internal-acceptance-movement:

10 WAYS WE BODY SHAME WITHOUT REALIZING IT:

1. Saying Things Like, “She Would Be So Pretty If…” 

Have you ever uttered anything along the lines of, “But she has such a gorgeous face” or “She would be more beautiful if she put on a few pounds”? You are limiting your idea of beauty to a cultural stereotype. Beauty is not conditional. If you can’t say anything nice, maybe it’s time to learn how.

2. Judging Other People’s Clothes 

While it’s fine for you to choose clothes any way you want, nobody else is required to adhere to your style. The person wearing that outfit is, in fact, pulling it off, even if you think she’s too flat chested, big chested, short, tall, fat or thin. And fat people don’t have to confine themselves to dark colors and vertical stripes, no matter who prefers it. And spandex? It’s a right, not a privilege.

3. Making It an ‘Us vs. Them’ Thing 

The phrase “Real Women Have Curves” is highly problematic. Developed as a response to the tremendous body shaming that fat women face, it still amounts to doing the same thing in the opposite direction. The road to high self-esteem is probably not paved with hypocrisy. Equally problematic is the phrase “boyish figure” as if a lack of curves makes us somehow less womanly. The idea that there is only so much beauty, only so much self-esteem to go around is a lie. Real women come in all shapes and sizes, no curves required.

4. Avoiding the Word “Fat”

Dancing around the word fat is an insinuation that it’s so horrible that it can’t even be said. The only thing worse than calling fat people “big boned” or “fluffy” is using euphemisms that suggest body size indicates the state of our health or whether we take care of ourselves. As part of a resolution to end body shaming, try nixing phrases like “she looks healthy,” or “she looks like she is taking care of herself,” and “she looks like she is starving” when what you actually mean is a woman is thin.

5. Making Up Body Parts 

We could all lead very full lives if we never heard the words cankles, muffin top, apple shaped, pear shaped or apple butt ever again. We are not food.

6. Congratulating People for Losing Weight 

You don’t know a person’s circumstances. Maybe she lost weight because of an illness. You also don’t know if she’ll gain the weight back (about 95 percent of people do), in which case earlier praise might feel like criticism. If someone points out that a person has lost weight, consider adding something like, “You’ve always been beautiful. I’m happy if you are happy.” But if a person doesn’t mention her weight loss, then you shouldn’t mention it either. Think of something else you can compliment.

7. Using Pretend Compliments 

“You’re really brave to wear that.” By the way, wearing a sleeveless top or bikini does not take bravery. “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful.” These things are not mutually exclusive — a person can be fat and beautiful. “You can afford to eat that, you’re thin.” You don’t know if someone has an eating disorder or something else; there is no need to comment on someone’s body or food intake. “You’re not that fat” or “You’re not fat, you workout,” need to be struck from your vocabulary. Suggesting that looking fat is a bad thing is also insulting.

8. Thinking of Women as Baby-Making Machines 

One of my readers mentioned that her gynecologist called her “good breeding stock.” Also awful: “baby making hips.” Worst of all is when people ask fat people when they are due. As has famously been said, unless you can see the baby crowning, do not assume that someone is pregnant.

9. Sticking Your Nose in Other People’s Exercise Routines 

A subtle form of body shaming occurs when people make assumptions or suggestions about someone’s exercise habits based on their size. Don’t ask a fat person, “Have you tried walking?” Don’t tell a thin person, “You must spend all day in the gym.” I have had people at the gym congratulate me for starting a workout program when, in fact, I started working out at age 12 and never stopped. I had a thin friend who started a weight-lifting program and someone said to her, “Be careful, you don’t want to bulk up.” How about not completely over-stepping your boundaries and being rude and inappropriate?

10. Playing Dietitian 

If you have no idea how much a person eats or exercises, you shouldn’t tell her to eat less and move more or suggest she put more meat on her bones. (Even if you do know what she eats, don’t do it). How do you know she’s looking for nutritional advice from you or the newest weight-loss tip you saw on Dr. Oz?

Written by: Ragen Chastain

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kanyewesticleandthepeasants:

my sister is the worst

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occupiedmuslim:

Growing Up Brown: Desexualized and Hyper-sexualized

Zoya Haroon | On 07, Jun 2013

I’m always surprised by the way I look. Sometimes I look down and notice that my thighs are taking up much more space than I would like. Or sometimes I glance at myself in the mirror and realize that my arms are fuller and rounder than I expected. I don’t expect to look like myself. I expect to look like other girls, girls who are on TV and in magazines, girls who people call ‘beautiful.’ I don’t want to look like them—not outwardly, at least. I tell myself I don’t care if I’m not ‘beautiful.’ But then I’m caught off-guard every once in a while when I catch a glimpse of myself somewhere and realize that I do not look like anyone in the movies. I’m so much messier, my broad nose spilling over my cheeks when I smile. I’m so much bigger.

