How do you measure yourself up?
I recently watched a show with Carson Kressley (of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) called How to Look Good Naked. Kressley's mission is to help people get a realistic read on how they look. The focus of the show is women who are the not-Twiggys. That is, real women. In today's TV world of pinch it, purge it, tuck it, hide it, poke it, remove it, suck it and pretend it, this show says no. This is who you are. Own it. Celebrate it.
The line up that Kressley does with a group of women is a revealing look at self-perception -- and how wrong we can be. Women who wear the average range of clothing size (from an 8-22) come out wearing their bras and underwear. Each woman then places herself where she THINKS she fits in the line, which ranges from smallest to largest (by waist measurement). As each woman enters, she usually places herself (head down) at the larger end of the line. The host surprises most of the women when he tells them they have misplaced themselves.
It is almost always the smaller waisted women who automatically walk to the bigger end of the line. They are shocked (and perplexed) to learn most of them are dead wrong. Kressley then takes a photo of each woman's body (no head), and displays it on a billboard on bustling Michigan Avenue in Chicago. He stops passersby and asks for their impressions. Almost ninety-eight percent respond with comments like, "She's real. She has lovely skin. She has great, shapely legs" - which he shows to the contestants as they begin to cry.
Why are they crying? It's because they soooo want to like their bodies. Because their inner-dialogue is negative and self-loathing. They are crying because there is a huge discrepancy between how they see themselves, and how others see them. They are their own worst critics.
Femalehood is complicated. Do these women go to the bigger end of the line because they think they are bigger? Or do some feel that it would be too bold a move to go to the thin end of the line? How dare we? Maybe we would hurt someones' feelings. Now, imagine men placing themselves in a similar line-up. Without a doubt, men would be boasting about how great they look, as they (without apology) tap their beer bellies and strut their way to the largest end of the line. They may even, on their strut, punch a few guys at the smaller end, calling them wimps.
Fat Days
Case in point. I am as guilty (or more) as any of these women.
On a recent fat day (which are now seldom since I am trying to befriend my stretch marks), I was looking through pictures of myself twenty years ago (when my body image was at an all time low). Back then, every day was a fat day. I remember the ongoing joke that by simply walking, my rubbing inner thighs could ignite a fire at any time. I had my Jordache and Sassoon jeans on so tight that I needed a coat hanger to do up my zipper after gym class (remember that, ladies?). I usually felt my arm still waving, after I had actually stopped waving.
The ironic thing is that twenty years ago, I weighed fifteen pounds less than I do now. And the standards I set for myself were high. I didn't wear a bikini then - nor do I wear one now. But in my one-piece, I sheepishly ran (covered in blanket-size towel) from the change room to the pool, dropping my towel on the pool deck right in front of the ladder. Diving board? Forget it. All those years of diving lessons were all for naught (felt too naked standing on that board in front of others). Math class didn't want to put my hand up to solve the problem on the board (even when I knew the answer). Too many people watching me walk up the classroom aisle.
Sound like the behavior of a raving lunatic? Yes. But how many of us feel we don't measure up? There are so many instances when I talk to a friend and can't believe she could possibly have a negative body-image. My good friends all look beautiful to me. Some are stick thin, some are not. I don't notice. One of the most wise comments I heard recently from my (always honest) friend Michelle: "I'm 44 years old. I am going to start wearing a bikini. I am not even going to own a one-piece. This is my body, and I'm going to celebrate it. If someone thinks it's not appropriate -- that's their issue." And she is beautiful. And the truth is, if she wore a bikini (while self-obsessed me hid in my one-piece), who would have more fun? She would. It's the message we send to ourselves that we somehow misinterpret as truth.
Bikini Revolt
Ladies! What would happen if we strutted on to that pool deck? What if we all threw away our one-pieces? What would happen? I bet there would be a lot of happy partners out there (thank goodness, she is finally getting how good she looks to me they would say).
What if we all wore bikinis? It would be a bikini revolt. Forgetting our ages, celebrating our stretch marks, our dimples and our tires? How many of us have met a woman who is heavier, but looks radiant and smiles from the inside? All because she says "this is me. I have nothing to apologize for."
Let's all remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1852: Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Have a great summer. I'll see you at the wave pool. In my Old Navy two-piece.
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