Bra Burning: Outsourcing Self Esteem

I can watch this gif all day

I've been feeling like shit this week. Criticizing every aspect of my body, nitpicking what's dimply, whats wobbly, and what's not perfect. The culmination of this self-loathing lead to a moment while I was buttering up a cinnamon thingy toasty bar for dinner. I broke down and cried. I cried out of frustration that I had felt so unattractive. I cried because I haven't felt sexy in years. I cried because I had bought into the bullshit that is peddled to women since we were young: if you aren't pretty you aren't anything.

 It made me mad  that I had placed my own sexual attraction and feeling valued outside of my own control. It pissed me off that I had completely let pictures of lean women, photo shopped women to make me feel like crap.  I some how had thought that I wasn't sexy if I wasn't waxed enough, thin enough, or defined enough. Even more so, I had compared myself to women who are overly represented in the media (Caucasian chicks). I'm not White. I'm Latin. I'm curvy, why couldn't I accept that? I know I'm not the only women who looks at herself in the mirror and plays "lets see what's wrong with me." How do we stop this and help our daughters feel comfortable in their own skin.

More Women of Color and Shape!


I think I place more emphasis on the women of shape, because even when we see women of color on TV they are svelte and thin.  In watching the Olympics you see women who are not considered 'beautiful' by what the media tells us, and they are INCREDIBLE athletes who's bodies have been fine tuned for excellence in their field. Some of these women are thin and strong, big and strong, or tiny and strong.  Yet we'll associate some of these traits as masculine and 'unattractive.'

look up big booty bitches

Take Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Kate Upton. Many people would define them as "feminine" where as Serena Williams, Kayla Harrison, Missy Franklin body types would be considered "less feminine." Why can't they both be just as feminine. We need to challenge the perspective that being 'feminine' as looking a certain way.

I'm saying we need big booties, little booties, big boobs, small boobs, big backs, small backs, deemed as beautiful.

Changing the dialogue


I've had women sit across from me in therapy tell me that they try to help their daughters by telling them they're beautiful. It gets under my skin because you're showing your daughter that the only way they can feel better is if they hear they are pretty. I often tell these moms that there is nothing wrong with saying that, but try to add something with more sustenance like complementing a quality or a skill along with being pretty.

We've been so ingrained to do this, that even when we here are girlfriends complaining about how they feel in relation to how they look we will often say "But you're so pretty." We repeat the cycle for putting our emotional well being in looking good. I know for me it started to wear thin and I thought "there has to be more to me feeling better about myself than just looking a certain way."

total badass

Let us praise the women in our lives not just by their looks but by their bad ass accomplishments.

Redefining Beauty/Femininity


Performing femininity is the act of behaving, dressing, and acting a way that is deemd "normal female behavior." We're looking at you high heel shoes, painful waxing, hair curlers, and make up. It's ingrained in us, so much so, that I know personally I will probably not be able to stop performing femininity. Anything that doesn't fall in that realm of what is considered normal is considered masculine, negative, or abnormal.

Femininity conjures up images of softness, bouncy, princessy, unicorn-ness. We've internalized the patriarchal ideal of beauty (because mostly men have decided what is beautiful and what is not). Lets take back our own definition of beauty. Let feminine be a large spectrum from super princessy to whatever the complete opposite of that is (if there even is an opposite). We can absorb some 'masculine' traits and still be women, just like men can absorb some feminine traits and still be men (this is another topic for another day)


Stop the Outsourcing

We (us lady folks) need to stop putting the job of our self-worth outside of us in the hands of others and in the hands of society. Don't get me wrong, I wont yell at you if you want to compliment me on my earlobes, but I don't want to break down and cry when I don't feel my earlobes aren't pretty, thin, enough.

It's difficult, and I think as I continue to embark the learning process of where I stand with Feminism and where Feminism stands with me these kind of issues will sit around in my head. I have to continue working to counter act all cognitive distortions that are related to the messages I've received. My face and figure do not define me. I define me.