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Apr. 6th, 2005 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_belle_laideSometimes, like most people, I suppose, I get totally down on how I look and I can fall into the whole self hate thing. Once in a while I say to myself, "hey, fatass, go look for diets and excerize on the internet, find something that will get the job done fast." With some combination of keywords including "weight loss" "fat" and some other things, this page came up.
So you know, I'm not one of these Sark-quoting, guru-following new-agers, and often a page done in this color of purple sets off my alarm bells: "Hippie nonsense! New-age spiritual wannabes! I'll bet there's a drum circle involved!" But instead, it did have a really interesting point of view:
Patriarchal culture, I learned, subjects woman's belly to both overt and covert violence. The modern methods of disempowerment include sexual assault, unnecessary hysterectomies and Caesarean sections, restrictions on women's authority in pregnancy and childbirth, and reproductive technology that depreciates women's wombs. They include belly-belittling diet schemes, Barbie dolls, pinch-an-inch apparel with built-in corsetry, and instant-slimming undergarments. (snip)
Patriarchal culture, by definition, literally hates women's guts. For thousands of years Western culture has made war on women's bellies; such brutality has made the belly an uncomfortable place in which to be. I understood why so many women, myself included, have suffered through compulsive dieting, compulsive eating, anorexia, and bulimia, enacting the ambivalence we feel about our bellies. In a culture which subordinates women and shames women's bellies, those of us who have internalized the culture's animosity can all too easily make the belly the focus of our self-contempt.
Isn't that totally interesting? I've never looked at it that way before.
Inspired, I wondered if I could find a website that had similar views on the standards to which we hold our faces, you know, big eyes, chibi noses, high cheekbones, huge lips and all of that. It would be nice to see web pages that encouraged acceptance instead of rejection. To that end, I went out looking for sites on an anti cosmetic surgery.
Note the first page that comes up if you google these terms. It's maddening that not only the first site on the list, but most of the subsequent ones, are on "anti aging and cosmetic surgery." Pro cosmetic surgery! Even if you google the exact phrase "anti cosmetic surgery", most of the pages that come up are still PRO cosmetic surgery, with the mention of "anti cosmetic surgery" being more along the lines of, "I'm not against cosmetic surgery! Trust me, I'm not!"
This just makes me so sad. When I was a kid, and all through my teenage years (and a bit into college,) I would try to find ways to purposely break my nose so that I would have no choice but to look different. Sometimes the thought is still there, very, very quiet in the back of my mind: "If I had a totally minor car accident... If I took a fall and didn't get otherwise hurt..." What makes me the maddest is that I can't honestly blame anyone for my own problem with feeling ugly, it really all comes from me, and even more maddening, (probably more to people around me like my family and friends,) all the "but you look fine!" speeches in the world don't make a dent.
But it's not just me, though, it's practically everyone I know at different stages of life. My friends and cousins and I go through this all the time. "How can you say such things about yourself? You're beautiful!" "No, I"m not, but you are, so what's your problem?" "I am not! Look at all this fat! If I looked like you I would have nothing to worry about!" And none of us feels any better about ourselves after that whole non-conversation.
I think that we live in a world of body dysmorphic disorder. But it's very hard to convince oneself that one's hangup is caused by a simple disorder when other people see it, too. Body dysmorphic disorder deals with imagined defects. But one wonders, how can they call those defects "imagined" when other people have pointed them out? It would be very easy to say, "Oh, I just have BDD, I should forget about it," but for that one factor. Sort of like seeing a penguin sitting on top of your television set, you telling yourself, "that penguin isn't really there; if I ignore it it will go away," meanwhile other people in the room are going, "hey, guys! Look at that penguin!" Kinda ruins it for you, you know? ;)
(The ever helpful [read: irony] DSM book [perhaps my least favorite book in the world, ever,] says of body dismorphic disorder: "Although we still do not have a single clear cause for body dysmorphic disorder, authorities believe that biological, psychological and perhaps even social or cultural factors contribute to its origins." Gosh! Ya think? Because I was thinking that aliens were planting chips in people's brains to make them feel certain things. Wow, you really do learn something new everyday.)
What in the world is the point of all of this? I dunno! I really did go looking for pages that spoke out against the way we cut ourselves up and re-make ourselves, and I could nardly find any. Nothing, though, has ever said it better than that one episode of The Twilight Zone, Number 12 Looks Just Like You. I should go watch that one again.
