Body Acceptance

“The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people’s minds.”
― Edward De Bono

How do we  really succeed full confidence in our bodies with society’s specific vision? This is a question I have recently been asking  myself. It is more recent because before I had never thought that I had a choice of the way my body should look. This is because growing up I had always been told what it is to be a lady and how my body should look in order to be accepted. I have always been super self conscience when it comes to my weight because in my household weight seemed to be a revisited topic. For me because I was always an “overweight” child. I usually got compared to my fit and muscular brother. He passionately played football so I was also expected to passionately play a sport. I was always strongly pushed to play a sport because of my thicker figure, with hopes I would loose weight or not gain any. I was constantly compared to my brother and what my parents and society told me was the ideal shape.

Having society’s ideal and “normal” weight always shown and told to me, it is the hardest thing to really except being different from that expectation. I have many days where I love and embrace my thick and curvier shape. Other days I constantly dwell on how I look  compared to those of the more ideal weight. Even when someone is thicker, there always is an appearance expectation. The fashion always is supposed to be kept up rather than the expectations from someone who is already at ideal shape. It is a struggle in which  I still look to accept how I feel about my body rather then persuaded by society’s perception. Is there really a full and complete way to accept our personal own body type? Even when we are up against what a body should be  and look like concerning doctors, health,and society. I always wonder will there be a body type acceptance for all.

Let Yourself Forgive Your Body, Just As It Forgives You

I want to start off with a trigger warning: I am going to be discussing self-harm in this.

Healing the Body-Self

Last week on Wednesday, there was talk that the English department puts on to showcase a professor from that department. The department choose Professor Rudacille, my English 383 (Science Writing), to present her different projects she is taking on and how they all relate to one another. So far she is writing a play that is loosely based off of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, she is writing a piece on the mountaintop removal issue in West Virginia, and she is finishing up doing interviews of individuals of the Catholic Faith in regards more radical ideas outside of the church. It was interesting to see how all these vastly different things relate to the idea of healing.

American Horror Story: Freak Show

I absolutely love these interviews that American Horror Story is putting out on YouTube. It definitely gives us a perspective on how those with unique bodies, view their own bodies, and learn to accept their own bodies.

Male/Female: To be or Not to Be

After reading Dean Spade Mutilating Gender essay I am baffled and saddened. It seems as if gender binary is causing more strife in society than one cares to recognize or admit. Why does every entity in life need to be categorized in order to be accepted? Due to the ancient history of gender roles/identity and my new achievement of joining Biologist I am sure the discovery of karyotyping is throwing a wrench in the system.

Fictional Reality: the Danger of Matter over Mind

I think at this point in my life, I can safely say that I owe most of my coping mechanisms to the vast amounts of fantasy fiction that I’ve read. Cartesian dualism has been an integral part of the way in which I built my world, and up until this point has been the only way in which I know how to reconcile what happens inside of my head and what happens in the outside world.

My Baby Obsession

It has been an hour and a half since our class discussion on the film about the pregnant man. I have a hundred different emotions swirling about inside me and I have spent the last ninety minutes trying and failing to be productive while these emotions cloud my brain. I’m not sure what I’m feeling, exactly. It’s a mixture of anxiety and fear, doubt and disappointment, and maybe a little bit of hope. Is that even the right word? I don’t know.

My Headaches.

source: http://femaleimagination.wordpress.com/2013/01/page/2/

I get really bad headaches. Constant, enduring, painful headaches.

How Should I React?

In my first blog post, I talked about women’s bodies in public being viewed as public property. As this assignment has progressed, I have been really impressed and inspired by the personal stories that everyone else has shared, so I want to end my blog by talking about a few of my own experiences of my body being seen as public property. *tw sexual harassment/salty language*

A Home Within the Body?

So after reading a bit of Exile and Pride, I thought it interesting that Eli Clare considered his body as what was home to him.  To me, home had always been anything BUT my body.  For instance, the roof I live under is considered home to me, the neighborhood I live in is considered home to me, being surrounded by my family and their mannerisms and so on.   When looking at what my body is to me, it’s just simply that . . . my body.  I look at it as a piece of property owned by me.

Then Clare starts putting labels on his body, such as queer and disabled, which describes who he is and how it describes his body as home.  In relation to my own body, I’ve never considered even putting labels on it because the idea never occurred to me.  Don’t get me wrong, my body is very special to me, because it was given to me specially when I was born into this world, but I just can’t come to the point of naming it home, and putting labels on it.  That seems kind of abnormal to me.  Instead, on an ending note, I’d like to also look at my body simply as a miraculous piece of work that serves as a protection for my soul, which is in charge of my inner thoughts, actions, etc., contained inside.