Life List Redux

Recently over at Shapely Prose, snarkysmachine wrote a post called The Last Dragon where she discussed giving up things that were holding her back from true fat acceptance. I really related to one of them. Earlier this year, I went out and bought pants that actually fit me as opposed to trying to squeeze into pants that fit me several years ago.


I've been thinking about that shopping trip again recently for two reason: I am so sick of all my winter clothes and cannot wait to start wearing spring stuff and I'm having fantasizes about buying clothes that fit a different body.

In 6 months or so many friends from college will be coming back into town for reunions and for a mutual friends wedding. I've found myself scheming a lot for how I'm going to be a knockout (including losing lots of weight) by June. This morning it occurred to me how ridiculous I'm being to use the occasion of seeing friends to hate myself. My friends aren't going to care what I look like; they're going to care about catching up and whether or not I'm currently happy.

The last time I wrote here it was to poo-poo life lists (for me, not for anyone else) because I felt that they fed into my misguided conception of my body/life as a house that needs renovations. I am not a project. I am a person. And what I need from myself is love, not improvement plans.

Since I wrote my life list post, I returned the idea of the list and realized the problem isn't that it's a list of goals; the problem was *my* goals. I wrote one out for myself focusing on the idea that the list is to help me (1) incorporate things that I already love into my life on a more regular basis and (2) remain open to things that I think I *might* love, but have been scared to try. (The only really self improve-y thing that ended up on there was a goal to better understand my finances...)

This week I've been working on:
7. Try out 50 new recipes a year.
23. Make a CD, preferably with bands discovered that month, once a month for a year. Distribute. ("discovered" is a very loose term)

For my recipe goal, I am currently working my way through the soup and entree sections of the Better Homes and Gardens Vegetarian Recipes book and picking things out of the Best Recipes 2010 of Cooking Light. Last night I made the Bistro Braised Chicken.

Making the February CD was really good. It reminded me how much I like listening to new music and how much new music is out there. If you'd like a copy let me know.

Here's looking at you

Last week I finished reading Courtney Martin's book "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body." Martin uses the dichotomy of the "perfect girl" (the perfectionist) and the "starving daughter" (our most basic human desires) to examine women's relationship to their body. (As she said at a talk at the University of VA last week, once you start talking about women and their bodies, you end up talking about everything.)


A lot of things in the book really stuck with me, but one thing in particular was a concept about attractiveness and desire that Martin articulates: being noticed versus being seen.

Martin writes,

We walk around wondering what we look like through most of adolescence and, with less urgency, for the rest of our lives. Our inability to really see ourselves imbues the judgment of strangers with tremendous and undue value...A man I have never met can instantly put a little swing in my step...a bar full of half-drunk strangers has the power to make me hang my head.

We are dependent on the kindness of strangers because of the onslaught of skinny-and-fit female or tall-and-toned male images that we suffer daily. We become unsure of our own sight so early on, convinced that the only accurate view of ourselves is outside of ourselves. We search for signs that we resemble the mold---an invite to homecoming from a football player, a wink in the elevator from a cute coworker, admission into an exclusive downtown club. We feel, in these brief, usually fruitless encounters, like we are being seen when really we are just being noticed. The difference is significant.

Being noticed is ordinary, fleeting, and impersonal. Being seen is extraordinary, lasting and intimate. Being notice is common and only skin-deep. Being seen is rare and profound. It is what happens when you stay up all night talking in a stranger's car because the conversation is so good you forgot to reach for the door handle...Being seen is when your boyfriend knows that the horseshoe scar on your knee was from when you fell in the gravel of the playground in fourth grade playing flag football, and he adores it Being seen is a hand on the small of your back as you walk through a doorway, a glass of water when you are coughing in the middle of the night, his making a parting reference to something you said so long ago you barely remember it. Being seen is when your girlfriend asks, 'Why do you seems sad?" before you have realized that you are, indeed sad. Being seen is rarely about physical beauty. Being seen is never about being buff or thin.
- pp 149-150

This passage really spoke to me because I realize that a lot of my anxiety over my body come from a place inside of me that is desperate to be noticed and terrified about what it says about me when I am not noticed. I have never been the kind of woman that gets noticed. In some contexts this is a total blessing. On the rare occasions when someone harasses me on the street, I feel horrible about it and I'm not sure being hit on in a bar would be much different. On the other hand, I am acutely and occasionally painfully aware of the attention some of my girlfriends get. I think I have been wondering all my life to some extent what is wrong with me---why don't I get noticed?


