*This post may be offensive.
When I saw this photo, I stopped. I just knew, it was the cry of millions and millions of girls and women who kill a part of themselves everyday, consciously or not, to stay on that fine yellow line which society draws for them.
If you are female, I am sure you, like me, will resonate with it.
Once, I used to hate my body. At one point, I hated it so much that I fell very, very ill. But now that I’m well, and constantly check on my thoughts and habits to make sure I never go down that slippery road again, I’ve come to discover, that even the normal baseline of self-acceptance and self-consciousness among the majority of females is light years away from a place of freedom and abandoned love.
We are so self-conscious.
I grew up with boys. At any one point, I think I had more guy friends than most of my girlfriends did. Perhaps it was just that I really enjoyed running around with guns and bows and arrows and pretending to a be a superhero with them. Or maybe it was that when I wanted to be Sleeping Beauty I always kept it secret because I was too much of a tom-boy to admit it. And when we grew up, we just stayed comfortable around one another. Anyhow, I was often teased, and I grew, unfortunately, to become astutely aware, perhaps a little too much, of the male psyche.
That made me afraid. Because I learnt that most boys, even if they’re my buddies, don’t know how to respect a real woman. Few men do.
Last Sunday, on the front page of the papers, was the headline “Anorexia at 8”. It looks like that thin yellow line has left its mark on our children, too.
Damn it. Have we lost?
Have we forgotten that we were each made differently, that our source of security and love comes not from the approval of others but from ourselves and God? Have we forgotten that a real man would love us for who we are and not how much we weigh? And even though it’s great to live a healthy lifestyle and eat nutritiously, how many of us know that that by itself doesn’t get you Jada Pinkett’s body?
I exercise. I should know. Trust me, that body you want doesn’t come from a healthy lifestyle. It’s called having good genes, a celebrity lifestyle and a personal trainer with a full-time training programme. The body that we try to obtain comes with awkward self-consciousness, painful self-denial and unrealistic cheating.
Why do international surveys show that a majority of women hate some parts of their bodies. Have we lost?
I admit, it has always been my legs. Then when I started doing triathlon, it became my sun-dried, chlorine-soaked hair.
Have you tried balancing on a thin yellow line with sky-high stilettoes without losing your balance? It looks easy, but it really is back-breaking business. Not to mention, dangerous, too. One constantly feels one is on the edge of a fall.
Perhaps, what we really need is to throw away those red stilettoes and those blood-red apples, start loving our legs and feet and hair and boobs and eat real food, and to take a brave leap forward to realise that there really is no consequence to not toeing that thin yellow line that society draw for us. It is about taking charge, and making a conscious choice every day, all the time.
It might not be the fault of the media, or boys. We cannot push the blame. It is simply a bad mix of their gawky adolescence or ignorance, our media-driven society and our terrible insecurity.
When will it take us to see that every part of us is beautiful and complete as it is.
When will it take for us to realise that God’s love is enough.
When will we learn to sit back and say, God, thank you for ice-cream, and thank you for my strong arms and thunderthighs because they help me walk and run and carry kids and spin them round like a merry-go-round.
I am trying, too.
Photo by Ian Ho
Modelling and concept by Wai Jia
