Women are conditioned to need male validation of their beauty, because the women around you just tell you that you look fine out of "loyalty". And it's wrong to weigh anything, and if you don't, you still need to be thinner. And it doesn't matter how thin you are, you still need to dress right. And if you leave the house without makeup, that's obscene. Not dressing your hair is slovenly. Shave your legs. Pluck your eyebrows. If you don't have large breasts, you're not desirable, but if your breasts are too large, that's also unacceptable.

Maybe most women do not have actual clinical eating disorders, but God knows most of them have the eating disorder mentality. We think with eating disordered brains, because this society encourages that. Does anyone else read the comic strip Cathy? It is designed by this society. It is a perfect example of every single thing wrong with our collective mentality towards female beauty, because it basically validates that mentality as a "normal" one.

And that is just not acceptable. That is not acceptable.

Insurance companies will not pay for inpatient eating disorder treatment unless the woman is physically malnourished. I met a girl to-day who told me that when she went to see a therapist for self-esteem issues, the therapist told her she wouldn't have them if she just lost some weight. I met a girl across campus who was telling me how upset she was because she "broke a hundred". Pounds. This girl is a college student. One of my friends describes herself as "the whale girl". She is only a little bigger than I am. Her roommate, who is otherwise a perfectly nice person, believes that this girl could look better if she just "ate less junk". We don't even support each other to believe in our beauty as women. We don't look for current beauty, we insist that beauty is something we must achieve.

And that is a lie. It is a lie. We are beautiful here and now, in and of ourselves. We are beautiful as the people we are. There is nothing to be achieved. There is absolutely nothing to be attained. Our societal standard is shite, and no one can make me believe that's not true.

And at the same time, no one can make me believe that I'm beautiful. I've been working on this for five years, and I still can't force my brain to believe in myself as a worthy, lovable human being at my current weight. That is insane. That is, I'm sorry, evil, and I believe that it's evil because I know I am years away from being the only woman who feels this way. We have been being told this by the world for so long that it's ingrained, and we can't just make it go away. I can tell women as a whole that they are all beautiful, and not many of them are going to believe me, not truly.

We are so insanely beautiful. Teach that to your children. Tell it to the people around you. Make that the social standard. Beautiful, dammit. So beautiful. Weight loss should never be encouraged as a beauty measure, as a self-acceptance measure. Help all the women around you see themselves as beautiful people and accept themselves as they are. Don't make beauty a goal. Make the realisation of beauty the goal.

For God's sake. Because things are not okay the way they are.

Go and tell that.

Comments

[nowgoesquickly.livejournal.com]

You're perfectly, absolutely correct on every count. Ours is a society that hates women who refuse to abide by the expectation that we be nonthreateningly decorative at all times. Although we pretend otherwise, the Victorian convention of the "angel of the house" -- that useless invalid whose sole function is to be frail and delicate to highlight the strength and capability of her keeper -- still prevails. We still like our women incapacitated and helpless, and we prefer that they look beautiful while being incapacitated and helpless. Those who are demanding, assertive, uncompromising, and who (God forbid) don't bend over backwards to make themselves presentable, are ostracized.

One of my favorite bromides about women who don't "make the effort" to prettify themselves is that they must lack self-respect. They don't take pride in their appearances, which is why they skip the elaborate ritual of trowelling on makeup, styling their hair, squeezing themselves into tight, uncomfortable clothes, and wearing high heels. It can't possibly be that they are completely comfortable with their looks. They must hate themselves to presume to set foot outside without adorning themselves first.

It's such a backward way of thinking, and says so much about the values we place on beauty and femininity: If a woman isn't conspicuously, conventionally beautiful, she must have no inner sense of her own worth. Her character is irrelevant; it's what's external that counts most.

It's total bullshit. I'm glad that you see that. ♥

P.S. Cathy represents everything that is wrong with the way this culture perceives women.

[la-mia-cara.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, YES! Thank you, love. It's so very true. And I relate to the last paragraphs, too - because, hell, I do like my looks, but I still have days when I look into the mirror and can't think anything but "big hips. TOO BIG". And I know I'm thin. And I know there are lots of women who aren't as thin but still look absolutely gorgeous. This is so warped, it's so twisted that you know it's society that makes you feel insufficient, and by your own standards you aren't, but society's standards become your own, because you have to survive in this world, with other people, and you internalise all those stupid things without even wanting to. I don't like not shaving my legs, and even though I know this is probably just because it's considered normal in society to shave them, this standard is so internalised that society's aesthetic norms become my own.

