Battered Suitcases Piled on the Sidewalk Again

Not to diminish your feelings on your relationship to your body, but how you think of yourself is up to you. It’s easy to blame the media saturation of thin, toned, air-brushed and mostly flawless women for your lack of self-esteem, and I doubt there is any woman on the planet who can claim to be entirely uninfluenced by what you call “an impossible standard.”  However, for every Elizabeth Hurley calling Marilyn Monroe “fat,” there’s a Kate Winslet apologizing for having been airbrushed, freely admitting she just doesn’t look like that - and doesn’t want to, either.

I won’t disagree that both of these above body types are, in fact, unattainable for most women: I know they are for me. I have neither the desire nor the willpower to be a size 2, and the only time I was that thin was when I was so poor I was literally starving and subsisting entirely on brown rice and frozen peas once a day. But I also hope I will never be a size 16, because at 5’4” with an A-cup and nearly no ass, being that size would simply be unhealthy for me. And there’s the caveat - it’s what’s you’re comfortable with. It’s unfortunate that your relationship with your body is “a big pile of shit,” and I cannot say with any honesty that I can relate or even fully understand, because I don’t know you or your circumstances. I’ve always been an athlete, am apparently blessed with okay genes and am lucky enough to dislike most of the foods that help people put on weight: I don’t like sweets, cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, soda, bread or chips, for the most part. I recognize that I probably have fewer hurdles than many people in the body image department because of these things, but I also don’t believe that even if these were not my circumstances, I wouldn’t still strive to stay within a range I am comfortable and happy with. Of course, there are days I wish I were a C-cup with big hips, days where I think I should try for some semblance of ab definition, and many days where I lament the stretch marks and the bags under my eyes and my inability to tan, but for the most part, I try very hard to remind myself that I am a beautiful, relatively fit young woman with awesome hair, and most of the time I feel like that, too.

Most of my friends are male, and perhaps I am just blessed with the good fortune to know solid young men, but very few of them, if not none at all, would choose the top photos over the bottom. This isn’t to say that my opinions are still being colored by how a man views me - it is merely a reaffirmation that beauty is not a skin and bones hologram of a real person. Men may have the posters of a size 0 Jessica Alba, a plastic Pam Anderson, but how many do you know that actually think that’s what their girlfriend should look like, and who turn down anyone who isn’t? Do you fault your significant other for not looking like Alexander Skarsgaard or Ian Somerhalder? I doubt it. My best friend would never even consider dating a man shorter than 5’10. I, on the other hand, don’t care much about height. Where I may not find a man attractive because he’s “too pretty,” that same man may be irresistable to her. I absolutely will never date a scrawny, hairless man ever again - but that doesn’t mean no other woman will find that same man undeniably sexy.

One last point: Basing this solely off what I’m gathering to be the tone of your comments, in which I could be mistaken, you’re using the phrase “white ciswomen” - a large part of the American population - derogatorily, which simply alienates any females who identify that way. It’s offensive to use that term as this sort of backhanded insult. I’m female and generally identify as a traditional woman, despite my fluency in power tools and sailor cursing, but I don’t see that as bad thing. I know that, for me at least, it has been a conscious and well thought-out decision how I present myself physically, and for right now, I am incredibly happy with I’ve chosen. You’re demeaning a huge part of your fellow women by insinuating that those who look and act more “traditionally” are somehow less than those who don’t. Where does that get you, and how does it help in your crusade for more positive body issues? You’re still just insulting others, and not making any leaps towards bettering the situation for those women who don’t fit into what you deem a “ciswoman.”

I truly believe our generation is wising up, for the most part, and we know that the tripe Hollywood and scandal sheets are feeding us is unrealistic and not even that aesthetically pleasing overall. It’s not that it’s an impossible standard - it’s just an impossibly boring standard. No one would be at all interesting if they had to spend that much time at the gym to be a size two, and in the end, your dress size doesn’t matter even nearly as much as creativity, conversation and cleverness. We as women would be prudent to remember this before we ascribe shallowness upon all potential partners, whether they be male or female - but especially male. It’s as unfair as any stereotype about women, be it bad driving, gold-digging or not being funny. How do we expect anyone to change their own views on body image when we ourselves are nitpicking photos that are clearly intended to be positive?