That's not the real question though and in fact, it's not a question it all; it's a gratitude. I am so thankful that I have been seen by friends, family, and some of my romantic partners and that I have seen people. I think I've always thought of my failure to be noticed as some kind of indication of my chances of being seen, but the truth is, I can put that fear to rest. The results are in: I have been seen and loved and I have seen and loved. No amount of noticing is going to change that.

Belly up

After returning to Bikram yoga last week, I picked up Yoga Journal at the grocery store. It's a cool magazine packed with a lot of information about life in general as well as yoga (there was financial advice and information on SAD to name just a few things I wasn't expecting in a yoga magazine).

I always like to read the letters to the editor in magazines (actually, I have a tendency to get in trouble with friends when they send me links to things, because they want to talk about the actual article and I want to talk about the [often ridiculous] comments about the article). In the Feb 2008 issue of Yoga Journal, Alice Stevens of Atlanta, Georgia writes in about an article on prenatal yoga. She writes,

...I would have preferred to have seen your suggested poses photographed in better taste. Yoga honors and respects the body. I don't think that showing a bare pregnant belly is respectful or appropriate in a magazine---not even in a prenatal yoga class.

Within the letter section there's a shrunken image of the magazine spread that accompanied the prenatal yoga article. It's a smiling woman sitting in a tailor seat, in a sports bra and yoga pants. Her hands are on her ankles so her arms are framing her belly. It looks something like this:

[This image comes from Birth Roots Doula Collective, Inc.]

Am I missing something? Is there something inherently disrespectful to the body about showing a pregnant woman's belly?

Remember when Demi Moore posed naked and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair? I remember there was controversy at the time, but I can't remember it's exact nature. Now, looking at this image, I see Moore gazing out at the viewer proudly and aggressively. We often see nudity connected to sex in magazines images and, often in more sober content, sex connected to pregnancy. This image of Moore directly connects nudity to pregnancy and, in doing so, brings sex to the forefront. While Moore explodes the idea that a pregnant women is not a sexual being, her defiant gaze out from the glossy cover, also says that she is looking at us. The roles are not reversed, but the playing field is leveled; the "object" of our gaze, is looking back.

In Yoga Journal, however, the pregnant model (student?) sits smiling happily for the camera and in the image above, the model has her eyes cast downwards. And they both are at ease in yoga poses. Rather than forcing the reader to confront the sexualization of women, while simultaneously challenging imagery of pregnancy as scrubbed clean of sex, these images really are squeaky clean. It made me wonder what Stevens' point was. If just showing a naked pregnant belly is offensive, then perhaps having one is a shameful thing, in Stevens' mind. I hope not though.

Onslaught

This week over at Jezebel Dodai wrote a post about Nigella Lawson, author of "How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking." She a celebrity chef in Britain and apparently people have been saying that she's getting fat. Lawson takes her critics to task, saying that it's gotten to the point where beauty is almost entirely equated with thinness.

Also on the topic of the media's love affair with calling people fat, Zuzu at Feministe writes about Jennifer Love Hewitt's recent response to people saying she has a fat butt. Hewitt writes that she's not concerned for herself, but rather all the women out there who are struggling with body issues.

I was really interested to see the number of comments over at Jezebel that basically said, "but she's not fat!" re: Lawson. Hewitt's post contains this as well. She says "size two is not fat." Both the comments at Jezebel and this comment from Hewitt point out a legitimate problem in our society. Women in general, but celebrity women in particular, are held up to ridiculous and unrealistic standards.

