A Bit of a Blether

(I started writing this in June 2015; I do get to everything sooner or later.)

Two summers ago, People magazine released their 2015 Body Issue.  It was in the waiting area of at my physical therapist's office, and I picked it up and leafed through it, intrigued by the plus-size model on the cover.  I should have known better.  After a two page interview with the size 22 model, Tess Holliday, plus a two page photographic spread of 'real' people being fearless about their bodies (including a double amputee and a mom in a bikini with stretch marks), the following 15 or 20 pages was the same ol' same ol' of scantily clad celebrities with cartoonish Batman-style captions. Celebrities whose stock in trade is their body--a body that they can afford to work on like a full time job, with personal chefs, personal trainers, personal assistants, and, failing that, plastic surgeons.  It was objectification of the worst kind.  I closed the magazine after a few pages in disgust and sort of hated myself for even opening it in the first place.

I've been thinking a lot lately about cultural visual norms, and how that relates to body image.  From what I read and hear from other women, most of us have some issues with our bodies.  There is always something that doesn't quite measure up to the cultural standard that assaults us from every magazine cover, every U.S.-produced television show, every perfectly cultivated photograph on social media.  It is a visual onslaught.  The funny thing is that, going by averages, almost no woman fits this ideal.  Let's set aside for the moment whether the ideal is healthy, and whether the actual average woman is healthy.  I want to focus specifically on the visual norm that it creates, and the huge gap between it and reality.

I think we can all agree that most of us don't look like celebrities.  No one looks like Kate Middleton 10 hours after having a baby--heck, I don't even look that great when I'm all dressed up for a dinner party and haven't just given birth (I really think she did all new mothers everywhere a great disservice by showing up outside the hospital looking like a model so quickly after the birth of her daughter;  I'm intrigued by the notion being floated about that perhaps she actually gave birth a week earlier)  I find it very interesting and frustrating that so many clothing retailers offer garments for a lifestyle that many of us don't live on the daily.

I think it is one of the chief reasons why women struggle so much to find clothing that fits well, feels good, and suits their lifestyles.  (The proliferation of style blogs and the agonized comments sections bear this out)  I know it is something I struggle with.  There is a big disconnect between the cultural visual norm and where many of us actually live.  Which is, mostly in the car, at the school pick up and drop off, getting groceries, running errands, going to work, hanging out at home, etc.  Not jetting off to some island or fancy dinner party or partying on the red carpet.

I think our collective body image suffers as a result.  This is setting aside issues of health and other related things, and really thinking about visual norms, how we feel about ourselves, and how we view our bodies.  Personally, it is all too easy to look at my body in the mirror and see all the ways it falls short of the cultural ideal.  I have stretch marks, saggy skin, a baby belly that is never going away, flab, cellulite, skin spots, gray thinning hair, dry skin that splits and keratinizes, dark hair on my arms and legs.  And that is just the stuff that I theoretically have the ability to change.  I'm also proportioned oddly and quite muscular for a woman.  But I'm okay with all that, actually. Yes, I need to lose weight to be more healthy, yes, I should take better care of my body because it is the only one I get.  But I'm also realistic that I'm not going to look like a teenager forever, and my body bears the marks of where I've been, what I've done with my life, the children I've borne. Please note that I'm not suggesting that we celebrate obesity, or that there are not many many real health and societal costs to having more than 2/3 of the population overweight or obese.  I also think it is a real problem that a publication like People would choose to celebrate someone with an eating disorder (going by the information in the cover story interview).

That said, I would like to propose some ways to develop a positive body image.

1. Change your visual norm.  I've tried to stop buying/reading fashion magazines, because so much of the imagery is designed to make me feel bad about my body.   I've lately noticed the same phenomenon when I spend too much time looking at vintage patterns for style inspiration.  Instead, I'm trying to steer my research toward photographs of actual women, rather than line drawings of an ideal that many women didn't even attain at the beginning of the 20th century with serious foundation garments!  The gap between the ideal presented by a disinterested fashion industry and reality has always been there.

