'Me Time:' On Insecurity and the Female Body

When I told my loving, supportive Man the other day that I was feeling insecure, he assumed it was about my recently acquired sunburn, obviously my one imperfection.  No, I contradicted him, it wasn't that.  But I didn't go on to tell him what it was, because, in fact, I didn't know what it was.  So I took some time to meditate on it.  It wasn't my sunburn, nor that ever-present inch of belly fat (uterus safety cushion!), nor the fruitful, multiplying hormonal pimples on my chin (I hate them).  None of these factors explained my sudden downward spiraling mood.

Turned out, the problem lay in the way in which I was thinking about my body: as an object.

Whaaat.  Me, a Wellesley educated feminist, objectifying my own body?  Not on purpose, dummies.

You see, the way I think about my body now is entirely different from the way I did when I was a kid.  Then, my body was just that -- a body, my body, my self.  It was I, the I who ran around and climbed trees and wrestled and jumped on beds.  It was the unproblematic I, deserving of my enjoyment.  I can't help but be saddened at the loss of that simplicity.  Now my body is a project, a thing comprised of disparate parts to be shaved, covered, uncovered, plucked, thinned, toned, waxed, trimmed, tucked... (What else, I don't know.  I don't do all of those things, who am I kidding.  We're lucky if I'm shaving my armpits today.)  The body, we are told -- male as well as female, but especially female -- is an unholy thing desperately in need of perfection.

I'm starting to think that the popularity of yoga is an answer to and remedy for the problematic problematisation of the body.  When I'm on the yoga mat, it's my Me Time.  I don't mean by that what you (probably) think I mean by that.  You (probably) think I mean by that that 'this is the only hour I devote to myself in my entire day!'  (Let's get real, I devote a lot more time than that to myself.)  No, what I mean by that is, during my Me Time, I finally  feel free to think of my body in the right kind of way: as my self, freed from the scrutiny of the beauty industry's thousand thousand (money-making, pseudo-scientific) accusing diagnoses.  

I'm not saying I'm not part of the problem.  Beauty culture and the beauty industry are the first source (my thighs were not made to gap, people), but those messages sink in, boy do they sink in!  And I repeat them to myself (when is this face wash going to start making my skin look photoshopped?).

And I'm not saying that shaving legs or wearing makeup are bad, per se.  Just know that your eyelashes are perfectly fine the way they are before you have at 'em (I love mascara).  That's the lesson I've been trying to teach myself during a nearly year-long mascara sabbatical (it's almost over!  People can stop thinking I'm tired, sick, or in deep mourning).  

Oh, and the next time any man anywhere tells you you don't need makeup, allow your glorious self to be insulted by the securely presumptuous male gaze.  Also, body-policing.

And never, ever poke fun at women who head to the yoga mat.  We yogis are on to something with our Me Time.  My body is good enough.  Your body is good enough.  Namaste.