Being A Women Can Suck

“There is something feminine about curling your hair after a shower and getting ready for a girl’s night out with your best friends. I hate that there is also something feminine about not eating. The fact that the act of hating my body makes me feel beautiful. I am more of a woman when I cry about my reflection. And how it makes me feel feminine to love to hate my body. No matter how much weight I lose or the makeup I put on or the times I fix my hair, I will still feel the most feminine while looking at the distorted person in the mirror.” 

I wrote that about a year ago and I found it today and my heart sank because while what I wrote was true, I have found more ways to feel feminine than the way my body looks. 

Being a young woman who has grown up in such a pro-diet world, it is sometimes hard to see that there are people in this world who don’t obsess about their bodies and what they eat. When you're young, you believe what everyone is saying around you because that’s all you know. Maybe one of your parents has their own set of issues surrounding food and body, and growing up you hear things about how they want their body “smaller” or “more toned.” We all grew up in a world where this was normal. 

Looking back at what I wrote about a year ago, I just wanna give my old self a hug and tell her that it will all be ok. Over the past few months, I have experienced different ways to feel feminine that don’t involve the shape of my body and what I eat or don’t eat. 

My favorite one is getting ready with your friends for a night out. You all pile in a room with your makeup and hair tools. All outlets are taken by hair straighteners and blow dryers. You're listening to your hype-up playlist while your best friend is curling your hair. There are clothes all over the floor as you all decide what top you are going to wear. You then make your daily dancing tik tok when you're all dolled up and then go to the hallway and take your nightly photos. You then all go back into your room and it's dead silent while everyone edits the photos. Now that is my new definition of being a female. This night doesn’t include talking about the body and food. It includes hyping up your best friends and telling them how beautiful they look. 

Diet culture loves to tell us that if you are a woman you have to have an hourglass figure, a big butt, medium-sized boobs, a 6-pack, a thigh gap, and no hair anywhere except your head and eyebrows. Now this standard is impossible for anyone to achieve without either Photoshop or unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

So why listen to diet culture? Why try to reach for those impossible standards? It’s hard not to want to follow the “trend” or the “fad” of the time, but I can tell you this right now anyone who has the “perfect body” is not happy. All they think about is their body, it's their only personality trait. Wouldn’t you rather have things like empathy, kindness, respect, and humor as a personality trait rather than your freakin body? 

YOUR BODY IS THE LEAST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOU!! If you aren’t going around judging everyone you see, neither are they! Wouldn't you rather have space in your mind to think about things like your future or your relationships, than only think about what your body looks like at every given moment? 

Just keep this in mind next time you're stuck looking at your reflection. I love you all!