2.  Related: watch what you watch.   I admit to a serious weakness for British and Aussie television programming, in part because it is excellent and well-written, but also because the people look more normal.  Very often, the leads have lumps and bumps, imperfect faces and teeth, everyone comes in different shapes and sizes and ages, and the visual norm is closer to the diversity I see in my everyday life.  (I especially like the Miss Fisher Mysteries and Inspector Lewis for this reason--almost all the characters look like normal people to me)

3.  Measure yourself and write it down.  This may sound counter intuitive, as I think a lot of us can get hung up on the numbers on the tape or scale, but actually, I think knowing your measurements is empowering.  It is just a number, after all, not a judgement.  Don't compare numbers with other people, because the same measurements can look very different from person to person.  My measurements are very similar to another blogger I read (I'm not linking for obvious reasons), but my proportions are totally different, so she looks quite different from me in similar styles.  I could write a whole exposition on the size game played by the fashion industry, and what a total random crock it is, but suffice to say that size is just a number, like anything else.  It has no relation to reality, there is no industry standard, it is whatever the fashion people say it is, and how they make their slopers.  They might as well come up with sizes designated Frog or Fish for all the sense the sizing charts make.  Measurements are power--measurements will help determine if something will fit well, and if you sew like I do, help determine what size to cut out for best fit.  A body is a body, and a number is a number.  All bodies are good bodies. (Keep in mind that until the late Renaissance, the visual norm, and ideal beauty standard was one of a pregnant-looking woman.  Even into the Renaissance, with the standard changing to a more fitted torso and padded hips, skinny women were always trying to find ways to plump up their bodies to meet the ideal of the day.  It wasn't always about looking like skin and bones.  End rant).

4.  Try to understand your body's quirks and understand your body's limitations.  I'm never going to be tall and willowy, even if I lose 80 pounds.  I'm always going to be petite-proportioned, with stumpy lower arms and legs and a lot of muscle mass.  I'll always have more physically in common with a peasant woman than a ballet dancer.  I'm always going to have narrow shoulders and beefy upper arms--I know this because I was quite thin once.  My basic body proportions aren't really that different from when I was thin--just bigger.  I think understanding limitations can be quite freeing.  Do I wish I was thinner?  Of course.  I am working on it.  And I'm not saying that I don't wish sometimes to have long legs and lean muscle mass, but I've learned to appreciate what I do have.  My dad always says that our people were made for pushing threshers with our feet, and I'm often grateful for my (sometimes freakish) strength.  Graceful, I am not.  I'll never be a sprinter or even run very fast.  But I can lift a washing machine, take the pump apart, and put it all back together, so there's that.

That said, I still have lots of times where I just feel jumpy in my skin.  Like Picasso went and did a number on my face.  I think this feeling serves as a reminder to me to back away from the cultural norms--perhaps I've been spending a little too much time on Facebook (and my previously excellent ad blocker seems to have stopped working, so my Facebook experience is definitely visual ad-based these days).  I've maybe spent too much time scrolling Pinterest for ideas.  (To be fair, I find Pinterest an excellent research tool for historic clothing construction, but I'm as guilty as the next person of using it idly to look for sartorial inspiration)  

I wrote a little bit a while back about Anne Hollander's excellent book, Seeing Through Clothes. That book really turned a lot of my thinking on its ear, not just as a strict sartorial matter, but how imagery impacts and reinforces cultural norms, and how those visual norms change over time.  It also convinced me that what we wear matters, as it is the first thing the world sees.  Our clothing speaks for us, and can become a kind of short hand for who we are.

There aren't a lot of people around who dress like me, or personally find visually normative.  I've never minded being the odd man out, particularly with my clothing, and I don't strive to be one of the crowd, but it is hard to feel so at odds with what is in front of you all the time.  I'm trying to be more selective about the imagery that I allow into my head, particularly in the blogs that I read, and to set harder limits for myself with social media.  I think this can only help in the long run.  I long for a solid self.

I'm working on it.