On the other hand, I think these comments conceal something that further adds to our collective psychosis over body image. Here's what I want to ask: What if Lawson and Hewitt were fat?

It's important that we point out that calling either Lawson or Hewitt fat is ridiculous. But it may be more important to for us to say that being fat does not make someone ugly, lazy, or valueless.

Hewitt is right, this fat-policing of celebrities stuff isn't really about communicating directly with the celebrities. What it's really about is making it damn clear to everyone what are acceptable body types and what are not.

Our ideals for our celebrities are like a cracked mirror that tells us all about our own insecurities and desires. The mirror tells us that we cannot let ourselves get old without intervention (but that if we have plastic surgery, it's taboo to go out until it's fully healed), it tells us that cellulite "ruins" our legs, it tells us to be hairless, white, and sexually available, but not slutty.

It's not enough for us to protest, "but I don't have those flaws" when we fail to live up to the image. That doesn't break the mirror; it just passes it on to someone else.

PS: I really liked Lawson's late husband's book.

Questions

What do you think the removal of body hair is about? If both men and women naturally grow body hair, does it make sense that our culture breeds people of both genders to find body hair to be disgusting? Does it spring from U.S. history which looked down upon and oppressed people with darker hair, from Eastern Europeans to African Americans? (In other words, is it because it makes people look "ethnic"?) Is it a matter of personal preference? (Something that I think is difficult to argue since distaste for body hair in American culture is nearly universal. Maybe you do genuinely "prefer" to be hairless or sexually "prefer" others to be hairless. How convenient though that your preference is supported and pushed by traditional beauty standards.) Is it an attempt to further an artificial distinction between men and women? Is it about creating a market for hair removal products? Is it about making people focus on individual flaws and in doing so, taking their eyes off the big picture? Is it punishment, self-flagellation? Just what, exactly, as a culture, are we willingly doing to ourselves?

(Post stems from this discussion)

The Radical Act

Warning: If you do not want to read about body issues, please skip this post.

Through dooce, I came across this blog post by Mihow where she describes the way that her weight has fluctuated through-out her life using the real numbers (read: her weight in pounds and her height in feet and inches). Many of her commenters (and dooce) commend her for being brave enough to put her real numbers out there and setting a goal for herself.

I do think it's brave to publicly admit to how much you weigh. It's sad that in our society this is a brave act, but there is so much baggage accompanying the numbers on the scale. So I don't want to sound like I'm coming down on Mihow here. However, when I read her post, it just made me feel bad.

You see, I am two inches shorter than Mihow and weigh about the same amount. And so the comparison game begins. She considers herself overweight, should I? Do other people? Reading Mihow's numbers added fuel to the fire of voice in my head that tells me because of what I weigh I am a failure and others see me as a failure (or, if you want, that I am unloveable and others see me as unloveable). (Let me take a moment here to say that I don't want comments that say that I am not a failure and I am loveable; although I appreciate the sentiment, I feel that that is equivalent to saying "Don't feel the way you feel.")

Recently, I reread my diaries from middle school hoping to find something I could use "Mortified-style" for my friend's variety show. I didn't really find anything funny in there. What I did find though was hundreds of entries that contained the phrase, "I failed today. I ate between meals." I remember wishing that I was thinner in middle school, but I had forgotten how it made me feel like I was a failure because I wasn't thinner.

I don't know why I was so surprised though, because those feelings are still around.

I need to lose some weight for health reasons (because a laminated paper chart taped to a doctors wall was consulted and ordain it). So take the amount of weight I'd like to lose for health reasons. Triple it. That is how much I actually want to lose.

This little math exercise is significant for me because I do believe that weight loss has a healthy, positive place in my life. If I were treating my body as I should be, exercising and eating correctly, the by-product of that would be weight loss (I am told). However (and here's what my little math equation is meant to demonstrate), the kind of weight loss I am really interested in, in my heart of hearts, is divorced from treating my body like I love it. It is deeply linked to hating my body and hating myself for failing to have the kind of body that I think I might love.

