We get tired from fighting “fat”  and “ugly” all the time. We get distracted by our love-handles and our outdated purses. We get sold on hours of waxing and primping and throwing money down the shopping drain.

Our lack of progress in society seems to be directly related to the time and money we feel obligated to invest in our physical appearance. Women are not stupid, shallow, weak, or unmotivated. Rather, we are hyper-motivated, incredibly deep, and brilliantly creative. But at root, we have been socialized to misdirect our motivation towards the futile and empty pursuit of  ”standardized beauty”. (Which just happens to be embodied  by impossible and limiting standards like being born blonde, caucasian, well endowed,  curve-less, with no appetite. Not to mention that you have to be born into wealth in order to even barely scrape by on keeping up with designer fashion)

And the worst part is, despite all of our energy and focus on these goals…..most of us are incredibly unsatisfied with our image/bodies/beauty. For all of the gazillions of hours that we are investing in our beauty status, we are not making gains on our confidence.

Here are some frighteningly-enlightening and disturbing statistics I found on http://www.endfattalk.com/stats.html about how our current culture of beauty obsession is affecting our-selves as women.

• “81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat. 51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet” (Mellin LM, Irwin CE & Scully S, 1992)
• “More than 2/3 of women ages 18-25 would rather be mean or stupid than be fat and over 50% would rather be hit by a truck” (Martin, 2007)
• “Fashion models are thinner than 98% of women.” (Smolak, 1996)
• “As many as 10 million women are suffering from anorexia or bulimia. That’s more than are suffering from breast cancer.” (National Eating Disorder Association)
• “63% of women in Brazil have considered having cosmetic surgery to enhance their appearance” (Dove, Beyond Stereotypes: Rebuilding the Foundation of Beauty Beliefs)
• “Half of all women in Japan have avoided going to the doctor because they feel badly about their looks and more than half have avoided going on a job interview for the same reason” (Dove, Beyond Stereotypes: Rebuilding the Foundation of Beauty Beliefs)
• “31% of Spanish girls dieting to lose weight are not overweight.” (López-Guimerà, Fauquet, Portell, Sánchez-Carracedo, & Raich, 2008)
• “After three years of Western television, the rate of purging in Fijian girls, went from 0%-11%. And now 74% of Fijian girls report feeling too big or too fat.” (Becker, Burwell, Herzog, Hamburg, & Gilman, 2002)

Rather than putting our energy towards dreams, and ambitions, we aspire to be thin. And what really ends up being thin is our confidence, our sense of self, and often, our portfolios.

What if we committed even half of the time we allot for body obsession and exchanged it to pursue progress and creativity. Shit would change. I tell you what.

So I say to this powerful, and demeaning distraction (the fear of the fat), to this charge to be impossibly empty, and boring, and trophy, I say to this insideous fear driven obession….I hope that we can all (men and women alike)….stand together in unison, exposing the destruction of this cycle and yell at the top of our lungs….

WHAT THE FAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Delightful treat or Distraction from progress?

I was just in Hawaii for vacation last week. It was a beautiful time for me to rest and enjoy the unbelievable sunshine and landscape of Lanai Island. I got time to recharge and to re-set myself in hopes of resting and coming back to work with fresh insight and a more centered sense of self and a more clarified vision of purpose.

The time was incredibly valuable. I got to enjoy my friend Megan for several days and remember pieces of myself that I have been too busy to entertain lately. I also got time to reflect on myself as just myself (and not as a therapist, or a roommate, or a girlfriend, or a daughter), and to simply be and rest. I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in my life and the person that I have fought to become. (Also I got a lot of sleep, ate a lot of pineapple, read inspiring literature, and swam with wild dolphins. Boo Ya.)

On our third day, we were at the pool and I was reading the global updates section in Ms. Magazine and reveling in more gratitude in regards to the privilege that I hold as a woman in the U. S. The updates told of countries all over the world where women are still oppressed in shockingly overt and violent ways. (One update in particular highlighted the young girl who was stoned to death at a sporting event in Somalia because she was considered an adulteress for having been gang raped by three men earlier in the week.) I was humbled by the incredible freedom that I have had as a Caucasian American woman to find my voice, choose my partners, leave unsafe situations, access birth control and health care, and have a community of women who are free to openly meet and encourage one another. (Thank you Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, and Heinrick Ibsen and Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Eve Ensler, and Virginia Woolf, and and and and and and and and and and)…

And just as I was about to share the sentiment with Megan, irony caught us by the earlobes and we were distracted by the conversation next to us. (Poolside eaves dropping is one of our favorite vacation hobbies). There were two younger girls, who appeared to be around eighteen (they were in their first year of college), and a mother, who appeared to be forty five going on thirty. All three women met the prototypical beauty archetype: they were thin, white, had striking facial features, were without goiters, and wearing designer labels. I felt like we were watching an episode of “The Hills”.