So you know, I'm not one of these Sark-quoting, guru-following new-agers, and often a page done in this color of purple sets off my alarm bells: "Hippie nonsense! New-age spiritual wannabes! I'll bet there's a drum circle involved!" But instead, it did have a really interesting point of view:
Patriarchal culture, I learned, subjects woman's belly to both overt and covert violence. The modern methods of disempowerment include sexual assault, unnecessary hysterectomies and Caesarean sections, restrictions on women's authority in pregnancy and childbirth, and reproductive technology that depreciates women's wombs. They include belly-belittling diet schemes, Barbie dolls, pinch-an-inch apparel with built-in corsetry, and instant-slimming undergarments. (snip)
Patriarchal culture, by definition, literally hates women's guts. For thousands of years Western culture has made war on women's bellies; such brutality has made the belly an uncomfortable place in which to be. I understood why so many women, myself included, have suffered through compulsive dieting, compulsive eating, anorexia, and bulimia, enacting the ambivalence we feel about our bellies. In a culture which subordinates women and shames women's bellies, those of us who have internalized the culture's animosity can all too easily make the belly the focus of our self-contempt.
Isn't that totally interesting? I've never looked at it that way before.
Inspired, I wondered if I could find a website that had similar views on the standards to which we hold our faces, you know, big eyes, chibi noses, high cheekbones, huge lips and all of that. It would be nice to see web pages that encouraged acceptance instead of rejection. To that end, I went out looking for sites on an anti cosmetic surgery.
Note the first page that comes up if you google these terms. It's maddening that not only the first site on the list, but most of the subsequent ones, are on "anti aging and cosmetic surgery." Pro cosmetic surgery! Even if you google the exact phrase "anti cosmetic surgery", most of the pages that come up are still PRO cosmetic surgery, with the mention of "anti cosmetic surgery" being more along the lines of, "I'm not against cosmetic surgery! Trust me, I'm not!"
This just makes me so sad. When I was a kid, and all through my teenage years (and a bit into college,) I would try to find ways to purposely break my nose so that I would have no choice but to look different. Sometimes the thought is still there, very, very quiet in the back of my mind: "If I had a totally minor car accident... If I took a fall and didn't get otherwise hurt..." What makes me the maddest is that I can't honestly blame anyone for my own problem with feeling ugly, it really all comes from me, and even more maddening, (probably more to people around me like my family and friends,) all the "but you look fine!" speeches in the world don't make a dent.
But it's not just me, though, it's practically everyone I know at different stages of life. My friends and cousins and I go through this all the time. "How can you say such things about yourself? You're beautiful!" "No, I"m not, but you are, so what's your problem?" "I am not! Look at all this fat! If I looked like you I would have nothing to worry about!" And none of us feels any better about ourselves after that whole non-conversation.
I think that we live in a world of body dysmorphic disorder. But it's very hard to convince oneself that one's hangup is caused by a simple disorder when other people see it, too. Body dysmorphic disorder deals with imagined defects. But one wonders, how can they call those defects "imagined" when other people have pointed them out? It would be very easy to say, "Oh, I just have BDD, I should forget about it," but for that one factor. Sort of like seeing a penguin sitting on top of your television set, you telling yourself, "that penguin isn't really there; if I ignore it it will go away," meanwhile other people in the room are going, "hey, guys! Look at that penguin!" Kinda ruins it for you, you know? ;)
(The ever helpful [read: irony] DSM book [perhaps my least favorite book in the world, ever,] says of body dismorphic disorder: "Although we still do not have a single clear cause for body dysmorphic disorder, authorities believe that biological, psychological and perhaps even social or cultural factors contribute to its origins." Gosh! Ya think? Because I was thinking that aliens were planting chips in people's brains to make them feel certain things. Wow, you really do learn something new everyday.)
What in the world is the point of all of this? I dunno! I really did go looking for pages that spoke out against the way we cut ourselves up and re-make ourselves, and I could nardly find any. Nothing, though, has ever said it better than that one episode of The Twilight Zone, Number 12 Looks Just Like You. I should go watch that one again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Hi
Date: 2005-04-07 04:54 am (UTC)I felt kinda like you did about the whole "Hippie nonsense! New-age spiritual wannabes!" stuff, so I wasn't about to believe all the hype about "dancing just makes you feel more beautiful"...but it does. Two months ago I got up the nerve to watch myself in the mirror as I practiced, wearing only a sports bra and pajama pants. Imagine my surprise at discovering I was no longer bothered by the fact that I wear an XL and my stomach sticks out more than is fashionable.
I guess there's really no words for it, it's just a feeling. Not a "look at me! I'm fat and proud of it!" feeling, more like "it's my God given right to dance and feel beautiful if I want to".
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on in your comments section; at least not quite so incoherently. My only excuse is that it's after midnight and I should be asleep.
I'll shut up now, just want to add that "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You" and "Midnight Sun" are the two most frightening episodes of The Twilight Zone ever written.
Re: Hi
Date: 2005-04-07 11:51 pm (UTC)You said it!
I used to do a lot of belly-dancing, too, and then I moved on to Hula. Quite different, but I find the culture to be quite similar, and that one of the thoughts was similar: there's no such thing as too fat to dance.
You didn't ramble, you made lots of sense. :)
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Date: 2005-04-12 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-04-14 01:01 am (UTC)