Whose Body Is It, Anyway?

Recently I read that a male musician called out Taylor Swift over some perceived defect in her anatomy. It struck me that anyone, and I mean anyone today is fair game for those who engage in body-shaming.

Also this week, I read that a 10-year-old girl who had cut off 14 inches of her hair to donate to a charity that makes wigs for children being treated for cancer was bullied by boys at her school. They harassed her for “wanting to look like a boy.”

I’ve heard stories of how 13-year-old boys let the 11-year-old girls they go to school with know that they’ll only date girls who weigh less than a certain weight, so they better not get “heavy.”

I’ve heard of many thin celebrities being accused of having an eating disorder and I’ve heard of girls as young as seven going on diets to be more physically appealing to their male peers.

So much for the enlightened 21st century!

The thing is, neither men nor women win when we shame women over their bodies or appearance. This obsession over our weight, size and shape is so utterly irrelevant that it’s embarrassing. Are we so completely silly and shallow that we can’t focus on something, anything more meaningful than this?

When we value a woman for adhering to some mythical and impossible physical ideal, we completely ignore all the amazing and real attributes she has within her: her intelligence; her courage; her wit; her insights; her warmth; her strength and her talent, for example. Really, who cares about the size or shape of her various parts?

When men shame women for not conforming to their (often inconsistent and contradictory) standards of physical “perfection,” not only do they widen the gulf of alienation between the sexes, ensuring even greater difficulty in establishing intimate and fulfilling male-female relationships; they also deprive themselves of the best we women have to offer.

The objectification of women’s bodies isn’t anything new, but the degree of body-shaming going on in the on-line community has reached epic proportions. No woman is safe; not a lovely, bright, talented celebrity nor an ordinary, innocent schoolgirl.

We women have to start standing up to body-shaming. It’s our bodies men are appropriating and our bodies that men are criticizing, as though they had the right to decide how we should look.

I’m all for being attractive and putting one’s best foot forward, but it’s unacceptable that some random male on the internet or in the schoolyard gets to dictate whose body is “acceptable” and whose is not.

There are many types of beauty; many ways that an individual, male or female, can be attractive. I support the notion of diversity, and the right for each one of us to define, for ourselves, what we consider to be “attractive.”

So, women, if someone is telling you, whether in your academic, professional or personal life that your body doesn’t “measure up don’t take this on. They are merely revealing their own shallowness to you.

Our bodies belong to us, and whether they’re conventionally “beautiful” or lumpy, saggy and mottled with stretchmark’s and cellulite, they’re the vehicles for our intelligence, our desires, our hopes and dreams.

Let’s reclaim our bodies for ourselves, and no longer allow anyone, male or female, to shame us for not conforming to how they believe we “should” look. We are all beautiful if we feel beautiful on the inside; however we look on the outside.

Let’s remember that whatever our body looks like, it’s just one small aspect of the totality of our being. That 10-year-old girl is so much more than her short hair. She’s a hero, in my mind. And Taylor Swift is such an amazingly talented musician, it’s laughable that anyone would even go there with her.

People who engage in body-shaming are revealing how foolish they are. For what they’re doing, they’re the ones who should be ashamed.

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About the Author

Marcia Sirota MD FRCP(C) is a board-certified psychiatrist, that does not ascribe to any one theoretical school. Rather, she has integrated her education and life experiences into a unique approach to the practice of psychotherapy. She considers herself a realist with a healthy measure of optimism. Sign up here for her free monthly wellness newsletter. Listen here to her latest podcast. marciasirotamd.com