It seems as though women are never comfortable with their bodies until they gain the acceptance of a male.
My best friend from home has always had horrible self esteem issues. She has a very distorted view of her body. She has always thought of herself as extremely overweight, which, in fact, she is not overweight at all. She has always been an athlete, eats very healthy and is a good weight for her heigh, but she obsesses over her body image in a very unhealthy way. This is issue consumes her life and literally sends her into depression. It effects her daily activities because sometimes she is "too fat to wear any of her clothes." I have never gone one day without hearing a complaint about her body. In addition, until recently, she never had a serious boyfriend and assumed that this was due to her being "fat" or "ugly".
Now, she has had a boyfriend for about three months. In these last three months I have noticed that I have started to hear less and less about her body issues. Then, today she told me that she does not care as much about her weight because her boyfriend loves her body and thinks that she looks "sexy". Therefore, she is happier. Although I am very thrilled that she is happy and has been able to stop obsessing over her body image, I also question it.
How come in order to be comfortable with herself she needed a male's approval? Our culture has placed so much pressure on women to look good for our men that we allow them to decide whether or not we are happy or comfortable with ourselves. This gives men so much power and then we wonder why men THINK they have power over us. They think this because it is true! Most women allow these men to have power and what is more powerful than determining someone else's moods and views of themselves?
In thinking about this, I found that this strongly relates to Bordo's article, The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity. She explains, "Through the exacting and normalizing disciplines of diet, makeup, and dress - central organizing principles of time and space in the day of many women- we are rendered less socially oriented and more centripetally focused on self-modification. Through these disciplines, we continue to memorize on our bodies the feel and conyiction of lack of insufficiency, of never being good enough." I think this quote relates to my friend very well because before meeting her boyfriend, self-modification took over her life because, once again, this is what women on our society are "supposed" to care and worry about. Until her boyfriend said so, she never felt good enough. Can't women just be good enough for themseleves?
How are women not supposed to feel that the only way to be completely satisfied with themselves is if they satisfy a man first? Look at the thousands of ads and magazines we are exposed to weekly and how they constantly reinforce to women ways to please their man, how to look good for your man blah blah blah blah. It's a sad situation about your roommate-and I know how you feel because I've had friends in similar situations that constantly complain about their body, until they start to have a males approval and then they finally decide to "like themselves" The idea of self-modification is a perfect definition for what women are attempting to do on a daily basis to make themselves become more desirable to men and in turn, finally accept themselves and their bodies.
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