Since the end goal is the same, a leaner and therefore healthier body, perhaps it doesn't matter if my motivation is to be healthy or to look "good," but I think it does. Every time I exercise (or chose to stay on the couch) and every time I deny myself food I want (or go ahead and eat it), there's part of me that's doing it out of self-love and there is part of me that is doing it out of self-hatred. And I have a feeling that if I listen to the self-hatred enough, it's not really going to matter if I wildly exceed my expectations in regards to weight loss.

I am coming to terms with the idea that this self-hatred/self-love dichotomy is not like two paths in the woods, where I just have to get off the self-hatred one and step onto the self-love one. I am always going to struggle with feelings of inadequacy in regards to my appearance/weight (as are so many other women and increasingly men). But you know how when you see someone bullying someone else on the street, there's this moment where you have to decide whether or not your going to intervene and stand-up for the person being bullied? I like to believe I'm the kind of person who would intervene for a stranger and now I want to be the kind of person who will consistently intervene for herself.

During college (this is the wrap up, I swear), in one of my Feminist literature classes, we watched Margaret Cho's stand-up at the end of the year. Some of the things she said always stuck with me. She talked about how she use to take time out of her day to look at herself as she passed buildings with glass windows to think "I am fat," and how she could spend her time so much more productively. And she also said this (watch it please, it's good).

She says it so much better than I can.

The Good Earth and the Happy Body (and the Pleased Checkbook)

So I'm a day late with this, but I just heard about it this morning on The Bryant Park Project. Yesterday was Blog Action Day, during which bloggers were meant to discuss the environment.

In my favorite posts bloggers wrote about their tips on how to reduce one's impact on the environment, so I thought I would add one of my own, one for the ladies (sorry, fellas).

Instead of using tampons or sanitary napkins (which has got to be the most awful generic name for a product ever), try the Keeper.

The Keeper is designed to catch your menstrual flow rather than absorb it. Its bell shape allows ...[it]...to fit snuggly and comfortably up against your vaginal walls, below but not touching your cervix.

The Keeper is much better for the environment then pads or tampons, which come in cardboard boxes and plastic wraps and are thrown out after use. Besides the positive environmental effects, using the Keeper is cheaper than restocking on pads and tampons each time you have your period. (It cost about $35. Pads and tampons costs about $4, right now, so if you use a pack a month for 30 years you will have spent $1,440 on menstruation products. Even if your using half a pack a month, it's still a lot cheaper to buy a Keeper.) Finally, I like the Keeper because I know what's coming in contact with my body. When I use a pad or a tampon, I'm not sure what chemicals have been used to bleach the product white or to make it super-absorbant.

If I've sold you on it, you might be wondering how it works. First, here is what it looks like:


When I begin my period, I wash the Keeper off with soap and hot water and then I boil it for ten minutes (I've read that three minutes in boiling water is safe, but I like to be careful).

To insert it, I fold it in half once and then again (see below).

Then I get into the same position I would to insert a tampon (if seeing a diagram of a vagina is NSFW don't click on that link) and slide it with my thumb and index finger guiding it in. When I remove my fingers, the Keeper pops open and into place.

I have to empty the Keeper twice in a 24-hour-period, which I generally do in the morning and before I go to bed, dumping the contents into the toilet or down the drain while I shower. I wash the Keeper thoroughly before re-inserting. Sometimes I use a pad at night with the Keeper just in case.

The Keeper has a little knob on the end that sticks out of your vagina while it's in (some people cut off this knob). You can grip this knob while you remove the Keeper. To remove it, I simply insert my finger into my vagina and squeeze the Keeper, breaking it's seal, which allows me to pull it out (it's painless).

When my period is over I wash it and boil it again. I store it in a small cloth bag (which by the way, I wash with the laundry the week I have my period).

Here are some things to consider before buying a Keeper:

If you do not like to put your fingers in your vagina or are worried about getting a tiny (and it really is tiny, I've never spilled it or anything) amount of blood on your fingers, this probably isn't for you.

