“You do not need to change your body; you need to change the rules.” Naomi Wolf
Recognize that when it comes to our bodies, there are no rules.
Your body is like a fingerprint.
Unique in size, shape and color, it carries curves and bends that cannot be replicated by any body, anywhere.
It embraces unrepeatable patterns of freckles and lines.
Your scars are not imperfections, they tell your story.
This is your genetic blue print; one of a kind, and beautiful in all it’s authenticity.
One opinion of beauty does not have the power to discount the rest.
There is no single beautiful body type, and therefore the confines and constraints of these so called “rules” we allow ourselves to be defined by, do not exist.
It’s time to redefine beauty.
Time to break the rules.
Time to let them go.
It’s time to be free.
For Each of You
Be who you are and will be
learn to cherish that boistrous Black Angel that drives you
up one day and down another
protecting the place where your power rises
running like hot blood
from the same source
as your pain.
When you are hungry
learn to eat
whatever sustains you
until morning
but do not be misled by details
simply because you live them.
Do not let your head deny
your hands
any memory of what passes through them
nor your eyes
nor your heart
everything can be useful
except what is wasteful
(you will need
to remember this when you are accused of destruction.)
Even when they are dangerous
examine the heart of those machines you hate
before you discard them
and never mourn the lack of their power
lest you be condemned
to relive them.
If you do not learn to hate
you will never be lonely
enough
to love easily
nor will you always be brave
although it does not grow any easier
Do not pretend to convenient beliefs
even when they are righteous
you will never be able to defend your city
while shouting.
Remember our sun
is not the most noteworthy star
only the nearest.
Respect whatever pain you bring back
from your dreaming
but do not look for new gods
in the sea
nor in any part of a rainbow
Each time you love
love as deeply
as if it were
forever
only nothing is
eternal.
Speak proudly to your children
where ever you may find them
tell them
you are the offspring of slaves
and your mother was
a princess
in darkness.
“
| — |
Audre Lorde in From a Land Where Other People Live |
“Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I don’t
Sometimes I comb my hair and sometimes I won’t
Depend on how the wind blows I might even paint my toes
It really just depends on whatever feels good in my soul”
This song reminds me of many of the conversations we had in class about all that we do to our bodies to fit the “standard”. Many things: hair removal, hair treatments, make-up rituals are all things we don’t even think about in our day-to-day lives. I like this song because it talks about feeling good and doing things because its a choice you are making. Reclaiming autonomy is exactly what I take from this!!
Demanding women’s bodies should be covered or uncovered, makes their bodies the ground on which battles of culture are fought. She is reduced to only her sex, objectified either in her being covered or in her being exposed. She becomes the stand-in symbol for either the past or the future, for religious anxiety and for nationalism.
“
| — |
Samhita dropping knowledge at Feministing about the ban on face veils in France. (via jessicavalenti) I love Samhita. I had dinner with her and she was so awesome (via thefemcritique) |
If this happened because of a race or gender would these forms of discrimination be just as blatant? I LOVE this article because it captures so many things that I feel about the way others feel that they have the right to say things about my body.
Thought these personal accounts of body image and with The Body Positive were interesting. Check it out!
I’m really tired of hearing things like “real women have curves!” or comparisons between “women” and “transwomen” (as if a trans woman is any less of a woman than a cis woman?).
Heads up folks: all bodies are real bodies, regardless of size, regardless of shape, regardless of colour, class, education, orientation, nationality, religion, or genetic make up. Pre or post op? Born xx or xy? Skinny with no tits or curvy as all get out? There is no body that is not a “real” body, there is no woman who is not a “real woman.”