... I could rant on for hours and not say anything that hasn't been said already.

♥

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

Lady. I don't really identify as female--but I feel so empowered by what you're saying.

Allow me to go shout this from the rooftops.

[la-mia-cara.livejournal.com]

I could just pretend that you love me -
the night would lose all sense of fear.
But why do I need you to love me
when you can't hold what I hold dear?

I only ever saw this on an individual level, but ... it fits so well in all kinds of settings and situations.

[little-lady-d.livejournal.com]

there's a delightful thing, a small thing -- on campus, in one of the ladies' rooms, someone wrote in permanent marker 'you look beautiful today.' and i thought, how perfect, because that's what ladies do in ladies' rooms, they worry over how they look, they check their make-up and fuss over blemishes, they wonder whether they wore the right outfit today, wonder if they should lose weight, wonder if they're be acceptable ... and how nice, if while they're doing these things, they can just catch sight of those words. 'you look beautiful today.'

[erinpuff]

You ROCK. RAGE THE HELL ON. <3333!!!! This post is so getting added to my memories, because it's just that awesome and FULL OF TRUTH. And do you mind if I link to it in an LJ post?

Do you by any chance read kateharding.net? It's one of my favorite size acceptance blogs (I, uh, read a lot of them ^^), and going through the entire archives in one weekend helped a lot when the calorie counter on my treadmill sent me into a bit of spiraling woe.

[tinyammmy]

I don't know if this helped you... but it helped me. Thank you. <3

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[reconditarmonia.livejournal.com]

You are beautiful, my lady. And what's more, you are intelligent and kind and creative and passionate and wonderful. (So there.)

(your subject line reminds me that i still haven't finished setting "Camille," it's been what, two years now? i am so sorry. i should get on that instead of writing lousy piano pieces.)

[lokogato.livejournal.com]

ffnfasdf I love you. I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU.

Do you mind if I link this? ♥

[bewareofitalics]

Beautiful rant from a beautiful girl. *snuggles!*

[jiasachan.livejournal.com]

So true, and so infuriating.

Fuck, I have an excellent body image by comparison to many women, but when I get upset, when I am not feeling good about myself, the first place that energy goes is into criticizing my appearance -- as if whatever is going on in my life would get better if only I could be pretty enough. But there is no "pretty enough."

Most of the time I don't think I want kids. But a little part of me wants to raise someone to think of themselves as beautiful and brilliant and to spread it all around and tear the entire destructive system down.

[tomecatti.livejournal.com]

You're eloquent when you're angry.

While the phrasing was a gag, and a bad one, the sentiment is true; this is so pointed and true and, gad, you're amazing. I love you. And you really are beautiful; so many women are beautiful and they don't know it, and of course beauty isn't all there is to women, and there are so many men who are handsome without it bein gall there is to them but it's a different problem, and.

<3 Soujin, you're a marvel.

(And it just struck me that I don't really have a place to say how true this is, since I'm not a woman, since I don't experience it, not first hand, and I can't understand but I can see it? I can see the perceptions, and I can see the beauty, maybe? And in any case, I can know that you're right.)

[ladybretagne.livejournal.com]

I love you for saying this. I do. Because no matter how relatively lucky I have had it thanks to a thick skin and a wonderful family, there are still days when the fact that I can't wear every cute bit of clothing I see makes me want to curl up in bed and stay there. And that? Is ridiculous. I am a successful, college educated woman and I'm concerned about THAT? Fuck it. FUCK IT.

You are beautiful and, more importantly, you are brilliant and eloquent and kind and many things that, frankly, are far more important. <3

[azurai.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely, 100%. Going to an all-girls school, I see this all the time. Now, granted, the girls here really do support each other in ways that I'm not sure they would if they weren't at this school, but despite how much all of us, students, teachers and administration alike strive to encourage each other to see our own beauty as it is, we have a very difficult time fighting back the lingering feelings of self-doubt that have been implanted in our minds by the world around us. it's sick, especially how we often can see the beauty in those around us, but not in our selves. no matter how many times people like my mother and my best friend tell me that I am beautiful, I can't see it most of the time, can't accept that it is there because, in part, our society teaches us that recognizing that beauty is vanity and is a sin. the other part, I am somewhat horrified to realize, is just habit. even though on some level I am content with the way I look, I am constantly finding things wrong with my appearance, just because that's what everyone does and I've always done it too, so why stop? the problem isn't the mirror, the problem is what people are telling you you should be seeing in the mirror, what should be there. just as a side note, the other day, I found an ad in a magazine that listed what humans can use plants for. one of those uses? "We can use plants to make women more beautiful." EXCUSE ME? I don't need plants to make me, or anyone else, more beautiful. the ad made me so angry that I tore it out of the magazine as a way to remember that it isn't the mirror, it's the society.
(sorry, but you're totally right and I had to rant.)

