Angeline Duplisea, from Miley Cyrus's Mother's Daughter music video
Thinking
I went to the hospital because I suspected I had malaria and out of habit, validation of some suspicion, or maybe curiosity, I stepped on the scale. It was not a number I’d seen on any scale I’ve been on in a very long time. It brought to mind the comments the tailor made when she retook my measurements, because the dresses I’d gotten made with my old measurements did not fit. Despite pursuing weight loss since I was eleven years old, my reaction to this change was a trained indifference. It was the same indifference that I’ve viewed the changes in my weight and body for about a year and half now. This indifference was a shortcut form of managing my body image and it was from this thing called body neutrality.
In the telling of the story of my body image, there are three views: mine, yours, and society's. Body neutrality leans on the one we have the most - notice I said most, not all - control over. It says your body is functional, not good or bad. It works and exists to keep you alive, which means that how you feel about it at any given point in time doesn’t affect what it will still do. So my body remains a body whether I think it is great or amazing at any one time, my body remains a body whether you think it is great or amazing, and rinse repeat for society.
I realized that I’ve found it difficult to write or talk about body neutrality because I suspect it simply won’t work for everyone. To be able to say, “my body is just a body” and move on, go about your day, do your work, entertain yourself, eat what you like, exercise when you feel like, etc. I don’t know how feasible this is for even a previous version of myself. There are people who exist in spaces where this is not a convenient viewpoint to maintain, and body neutrality can’t fix that.
I’d gotten a lot of conflicting information on my body and what it should look like and what taking care of it means for so long that I JUMPED into this neutrality. Body neutrality, to me, felt like a removal of the power that my appearance had over me. So some days, I think my body looks great to me, and that’s a nice-to-have. On the days when I feel like it doesn’t look great, I tell myself that’s okay because I don’t need my body to look great.
Watching
LuLaRich - A documentary that dives into multi-level marketing (MLM) strategies, specifically at an American clothing company called LuLaRoe. If you decide to watch this, you’ll learn how MLM is lowkey a scam business model that’s also typically targeted at under-employed women.
Respect - The movie about Aretha Franklin’s life has people like Jennifer Hudson and Forrest Whittaker in it so the music, singing and acting are all 10/10. The movie explored her relationship with musicmaking and her activism.
Arrested Development - This is sort of a comedy classic and I started about a year ago and got distracted by stuff, but I’m back at it and it’s still hilarious.
Feel Good, Mohbad - Plugging the video to my overaw best song of August, 2021. It was as chaotic as I imagined it might be, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Monalisa, Lojay x Sarz - I love this video so much because I truly felt that black girl joy energy. I would have picked a different hair style for the lead girl (or model altogether tbh, like the dancer wearing purple), but otherwise this was 100/100 and if you haven’t seen it please fix that right this minute!
Reading
Becoming the Baby Girl - My friend Star, has this special thing she does with language and she also creates these very delightful and nuanced female characters whose opinions and views on the world many women can relate with. Please read and re-read this short story to feel alright.
Conversations With Friends - I am a Sally Rooney stan, so when I heard they were making a TV show out of one of her books, I pushed reading it to the top of my plate. I’m halfway through so it goes without saying that I think it is brilliant, but I’m going to say it anyway, it is brilliant.
Why Tacit Knowledge is More Important Than Deliberate Practice - I’ve been trying to break into new field in my career for a while now, so I found this article that describes some proven methods for gaining expertise really interesting.
Listening
Remembering
“What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?” ― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
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