Chaya Babu recently published an article on the Feminist Wire called Walking the Tightrope: Good Indian Girls, Race, and Bad Sexuality. As a Muslim and a second-generation Pakistani-American immigrant, a lot of what she said stuck with me, especially a paragraph describing her experience in high school:

“Women of color were mostly unseen as partner options. And if we landed in the purview somehow, it was, at best, to be mentioned as perhaps pretty and then quickly dismissed (you know, the “Wow, you’re pretty for an Indian girl” line) or, at worst, to be ridiculed for our ugliness. This may sound extreme, but it’s the reality I lived. I undoubtedly stood out in this context – ashy knees in the winter, unruly mane of thick, black hair in a sea of pale midriffs and near-ubiquitous gold or platinum highlights – but I was also invisible. And that external gaze is powerful: the invisibility desexualized me.”

Like Babu, in high school I stood by resentfully while watching other girls—white girls, pretty girls—flirting with boys and going out to dances and dating. I was conscious of my scarred brown thighs, my rounded face, my bony ankles and my wide hips. I overthought my limbs, my frizzy hair, my soft tummy. I was taking up too much space, but at the same time no one seemed to see me.

While other girls wore cutoffs and took photos in bikinis at the beach, I begged my mom to let me wear a swimsuit. She finally acquiesced, buying me the sort of one-piece designed for middle-aged women, and insisted that I wear it only at all-girls pool parties. I agreed, but immediately broke my promise. In high school in America, there are no all-girls pool parties (or hardly any).

Still, I felt self-conscious in my swimsuits, in my short-shorts: what did people think of the lines along the inside of my thighs? Was my unruly stomach rumpling and sagging? Worse, was wearing a swimsuit somehow immoral, indecent? I felt guilty when I caught men glancing at my skinny brown legs.

There’s still always the sense of someone watching. Growing up a brown Muslim girl in the United States is almost paradoxical: you are at the same time desexualized and hypersexualized. At school, like Babu, I was the desexualized Other: everyone knew I didn’t date or drink or hook up. I wasn’t a girl in the sense that everyone wanted to be a girl: I wasn’t an object of desire. I didn’t fit into the space outlined for desirable girls; I could not stuff my body—my big hips and my big hair—into that space. At home, however, I am hypersexualized, albeit indirectly. My immediate family is not very religious, but my mom is constantly telling me to wear a scarf over my cleavage or to pull my top down over my stomach. I can’t go to the beach with my family because I’m not allowed to wear a swimsuit in front of my father. Whenever I’m with my extended family, I am reproached for wearing sleeveless tops, or for bending over so that my shirt billows out and my bra is visible. At family gatherings, I have to wear long tunics that cover my backside and tops that cover my shoulders.

Even now, my body—lanky and lumpy as it may be—is a site of awkward and unwanted sexuality. My bra-strap sometimes ignites contempt; the slip of skin between the hem of my shirt and the top of my pants can be illicit and wrong. When I wear clothing that is baggy, I feel that my body is cumbersome and ungainly. When I wear clothing that is fitted or cropped, my body is rebellious, squeezing through the cracks, attracting glances I’m not sure I want or understand.

As I came of age in high school I was invisible, undesirable; hardly a sexual being in any context. Even now at college, it’s difficult for me to exercise sexual agency. I get embarrassed asking for what I want. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable asking for what I want. I don’t know what I want. I don’t feel like I have control over my body or my sexuality.

I think that all brown girls—especially Muslim girls—go through this. You don’t look exactly right. You don’t fit in; you’re awkwardly getting by, squeezing through the cracks, the same way your ass is squeezing out of the back of the two-piece swimsuit your mom wouldn’t let you buy. You take up more space than you would like—your fleshy armpit that you need to cover up, the flash of disruptive cleavage—but at the same time you are invisible. You’re not feminine, or at least not in a culture where femininity is tied to very specific standards of desirability and ‘beauty.’ You’re not beautiful, you’re not desirable, but at the same time you’re somehow overly sexual. It’s a feeling of helplessness and frustration. You are shocked, appalled, and disappointed with your own body. You don’t have any power over your body—it does what it likes. Sexuality does not originate from your body, but the possibility of strange men’s sexuality is constantly in your mind, policing what you wear and how you perceive yourself.

Today, even if a top makes my boobs look bigger than I would like, I wear it. I wear cutoff shorts if I want to. I wear bathing suits at the beach and I try to rule out what anyone else is thinking when they look at me. I don’t tell my mom about everything I do, but I do what I want. When I see myself in the mirror and feel that familiar pang of dissatisfaction—of being not-quite-right; of inhabiting a foreign body—I look away.

Written by Zoya Haroon