[excerpt from “The Weight of the World”]

Since when did women have to give up their curves?

Since when did society decide that an adult woman has to look like a little boy: no hips, tall, lanky body and flat chested?

It wasn’t until just recently did I come to terms with it for a brief moment. Perhaps it was the moment in class where we reviewed puberty—the fact that girls growing up turn into curvy women. It’s our nature.

Maybe it was realizing it’s a part of life and how I was biologically set up to be. I realized I wasn’t that bony girl anymore.

“I have curves.”  It empowered me for a moment.  It was almost sensual: I am a woman.

*

I may have come to terms with it in a moment of brevity, but unfortunately (and this is how sick and twisted society is), although I know better, I was taught what “beauty” was.

Beauty wasn’t in the “eye of the beholder” per se, “beauty” is defined by a culture—ours is one that has “beauty” specific to numbers. “Beauty” is a “mathematical formula” in a way, where it can be defined by the combination of 5’10” and 120lbs—and let’s not forget to add that beauty is the color white.

I wear [heels] (in part for practicality—to prevent my jeans from scraping on the ground) to extend my height. I “attempt” to diet and exercise, trying to burn off those vanity pounds. I know how many times I avoided the sun to prevent darkness….

I know better, and yet, I am still controlled by the media and it’s portrayal of what a woman should look like.

*

If there were one video in my Psychology of Women’s class that really struck a chord with me, it was the one where a woman with a cockney accent lectured in front of a group of adolescences. She was attacking an ad in a magazine: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

She adamantly stated at the top of her lungs in her distinct English accent, “We don’t hate her. We really don’t! We love her. We actually love her. We fought 70 years ago for her to have the right to vote. We fought 40 years ago for her equal rights and we still continue to fight today, for her….”

And I thought, “Wow, she is right.”

Society has done this cruel thing where it seems to have pit us women against each other. As if it were a big competition and we should really hate each other and despise and be jealous of one another. It’s a sad, sad thing.

*

When my daughter grows up, she may get to a point when she’ll be doubtful of her image. At that time, I will take her to casual places: I’m going to sit in the middle of a busy area—a park, a street downtown, a company, a grocery store, and I’m going to ask her to tell me how many 5’10”, 120lbs, white women she sees. How many people are walking around as if they came straight out of a magazine?  Women nowadays come in all shapes and sizes.

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I will tell her the lack of her weight doesn’t weigh what she’s worth.

I’m going to tell her that the shape of her body does not reflect the shape of her character.

*

Since when was it that a woman couldn’t be a woman?