It is larger than a tampon, so it might be uncomfortable to use if you haven't had vaginal sexual intercourse yet. (Although I do have to say, that I do not feel it at all when I have the Keeper in and I am able to feel tampons.)

If you have to change the Keeper more frequently because your flow is heavier, you should be prepared to change it in a public restroom setting just in case. This might mean bringing some extra water and a little bottle of soap with you, so you can rinse and wash the Keeper in your stall.

I have read that Keepers might increase the chance of getting a UTI, but if you are prone to UTIs you can prevent this by just being extra careful (drinking lots of water, practicing good hygiene, drinking unsweetened cranberry juice, urinating after sexual contact, and never holding your urine in for a long period of time).

I really love my Keeper and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has about it to the best of my ability.

Edit: If you don't want to try to use the Keeper consider making your own pads. All you need is an old t-shirt, pillowcase, or sheets and a couple safety pins. You can cut them to be any length you want and fold them over to make them any thickness you want. Just rinse them out, wash, and reuse! Even if you just do this at night you'll be cutting back on the amount of trash produced by traditional menstrual products.

Lookin' Good

I was reading this New York Times article this morning which lead me to this activist group, Be Bright Pink, mentioned in the article. One of the cool things about this site is that they offer a monthly email service that will remind women to conduct self-exams for breast cancer. The site allows you to select the week of the month when you are most likely to get your period and then it will send you an email that week (if your period isn't enough of reminder, which for me it isn't). I do wish that the site mentioned that a self-exam should take place a week after a woman's period starts and not during her period when her breast might be swollen. Check this out for more general information on self-exams.

I found the NY times article about one woman's decision to get a preventive mastectomy to be very interesting. At first I was disgusted with how the article repeatedly returned to the question "Would Lindner be able to get a man?" if she got the preventative surgery. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be my main dilemma with getting a potentially life-saving surgery that would radically alter my appearance. Would I still be attractive afterwards? And underneath that question, the other question, would anyone ever love me again?

I think those are real fears that speak to human beings need to be loved and to relate to others in a meaningful way. But even before the happy ending where Lindner's boyfriend supports her decision whole-heartedly, it's clear that she is loved and would continue to be loved deeply, by her family. So it's not just love that creates the tension behind the "will I still be attractive?" question, there are (at least) two other things there; first, another question: will I still be valuable to society if I am not sexual attractive? and secondly, the position that a romantic relationship's love has more value than other types of love.

I feel like these fears about appearance (which are linked a sense of diminished self-worth), stem from the real consequence people face when they do not meet normal body standards. And, I believe these consequences are a result a consumer-driven society, where acceptance of self means not buying new products, so corporations had better be pushing feelings of inadequacy onto people. Meanwhile, while we're worried about how we look, people in power are getting away with a lot.

Although I understand Lindner's dilemma in the article and also feel like it would be my dilemma too where I faced with that choice, the reason I initially balked at the "find a man" problem presented in the article is because I think society pushes successful romantic relationships as the ultimate goal in life (for women at least) devaluing women who do not find such relationships. I think that leads to ignoring the value of other love-relationships in people's lives (friendship, family, coworkers). It also contributes to the perception that women should be driven to "find a man" (or even just one woman to be a life-long romantic partner) rather than be involved in the public sphere of "real" work. In that way, this article reads a bit like a romantic comedy. Girl overcomes obstacle (serious risk of cancer) and on the way, lands herself a man.

I think it's fine if romantic love is an individual's definition of self-fulfillment, but I think that it is pushed on everyone. For example, those doctors mentioned in the article who would not perform the surgery because Lindner is too young in their opinion. Is "too young" code for "hasn't found a man yet and had babies with that man"? What if those things weren't in Lindner's life plan? I bet those doctors would still feel justified in telling Lindner that though she may think she doesn't want to marry and have babies she will at some point (just ask a young woman who has tried to get a tubal ligation).

Just some food for thought.