I am not sure how the conversation began but these women were talking about dieting. The younger girls were saying that they wanted to lose weight so the mother started giving them tips about how to drop pounds. She whipped out her portion controlled low calorie snacks and talked about the ways that she avoids “bad food”. One of the younger women asked the question, “so, is it better to eat one Oreo everyday in a week, or seven Oreos in one day?” Megan and I laughed audibly. Was she serious? Was this question really plaguing her? The sad part was that it was. This young woman was obviously dealing with body dysmorphia and some form of eating disorder. The mother replied with confidence, “all seven Oreos in one day”. What?

And the conversation only got worse, at one point the two younger women were stating that they really preferred the look of “disgusting skinny”, and the mother agreed, except of course when the “knees start to look knobby”.

Snap-Just like that I was sobered into remembering that the battle for women’s progress in the United States is still going strong, it is just being fought on a different kind of playing field. Women in America are not being massacred by men throwing stones on soccer fields as is the case in Somalia, but they are being massacred by their self-contempt towards their bodies and the psychotic standard of beauty that promotes self violence in the form of starvation, self-induced vomiting, maxed out credit cards, and distraction from greater purpose.

The extreme level of self-disgust and self-hatred that women experience towards their bodies is a result of a beauty standard that promotes FRAILTY as the holy grail for female achievement. Women are taught to be aroused by their own demise, and to desire their position in the world to be that of a thin waif standing next to a man with substance. I have personally known this violent oppressor, and I have had to wage an incredibly long and tiresome war to learn to love my body. Regardless of the work that I have done to grow into a woman who believes in her self-worth, I was aware that as I was pitying these young women for their self-hatred and food obsession, I was also envying their itsy bitsy bodies. Some part of me still instinctively moves towards self-deprivation and starvation as a way to be “beautiful”, and therefore a legitimate and desireable woman.

And I know intellectually this this is hogwash. I know intellectually that my beauty lies within, and my sense of self is my move towards progress and influence. But it is buried deep in my blood to lust for a lie that steals my power away from me. Because the idea that my value is in my ability to allure a man, is something that has been embedded in my unconscious and is more powerful than mere thoughts. The beauty obsession runs deep in western women and does its work to divide us from each other and distract us from our progress as people.

So as I left the poolside, I was reminded of the complexity of gender oppression and the many faces that patriarchy holds. I may not be in danger of being stoned death for being raped, but my body is in danger of starvation at the hands of a sexual beauty standard that promotes emaciation as a desired outcome. And as a woman who has stood up to an abusive man, I know that rocks are not always necessary for a stoning to take place. The war to be free, to be equal, to valued, is still raging around me, and in me, and I can only hope, through me.

I find myself again, at a sort of beginning, humbled by my humanity, grateful for the many privileges I have, and hungry to continue to grow more roots and more trunk and more branches to reach out to women around me and share the good news, that we are already valuable beyond measure. So what do you think? Would it be more effective to spend one hour a day every day dreaming for equality and justice, or all seven hours in one day? I’m thinking one hour every day and at least a couple of Oreos to boot. (With milk of course)

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I am not sure how old I was when I was first told that “boys are stronger than girls”, or when that notion transformed itself into the endemic belief that “men are stronger than women”. I certainly don’t remember a time when I was taught anything that inferred that a woman’s physique was related to “strength”.

Rather, I remember being taught about how women are “responders and beautiful”, and men are “initiators” and strong. And I was taught that males were the only serious athletes, and females could never be as accomplished (or interesting to watch). And at church it was taught that men were “wild at heart” and women were the “beauties to be rescued”. And all of these notions reinforced their ideological predecessor that “men are stronger than women”.

Very few people stop to think that maybe the only thing that women need to be rescued from is the insidious belief that we are the weaker vessel.

Ironically, I grew up in a home where my father had a difficult time screwing in a light bulb, and my mother could put up dry wall, re-furnish a couch, and replace the cabinets all in one afternoon. And though the stereo-types were challenged by my parent’s abilities, they were not snuffed out by the greater world around me. We still attended churches and schools that theologized and philosophized that a woman’s role is to always be in tow behind the lead of a man. I read history books that were composed of 90% male perspective and 10% highlight of token female achievers. I watched TV shows, and commercials, and magazines that all validated the idea that women are dependent on men, and therefore weaker. And even though I knew somewhere internally that this myth was untrue and oppressive, I had no way to prove it because on the surface level, my body appeared “weaker” in arm wrestling matches, races, and fist fights. (ok, I have never really been in a fist fight, but you could imagine)

The philosophy of gender biology (in terms of strength, weakness, and dominance) is taught both consciously and unconsciously in a primitive split: men are strong and women are beautiful. We (both men and women) are all taught to view gender in role formation, and to create relationships based on those roles. The roles themselves boil down to a simple assumption, “(strong) in charge”, and “(beautiful) subservient”. This then creates a world where authority is distributed to men through patriarchy, and submission is distributed to women in the form of “beauty” that is meant as pleasure for a man. This is a very complex and ancient belief system, but at its most primitive roots is the argument that men are physically stronger than women.

