I Hate My Body
I watched the young woman who wrote this on the Body Politics wall, opening night at ArtOMatic 2009.
I posted a cropped photo of this on my blog today and then wrote my own “thought for the day” about those words (when I usually quote someone else).
I got to thinking about researching just exactly what it means when one says: I hate my body. Is the body the “Other?” or is it just a way to say we hate ourselves; and why in the world would we hate ourself? Because we aren’t happy? And if we aren’t happy, why aren’t we happy? Because we are listening to some artificial arbiter…and if we meet the standards of that arbiter (whatever they are) we think we will be happy? Because we don’t measure up to some ideal of perfection (is anyone perfect?)
How did we get to this point?
So I googled “I Hate My Body” and got 40,800,000 hits (in .24 seconds). Here’s a UTube on Tyra Banks’ interview of 5 – 10 year olds who hate their body. Five to ten year olds!
Have we really come such a long way Baby?
Heather said:
Great post Tammy. It raises some fundamental questions that go to the core of the issue.
Why would a ten year old girl hate her body? When I was nine or ten, my body did all the things it was supposed to do and I could run fast and climb trees. I had no idea the heartache of being at odds with my own body would bring in just a few short years.