Yea… I know. I’m behind af on my posts. Life.
My body image is conflicted at best. Until the recent BoPo movement I have never felt good about my body. You see, I am not this:
I am more like this:
Fat phobia is real and it was taught to me young by society, the media and my own family. I don’t need to explain that to anyone, and go see prior posts of mine about childhood bullying on this issue.
As an adult, I fight my own hatred of my body on the regular. Even though I know my ingrained self-hatred is bullshit, that doesn’t make it any easier to get rid of that shit. Some days I stand in front of the mirror and see myself in the nude, and I am filled with such a feeling of revulsion and disgust- it’s breathtaking. And so, incredibly sad.
However, strides in society and discourse are giving me hope. There are more brands that manufacture good looking clothes for big people: Eloquii, ASOS, and other brands that are branching into the plus size market, which gives us more choices. Since the majority of American women are now in this category, IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME. Sadly, we still have vastly fewer choices than our skinnier sisters.
And this makes me happy. I hope someday to see this become mainstream.
The other thing that I struggle with is the comment that some people make to me- “you don’t look like a lawyer.” Sometimes approvingly, sometimes not. Let’s examine this.
What does a lawyer look like?
- I have several visible tattoos.
- I have crooked teeth.
- I have subtle rainbow hair.
- I hate suits and rarely wear them.
- I often wear fanciful, retro clothes from Modcloth.
- I buy the majority of my clothes secondhand (by choice).
- I take FULL ADVANTAGE of casual fridays at our office.
- I crave a nose piercing and more tatts.
So no, I don’t look like a lawyer. I look like a real person. I look like me. I look at the above as the “costume” I have to wear occasionally. Did I win you case/fix your problem/help you out in whatever way? YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I DID, JANICE.
Let’s examine our assumptions about people and see what’s within, shall we? Let’s examine who is deciding what is beautiful and what is not- why do they get to decide? And why do we have to decide? Why must be create the ingroup and outgroup on physical characteristics, which may or may not even be in the control of the person? Why don’t we decouple attractiveness with worthiness? We do NOT need to destroy people over shit that is superficial.
Res Ipsa Loco 