In most positions of power in modern day, candidates do not arm wrestle to gain employment, or awards. And yet, with the case of gender, any time I have been around for a debate concerning gender values, the conversation has always comes back around to “biology” and the age old “reality” that men can overpower women in physical “dominance”. As if the ability to successfully violate someone is a quality we should desire in our leaders. And yet it stands to be a repeated argument in the distribution of power. Men can reek more physical pain, so women must be the weaker vessel.

But no one stops to consider the meaning of strength. Who has had the power to determine which physical strength is value worthy, and which physical strength is not? Up to this point, men have had the power to decide. Because of this unequal authority on strength definition, no one stops to think about the deeper biological implications of the female anatomy and the dependence that men have on women. Show me the man who can procreate. Men are dependent on female biology to continue the cycle of life. This is the most PHYSICALLY important act of survival and “leadership” that I can think of. And yet it is this very ABILITY that is used against women to connote their inability to co-create, and co-lead in other facets. (which is of course a farce, women ARE as competent in leadership as men) But this physical strength of women is devalued because its implications lead to a world where male privilege must be eliminated and co-participation in domestic life is expected.

Although it may be one small argument amongst a pool of millions, it feels hopeful for both men and women alike to lie the smack down on it. Men are not stronger than women, and women are not stronger than men. Men and women are meant to co-create humanity together and to acknowledge differences in a way that does not privilege one biology over another, but in a way that betters humanity as a whole. This creates a loss of male privilege in one vein, but it also creates the opportunity for men to find legitimate partners, and not just “child brides”, who can partner in both emotional, physical, and financial ways.

If we want to see a world with less violence, and corruption, then we have to envision a world where no gender is taught to be submissive, or taught that their particular strengths are subordinate to those of the other. If we are people that truly believe in love and peace, then we must champion a community where all genders are equal in power, dignity, and the opportunity to lead, speak, and shape the perceptions of what is considered “strength”.

“I was the first American Citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish.” -Shirley Chisholm

The patriarchal anxiety of our culture used to attack feminism by labeling it the anti-Christ. It attacked the feminist conversation by scaring competent women with threats of “biblical moral roles” and the possibility of isolation from male community (and more specifically, isolation from their husbands, brothers, and fathers). The religious right crixified Gloria Steinem and her less famous counterparts for speaking out again the corruption of male-centric hegemony. And as far as I have known, this community has not shifted their perspective on gender and power. Men are still entitled to “lead” and women are still “blessed with the gift of submission”.
Of course, this is not to deny that there has been movement within the evangelical community. There is a greater acceptance of female autonomy, and more and more churches have progressed to giving women a voice in theology. But the battle has not been won. And, I am concerned, that the Palin Plot, has created a larger regression in evangelical feminism than has been seen since the likes of Falwell.
It seems to me that the rhetoric of feminism is being hijacked for the sake of misogyny. To call Sarah Palin a feminist is naive, and frankly, ignorant. Palin’s candidacy does not represent women in power, it represents women being used to promote the agenda of powerful conservative

“Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.” -Sandra Day O’Connor

A woman being elected to the Vice Presidency could be a possible leap for women, if it wasn’t in fact a strategy to maintain the status-quo of uber-conservative politics. I am completely in awe of the way that people are being blindsighted by Sarah Palin’s gender without understanding the oppressive gender constructs of her political positioning. Sarah Palin is being used as a pawn, and that is not feminist progress, it is oppression.
I guess I just can’t deny that the move to place Palin as the VP was based on seduction, and not based on bringing the female perspective to the table. Unfortunately for Palin, she has little understanding of the way that her gender is being hijacked for the “agender” (get it? ok, that was a stretch I know) of the conservative right religion.
IF Sarah Palin was being brought into politics for her competency, for her experience, for her fresh perspective (again, let me emphasize, she does not hold a new perspective, she merely succumbs and submits to the same statutes that Bush followed….this is SCARY…she is mostly a male consciousness in female chromosome), then it would be a leap for women. Then it would prove that a woman’s perpective is valued and can compete within the political market.
Unfortunatly, none of the IF’s are accurate. There is no experience, there is no feminine voice, there is no competency in anything new or progressive. There is only the status quo being embodied in a woman who finds false power by appeasing conservative gender conceptions.
So I guess what I want to say, is don’t be fooled by the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Although Palin is a female, she is unequivocally not a feminist.

Here are a few of my rudimentary definitions of feminist progress….

Feminism is the mutal exchange of dignity and respect between both genders.

Feminism is the electing of power according to skill level, character, and potential.

Feminism is the celebration of that which is male and female without assimilating the two to each other.

Feminism is the offering of unique voices without the oppression of the dominant voice.

Feminism is the combination of both strength and tenderness.

Feminism is the possibility of a world that includes all peoples, all genders, and all races to participate in the process of creation.