Body Positive
There are times when I find myself admiring the dimples on the soft, pale insides of my upper arms. Thinking how lovely that skin in, how soft, how unmarked by the sun. Eventually though the voice of acculturation shouts, “What are you thinking? You’re old and ‘healthy’ and no one likes dimples anywhere other than facial cheeks or the chin.”
It’s hard not to listen to that voice, hard to hold onto my love of those dimply upper arms, but I do. Partly because I’m old enough to love what I love and partly because I’ve fought this ‘hate your body’ paradigm for a very long time. And, in case you don’t realize it, much of our world is centered around making women hate…or at least intensely dislike parts of…our bodies.
How many pink razors do you think would sell if they weren’t marketed to women? You know that they cost substantially more than men’s razors? And they don’t do anything different—they shave off the hair, hopefully leaving the skin intact.
We have: Oil of Olay; Spanx; high heeled shoes; stockings; eye cream; mascara; eye liner; eye shadow; serums; and masks; and oils; and salves; and lotions. We have a bajillion dollar fashion industry that is mostly aimed at making women wear things that are different than what they wore last season.
Marketing is often aimed at making women hate the way we look. Trying to make us think we need to look better in order to be good or valued is a lucrative business.
I remember my Mama talking about women who wore rollers and/or sweat pants to the drug store. It was very clear to me very early on that I was not to do those things. Going out of the house meant looking good and for her that meant makeup and sprayed and teased hair and just the right clothing and, probably, heels. And people looked. My goddess she was gorgeous. My Mama, queen of the sidewalk.
In a way it was a relief to find out that I was never going to be that beautiful. It gave me some kind of permission to just be regular. Attractive but without the pressure of living up to a really high bar of expectation should I show my face outside the home. (I feel like I need to say that she was gorgeous without makeup, too. It was not smoke and mirrors. The hair and makeup and clothing were the frosting on an incredibly perfect cake.)
So, living life as a regular gal gave me some leeway to leave home bare faced, to braid my hair instead of curl it, to wear jeans and cowboy boots. I felt like I was a much more practical person than Mama. Maybe that’s the root of where this essay is growing from—I grew up watching a beauty queen, a real pageant princess, and all her potions and costumes and I thought: fuck that.
I’ve always had a bit of an attitude. Been a rebel. Maybe that’s why I love those arm dimples so much. They are counter-culture.
So I want to make a suggestion to you: find something you love about yourself and it does not have to be counter culture. It could, in fact, be something people compliment you on all of the time. It could be those amazing, rootbeer colored eyes, or those amazing, powerful thighs, it could be ‘dat ass, or your thick, shiny, glorious hair. Start with something that you actually do think is great and then, every day for a week, look at that one, amazing, sublime part of your visual self and revel in it. Yes, I said it, REVEL in it. This won’t make you into a conceited hag, in fact you would have to dismantle millennia of Patriarchal B.S. and then go on a long ego trip from there before you could ever be a conceited hag, so don’t worry, you are just seeing something wonderful about your physical body and loving it, honoring it, loving yourself, honoring yourself, as beauty.
And it is okay to do that. I think, truly, that it is necessary for you to do that. Love yourself. Go ahead, it’s completely acceptable.
I have some thoughts on where to go from here but for now, let’s just begin. I’m loving my soft, dimpled, inner arms and also my eyes. You find the part of your physical, external self that you find beautiful and love that. Every day. One week. Then maybe move on to a part of you that you secretly think is fabulous, even though the world of magazines and Netflix and TikTok might disagree and love that, too.
Let me know how it’s going!
xo~Bettina
