TW: disordered eating & homophobia
Growing up I was profoundly insecure. I was constantly worried about the way that I looked, what I was eating, what I was wearing, and the space that I was taking up. As I got older, I was frequently comparing myself to other women, while also juggling the reality that I was really, really attracted to them. There is a unique intersection between being a queer woman while also falling victim to the deeply entrenched idea of other women being your direct competition. As a child, I would pick out films to watch or books to read based on the women on the covers, I was constantly inundated with thin, white women whom I wanted to simultaneous be, and be with. My mother picked up on my self-consciousness quickly, and in an attempt to try and give me the best life possible, enrolled me in dance and swim classes, taught me how to exercise, and helped me try to diet. She believed that by instilling these habits in me early, I would grow up to be slender and beautiful. IE; She believed that if I were conventionally attractive, I would benefit from the privileges of being a white passing, thin, pretty woman. And in many ways, I have. I learned to equate beauty and worth when I was so young. Women learn to equate beauty and worth when they are so young. By first grade, I was acutely aware of the fact that I was taller than the other girls in my class. I was taller than the boys in my class. I had a large nose, I was heavier, I had a deeper voice, I had a weird name, I was awkward… And, of course, there were the crushes on other girls. I was in first grade when I accidentally came out to my father. “Dad, I have a crush on a girl.” Silence. “That’s totally normal, Maya Elena. It happens all the time.” My father’s reaction was a gift, the acceptance that I had at home bolstered my confidence and gave me a safe space where I never questioned my sexuality, but at the same time left me completely unprepared for the outside world, homophobia, and bullies. But I knew that when people called me gay, it was an insult. I didn’t know how other girls did it; they carried themselves so effortlessly. They knew what clothes to wear, how to style their hair, and looked so pretty in a way that I found myself totally unable to imitate. I had never seen an ungainly girl represented positively in any of the media that I consumed growing up, I had already tried letting down my hair and taking off my glasses, and no miracle cure happened. People still looked at me the same way. I felt so ugly. And I felt so strongly that being ugly was the worst thing that a woman could be. I didn’t understand how all the other girls around me had this figured out, and why I never could. So, when I’d get home, I would ask my mother – “How can I look better?” and she would say “You’re beautiful! I would kill for your figure and height, I hate being short, and I hate not having a flat stomach.” While what my mother was trying to do was build up my self-esteem, what was really happening was an inheritance of generations of stigmatization and disconnection from our female bodies. My entire life, I watched my mother pick herself apart and police her decisions about her body. Eating was a ritual that she felt undeserving of. Being full, happy, satiated, strong, and just eating the fucking ice cream that she wanted to so badly was foreign to her. But shame wasn’t. When I would tell my mother how gorgeous she was, she would automatically disagree with me, every time. I noticed that the other women in my life did this, too. My friends and the women that I dated all rejected compliments outright – and I couldn’t understand how these people, who were so loved and radiated that love back out, could ever think of themselves so negatively. Until I did understand. Until I understood that I had been doing that to myself my entire life, the only difference was that I believed I deserved to feel this way, and that the women around me did not. The insecurity that I developed as a little girl was amplified, magnified, and grew monstrous from seeing it reflected back at me in the eyes of the other women in my life. And as I have grown and matured, I find the opposite to be true, as well. When I see the women around me now, as adults loving and embracing themselves, I feel empowered to love and embrace myself, as well. My relationship with my body and sexuality now is so far away from the toxic, embarrassed one I used to have. And the biggest reason for that is because I started to see women radically loving themselves. And that love for themselves really was a radical act. In a society that is built to financially capitalize significantly from women feeling insecure, rejecting the notion that our physical appearance is inherently tied to our value is revolutionary. A study from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in 2017 lists that cosmetic surgery in the US is a $16 billion industry. Women (and men) are cutting themselves open, paying unthinkable sums of money, and dealing with (sometimes lifelong) complications from elective surgical procedures to inch closer to an unobtainable and false Anglocentric standard of beauty. When I first started to witness other women speaking about themselves positively and unashamed, it changed my life. I became so much more aware of how hatefully we are taught to speak to ourselves, and this self-hate is absolutely intrinsic in Western culture and media. I imagine how I would have felt growing up if I were to have heard my mother say “I am beautiful. I am a mother, I am an educator, I am a talented woman.” I believe that self-love has a ripple effect. I believe that being kinder to yourself and being mindful of the words that you use directed toward your body has a larger impact than we may realize originally. How would your life have been different if your mother raised you to know, unconditionally, that you AND her were beautiful, valuable, and worthwhile exactly as you are, because you are yourself?