a few words on feeling
I saw Courtney Martin speak at St. Mary's last night. She's a feminist journalist/author who wrote a book about young women and body image. I liked her lecture, but it didn't sound like anything I haven't heard before. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had read the book cover to cover before going, but it was the same "rewrite your internal message" stuff that I've read in Cosmo, just in a different package.
I support anyone out there trying to tell young girls (hell, all women) they should feel better about themselves than they do, but I really wonder what it's going to take to make that internal, positive mantra permanent.
I, for one, obsess about every bit of food that goes into my mouth (and then work out like crazy to get rid of it or, if it's especially fattening, starve myself for the rest of the day), and it pisses me off that I'll probably always feel compelled to be totally nuts about the way I look to stay socially accepted.
It pisses me off that probably 95 percent of women fuck around with self-esteem issues so much that they spend literally half their lives either complaining to their friends, preening in front of a mirror or trying to figure out why they're not good enough for some guy to call. Like it's automatically our fault if the pants/shirt/guy doesn't fit. It always feels like our fault.
And even trying to analyze it sounds trite, because so many women have said all this before. So many people roll their eyes after hearing it, including other women. It really is horrible, if you think about it. It's rage-inducing to feel like you don't even belong to your own opinions or beliefs. It's horrible not to trust how I feel, because I don't know what's planted in my head and what's always existed.
So what's it going to take for us to feel better, to stop buying shit that makes us feel bad and to stop making each other feel worse? I don't know. I don't know that I'll ever get to the point where I can think of something to say that hasn't already been said. But it really makes me want to try.
I support anyone out there trying to tell young girls (hell, all women) they should feel better about themselves than they do, but I really wonder what it's going to take to make that internal, positive mantra permanent.
I, for one, obsess about every bit of food that goes into my mouth (and then work out like crazy to get rid of it or, if it's especially fattening, starve myself for the rest of the day), and it pisses me off that I'll probably always feel compelled to be totally nuts about the way I look to stay socially accepted.
It pisses me off that probably 95 percent of women fuck around with self-esteem issues so much that they spend literally half their lives either complaining to their friends, preening in front of a mirror or trying to figure out why they're not good enough for some guy to call. Like it's automatically our fault if the pants/shirt/guy doesn't fit. It always feels like our fault.
And even trying to analyze it sounds trite, because so many women have said all this before. So many people roll their eyes after hearing it, including other women. It really is horrible, if you think about it. It's rage-inducing to feel like you don't even belong to your own opinions or beliefs. It's horrible not to trust how I feel, because I don't know what's planted in my head and what's always existed.
So what's it going to take for us to feel better, to stop buying shit that makes us feel bad and to stop making each other feel worse? I don't know. I don't know that I'll ever get to the point where I can think of something to say that hasn't already been said. But it really makes me want to try.