When I was younger, I was a dancer. I remember a particular point in my dance career when I became uncomfortable with my body, it started when my body began to change, and it wasn’t soon after I became hyper-conscious about my changes that I stopped dancing. I would be in a leotard and tights, lined up with others and I couldn’t help but become self conscious about my body and compare it to others. In ballet, the girl, especially, is to be thin, and although I was thin, I couldn’t help but want to be thinner, to have a different shape than what I had.
I remember around that same age, I wore very baggy clothes and ate very little- and I know that a lot of this was attributed to a self depreciating self image, I wanted to be thin, I thought I wasn’t, and so I hid my body and deprived it of food. I wasn’t alone. My friends and I were in a world where if a girl was pretty, that girl was for sure thin; at that time it was inconceivable for anyone who wasn’t thin to be considered pretty.
As I went into high school, and as I continue to get older- it seems as though these issues wax(ed) and wane(d) for me, but were forever present within my circle of friends. I had friends, who didn’t just use diet pills to stay thin, but tried and at times even became heavy users of hard drugs- just to remain thin. Interventions began to happen in order to “save their souls” from the harms of such drugs, but never based on the idea that one didn’t need to check their body for their weight- just that they should refrain from such harsh drugs. Similarly, friends who had, and to this day some still have, eating disorders as severe as bulimia were counseled for their detrimental practices to their bodies- not necessarily the fact that they shouldn’t be concerned with their body images generally.
Years later, I look back and can’t really believe how skinny I was, and how I never saw that. Instead, when I looked in the mirror, and still to this day- I have realized that I have a skewed perception of my body. I never saw skinny, and I still never see skinny. “It seems the body that we experience and conceptualize is always mediated by constructs, associations, images of a cultural nature”[i] (Bordo, p, 35).
The desire to stay skinny stays with me. Concern for body image is all around me. My peers are constantly dieting, family members ask me how I am doing with my weight, and to be honest- at this point in my life, I wouldn’t be able to pay for a new wardrobe even if I needed one.
In addition to “maintaining” a certain body, I “put on my face” almost every time I go out. In fact, if I am going somewhere social and or professional, I feel more comfortable with makeup. I have been wearing make up in my everyday life since junior high. More heavy at times, and almost nothing at other times- but I certainly, now, feel more comfortable in “public” with make-up. Although I had acne which is something I always wished to cover up, I now am gaining wrinkles and uneven skin tones- which again, I work to cover up. Make-up smoothes out the skin, and when I wear it in “public” I feel more confident and comfortable with myself. I can only presume that my self-consciousness about the changes in my face and skin will exacerbate as I get older. According to Bordo, “these actresses, whose images surround us on television and in videos and films, are changing cultural expectations of what women “should” look like at forty-five and fifty” (p. 25).
I have a similar issue with my hair, I feel more comfortable with long hair- and feel an attachment to it. As if I shaved my head, cut my hair short, or dyed it the opposite color- I would risk any “beauty” it, or I, may possess.
As I get older I have become much more comfortable with my body, but as you may have noticed- body issues that I have had as a child are still with me. Again, as I noted- some of this is class based- I literally would not be able to afford buying a new wardrobe if I grew out of my clothes thus I work to limit the amount of growth my body can have. But, if I am being honest- a lot of isn’t class based. Even if I had money to buy clothes as my body changed- I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any kind of drastic changes. According to Bartky[ii] my “self surveillance is a form of obedience to patriarchy” (p. 416). I have and arguably am “the inmate of the Panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self committed to a relentless self-surveillance” (Bartky, p. 416).
It is hard to negotiate my body image(s) with my own scholarly interests (highly critical, queer, feminist), especially when I am reminded by scholars about my own body practices. My own practices have become so naturalized, that they are routine. And, I am certainly not in an “unhealthy” place, but at the same time- maybe to some I am. Would I be rejecting patriarchy if I chose not to wear make-up? Or if I stopped worrying about gaining any weight? What about if I shaved my head? I don’t know. Are these simple things THE “solution”? What if I like how I look with make-up on? What if I like my hair? What if I like my body image (even though according to the poster at the doctor’s office- I am overweight for my height)?
Again, as a critical scholar I try to be aware of my body, how I mark it, how it is marked by others, and how I may be perceived as a walking contradiction. But, at the same time- if I am to reject the “markings” of femininity, if I am to “let go” of practices that make me feel more comfortable in my own skin- just because they may be understood as “acts of resistance” or not falling into the trap of the “Panopticon” or “patriarchy”, aren’t I in some way in a double bind? By the act of rejecting what makes me feel comfortable, to only feel uncomfortable, to consciously practice what is not “feminine” isn’t that somehow- in itself, re-ifying the idea of the “feminine”?
University of California Press.
Power”. pp. 404-418. From McCann, C. R., & Kim, S-k. (Eds). (2010). Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives 2nd Ed. New York, NY: Routledge.
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