Jess

‘Recently, I’ve been worrying a lot about ever having a daughter. I see the world that we live in and, sometimes, the idea of having a daughter terrifies me. How could I protect her from threats that women face daily, just walking alone on the street at night for example? How could I protect her from ever doubting her own worth? And, again, and so frequently, how could I protect her from ever ever looking in the mirror and seeing ugly? When really that’s what society will tell her to do? Thinking about this, I guess, is what really made me think about my relationship with my body, and more broadly, with health and beauty.

My perception of my body got really bad when I I came to university. I felt like every girl around me was so much more beautiful than me with such a better figure. I also put on a load of weight and that made me feel shit. It made me look in the mirror and feel genuine disgust for my body. I lost interest in clothes. I didn’t want to be seen to be entering this kind of silent competition because why bother when I don’t have that typically lusted after body? I would repeat to myself (and, inevitably, on off days I still do) this really shit mantra that I’m flat chested, my body is totally average and I’m not as pretty as the other girls. That’s what I told myself and more than that, that’s what I kept on thinking about when I looked at all my friends, wishing I looked a little bit more like them. Then, after eating better and going to the gym, I lost the weight and suddenly, the comments came flying in. I was told ‘I looked so much better’ or ‘I look so skinny now!’. Honestly, I was overjoyed. The thing is though, I’ve started thinking recently, why is it that the biggest compliment I received was someone telling me that I looked skinny? Because actually, I am so much more than that. So much more than a culturally prescribed version of what ‘beauty’ is.

The perception of the ‘best body’ is always evolving, culture and trend is ever distorting it. Why was I therefore pinning so much on those shallow compliments? The view of beauty is malleable. It is unimportant. ‘You’ve lost weight’ or ‘you look so skinny’ should not be the words I want to hear, what I want to hear is that I am kind, I am funny, I am a good friend. But how could I change this when I was still saying the same kind of stuff to my friends, attempting to hike up their self worth with compliments based on their body and appearance. So I made the effort to change this. I actively tried to stop judging myself against other women by forcing myself not to make comments about looks and instead, as best as I could, to focus on people’s interests and their personality. Stupid things like if my friend told me they had met a guy, I would make my first question be to ask whether he was nice. Because really, why should it matter what he looks like? I stopped using words like ‘skinny’, choosing to compliment my friends when they were confident or kind or any other innumerably more important thing. And slowly I began to realise that I was helping myself as well.

In forcing myself to view others differently, I viewed myself differently as well. I stopped thinking about weight and appearance, it just wasn’t on my radar as much. With that I found more confidence – confidence that I found from great chats with people I care about or having a good day doing stuff I love, not because I had been told my stomach looked flat today. I almost can’t help disliking when people compliment others for looking skinny now when they are so much more than that. Just because I am a woman that doesn’t mean that I want to be judged or valued on my appearance. I don’t want to be introduced to woman by their looks, hearing stuff like ‘Oh you know ‘Gemma’? She’s the really attractive one?’ I want to hear about ‘Gemma’s’ interests and her personality. I want to strive to be healthy and confident, empowered by my body. And more than that, I want to continue asking people to try having a go at this themselves, and not just for themselves, but so that, one day hopefully, all the god damn hypothetical daughters and sons in the world will never look in a mirror and call themselves ugly.’