[bluefate.livejournal.com]

One of my friends went through something during first year where she was sick of all compliments on beauty. And really, some days it just seems like a worthless quality. Yes, attractiveness, sexuality, but it doesn't and shouldn't convey worth of a person. Annoyingly enough, if you fulfill beauty standards, you will get hired and people will feel more welcome to talk to you ... but it really, really shouldn't matter so much.
And yet a woman's worth is tied so closely to her physical features.... It makes me so happy to go to a woman's college.

Linked here from lokogato and typed this up before realizing it was a different lj....um... Yay, rant! :3

[eremon-lass.livejournal.com]

AMEN! Thank God that someone has then sense to say this out loud. I wish more women, and men, would step up to the plate on this the way you do.

It's always hard for me for many of the reverse reasons: for the most part I actually fit into the "American standard"-or I can make myself with appropriate application of clothing, makeup, and a variety of other enhancers. And you know what? I don't, because I'm fine with a flat chest and "childbearing" hips and glasses and all those other little things that supposedly don't fir the standard.

I wish this bothered more people. Or, I suppose more accurately, I wish this bothered more people enough for them to say something about it. We humans created these misconceptions, now it's up to us to end them.

((And as a side note-I think you are lovely inside and out, and any moron who thinks otherwise about you or anyone else can expect a ticking package on their doorstep from me.))

[scuttling.livejournal.com]

Linked from lokogato.

I don't know what to say - there are too many things that would probably only be redundant.

Thank you. I hope that in time, you can accept 100% that you're beautiful. Thank you.

[squeakyorm.livejournal.com]

Linked, like so many other people, from lokogato, and, well ... while none of this is news to me, it makes me very, very happy to see this opinion expressed where I don't expect to see it.

♥

[josiana.livejournal.com]

&hearts Thank you so much. I needed to read something like this today.

Do you mind if I link people to this?

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Linked by elvenmongoose. This was a great read. ♥

[jelliclekat.livejournal.com]

Here from lokogato.

This?

Maybe most women do not have actual clinical eating disorders, but God knows most of them have the eating disorder mentality.

Is me. Dead-on. I love to eat, and food is what keeps people alive, and so I eat. I figure skate, so I know my weight is fine.

And yet, when I gained ten pounds of muscle from said skating, I freaked out. A lot. I had weighed 120-125. Now I weigh 130-135. This is a perfectly normal, healthy weight for me. But I still have this stupid fucking voice in the back of my head telling me that I looked so good when I was younger and was stick-thin--not because I starved myself, but because I never exercised and was depressed and had hardly any appetite.

Why the FUCK do I have to convince myself that gaining ten pounds of muscle is a good thing? Why does it take so much effort to be happy about how fucking strong I am? Why do I desperately wish I could fit into my old skinny jeans? Why can't I be happy about the gorgeous leg muscles I have now?

Some days, I actually think about just...not eating. I have the willpower. I'd be capable of it. But I've also seen what happens to people who do that, and I don't want to BE that. I want to be strong and healthy and not be too thin.

So why do I have this stupid goddamn voice in the back of my mind saying "it'd be so easy, all you'd have to do is drink a lot of water so you'd feel full, you lost seven pounds the week your dog died and you almost stopped eating...come on, you'd look so pretty."

FUCK YOU, voice. Fuck you. I don't know how you got in my head. I've never read those goddamn ~*women's magazines*~ with the airbrushed models. I've never hung around people who told me to lose weight. In fact, when I was borderline underweight, I had people around me who were concerned, asking if I ate enough. I don't understand why I ended up having the Voice anyway. I can't get rid of it.

I can't read books like Skinny Bitch because I think those books would take my eating disorder mentality and turn it into an actual eating disorder. And I hate feeling weak like that. Books like that should roll off me, but they don't.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. The next time I notice myself thinking I'm fat or should eat less or something, I'm going to remember this post and remind myself that I am beautiful, so fuck the goddamn unrealistic standard of beauty.