It is October 10th, which means it is Love Your Body Day! Today is the day to respect our bodies and treat them well. Our bodies are beautiful.
I have struggled for years and years, and actually most of my life, to make myself skinny. I have gone without meals, I have done juice fasts for weeks, and I have exercised to the brink of exhaustion. No more. The happiest I have ever been was when I was what the media would consider 50 lbs over weight because no one dared tell me that I needed to remember my "girlish figure." And what the heck kind of statement is that anyway? My "girlish figure?" I am a woman, a grown woman. I am meant to have curves. I am meant to have hips and a butt. I am through with criticizing my beautiful body and comparing it to a media-contrived idea of beauty: a model size that only 5% of the population can even attain.
Yes, I love my 5'3 body; It makes my bone less fragile. I love my soft stomach; it makes it inviting for my husband to lay his head on. I love my crooked nose; it reminds me of taking a baseball to the nose like a champ!
Heavenly Father gave me this body to have, use, respect, and love. The Scriptures tell me that my body is a temple, and temples are largely important to Mormons. We go to extensive lengths to care for our temples, preparing from when we are very young, so that must mean my body is more important than the credit I am giving. I only get one body, and I figure I had better get around to appreciating it, and what better day than today? I want to use it and appreciate it in everyway I can. I will dance. I will run. I will swim. I will help people. I will create. I will eat. I will play. From today on, I will love my body.
Mine truly,
MoFe
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Dear Alice Paul
Dear Alice Paul,
I do not need to tell you how remarkable you are because your achievements speak for themselves. You are inspiring.
My Women and Gender Studies professor asked the class the other day this question: Would we (a class full of enthusiastic feminists) be willing to do jail time in the name of feminist activism? Besides a few who answered cautiously, most of us looked at one another with uncertainty. My mind ran to you, Alice Paul.
Before watching your story, I believed myself to possess a certain degree of radicalism. I wanted to do what it takes to achieve equality, even if that means taking it rather than receiving it. I wanted to cause a ruckus. I wanted to make things happen because if no one stands up for a wrong, it will never be righted. I came home to my husband and ranted about the amount of resistance to women’s suffrage. His response was that “there may have been more important things on the docket to think about” (in reference to the war). Livid, I considered what would be more important than treating human beings like human beings. I was ready to take my place on the proverbial frontline, and anyone who was not was a coward to me. I cried discovering that my husband could place more importance on anything than my rights as a human being. After a few quiet moments, he said, “I would not sacrifice our marriage for my right to vote.” I did not break my silence.
Within that week, I watched Iron Jawed Angels and received a more vivid reality. Radical activism is hard, and while years, possibly decades later, an radical activist will be revered as a courageous pioneer, radical activism is scary, lonely, and dangerous. Women are disadvantaged and beaten when they decide not to accept it. And yet because of people like you, Alice Paul, women are able to move forward.
Upon the week following, I had many nightmares and fell into a bit of a depression thinking about what you went through to allow me to vote. I realized something about me that made me angry and disappointed with myself: I could not be you. I hate that I would not sacrifice it all for the cause. You have been quoted saying, “When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.” You stood by that. I am afraid that for me I would tire before the end of the row. And I am trying to be okay with that.
Again, I pose the question to myself, would I be willing to go to jail for activism? The answer changes as I do. Five years ago, single, passionate, and with not much to lose, the answer would be a resounding yes. Today, as a married college student who is still passionate yet factoring two people into my life choices, my answer would come in the form of questions: For how long? Under what conditions? What would my activism do to my husband? In years to come when I have children and elderly parents, my answer would be no. I do not agree that sometimes there are more important things, but I do think that rerouting my activism into less radical and ruckus-causing action, though it will slow progress, it may lessen what I have to sacrifice.
I hope that you do not think me to be selfish. I am hanging on to another statement you are quoted for saying, “I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.” Though as my life progresses and my activism becomes less intense, I promise I will continue to add stones to the feminist mosaic.
Yours truly,
Blythe
I do not need to tell you how remarkable you are because your achievements speak for themselves. You are inspiring.
My Women and Gender Studies professor asked the class the other day this question: Would we (a class full of enthusiastic feminists) be willing to do jail time in the name of feminist activism? Besides a few who answered cautiously, most of us looked at one another with uncertainty. My mind ran to you, Alice Paul.
Before watching your story, I believed myself to possess a certain degree of radicalism. I wanted to do what it takes to achieve equality, even if that means taking it rather than receiving it. I wanted to cause a ruckus. I wanted to make things happen because if no one stands up for a wrong, it will never be righted. I came home to my husband and ranted about the amount of resistance to women’s suffrage. His response was that “there may have been more important things on the docket to think about” (in reference to the war). Livid, I considered what would be more important than treating human beings like human beings. I was ready to take my place on the proverbial frontline, and anyone who was not was a coward to me. I cried discovering that my husband could place more importance on anything than my rights as a human being. After a few quiet moments, he said, “I would not sacrifice our marriage for my right to vote.” I did not break my silence.
Within that week, I watched Iron Jawed Angels and received a more vivid reality. Radical activism is hard, and while years, possibly decades later, an radical activist will be revered as a courageous pioneer, radical activism is scary, lonely, and dangerous. Women are disadvantaged and beaten when they decide not to accept it. And yet because of people like you, Alice Paul, women are able to move forward.
Upon the week following, I had many nightmares and fell into a bit of a depression thinking about what you went through to allow me to vote. I realized something about me that made me angry and disappointed with myself: I could not be you. I hate that I would not sacrifice it all for the cause. You have been quoted saying, “When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.” You stood by that. I am afraid that for me I would tire before the end of the row. And I am trying to be okay with that.
Again, I pose the question to myself, would I be willing to go to jail for activism? The answer changes as I do. Five years ago, single, passionate, and with not much to lose, the answer would be a resounding yes. Today, as a married college student who is still passionate yet factoring two people into my life choices, my answer would come in the form of questions: For how long? Under what conditions? What would my activism do to my husband? In years to come when I have children and elderly parents, my answer would be no. I do not agree that sometimes there are more important things, but I do think that rerouting my activism into less radical and ruckus-causing action, though it will slow progress, it may lessen what I have to sacrifice.
I hope that you do not think me to be selfish. I am hanging on to another statement you are quoted for saying, “I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.” Though as my life progresses and my activism becomes less intense, I promise I will continue to add stones to the feminist mosaic.
Yours truly,
Blythe
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