To All the Girls Who Hate Their Body (Or, A Love Letter To Every Woman in America)

My friend Lauren shared a pho­to she took of me in Belize. I am in a pool, sun shin­ing, moji­to in my hand, a huge smile on my face. When I look at it, I am trans­port­ed to that per­fect moment, can smell the sun­screen and hear the howler mon­keys near­by. I prob­a­bly looked at it a dozen times before it occurred to me that all I saw was happiness. 

This is a mile­stone my younger self would nev­er have imag­ined because younger me would have only noticed my bel­ly. A lit­tle pouchy from menopause or too many cock­tails or a bad angle or … what­ev­er. I just didn’t see it. And once I did? I still don’t care. 

Do you remem­ber the exact moment you learned to hate your body? I was in high school, the only fresh­man to make the var­si­ty cheer­lead­ing squad. I over­heard some foot­ball play­ers talk­ing about me, and heard one com­ment that I wasn’t “hot enough” to be on the squad. Another added that, “If she would lose ten pounds, she’d be f*ckable.” 

I want to tell you how I walked into that room and told all of those stinky, stu­pid boys that lions aren’t con­cerned with the opin­ions of sheep, espe­cial­ly sheep with ter­ri­ble acne and no pre­frontal cortex. 

But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. What four­teen year-old girl would?

That night, I stud­ied my naked body in the mir­ror, see­ing my body as if for the first time. I felt shamed, vul­ner­a­ble, scared, unwor­thy, fat. 

I weighed 108 pounds.

For the next two decades, my secret mantra became that I was always only 10 pounds away from being f*ckable. I exer­cised. I deprived. I straight­ened my curly hair and shoved my breasts into push-up bras and endured the dai­ly, debil­i­tat­ing pain of huge astig­ma­tism con­tacts (because hot girls don’t wear glass­es). I learned to make do with sal­ads when I want­ed the pas­ta. All the while hat­ing my body, liv­ing with a tox­ic com­bi­na­tion of both want­i­ng to be seen and want­i­ng to be invisible.

Every woman I know – regard­less of skin col­or or cul­tur­al back­ground – has a sim­i­lar sto­ry. Our cap­i­tal­ist, col­o­nized, patri­ar­chal soci­ety has taught women to hate our­selves on a cel­lu­lar lev­el. We are told at puber­ty to start shav­ing off any hair that dares to grow any­where except our head. We are told we need “san­i­tary” sup­plies, as if men­stru­at­ing is a dirty and embar­rass­ing thing. We are told that every­one with a vagi­na is in direct com­pe­ti­tion with each oth­er for the male gaze and atten­tion. And if you’re Black or Latina or wear a hijab? Forget it. No mat­ter how beau­ti­ful you are in real­i­ty, you’ll nev­er quite be white or thin enough for this country. 

We are told to be small, act small, wor­ry only about how we look and con­stant­ly ignore how we feel. How many moments of love and joy and awe did we miss because we were just so hungry? 

Deep down, women know this. Still, we com­pare our­selves, find our­selves lack­ing and then, in our inse­cu­ri­ty and grief and rage, we lash out at each oth­er instead of fight­ing the very foun­da­tions of soci­ety. We judge each other’s body shape, cat­ti­ly won­der­ing if she’s had work done or is on Ozempic. 

If we would invest half as much time, mon­ey, and ener­gy into build­ing an authen­tic life as we do  into becom­ing some unreach­able image of per­fec­tion, we could real­ly change the world.

I imag­ine many of my male read­ers scratch­ing their heads here, com­plete­ly baf­fled. What a priv­i­lege to tru­ly not under­stand this lev­el of self-crit­i­cism (though social media is involv­ing you in this non­sense too, espe­cial­ly if you’re gay or trans or – god for­bid – start­ing to lose your hair. If there is prof­it to be made from anyone’s self-hatred, America will throw your sense of self under the cap­i­tal­ist bus). 

It’s tak­en me many years of real work – and a dai­ly med­i­ta­tion prac­tice – to come to a place of such peace. “Aging out” of the male gaze cer­tain­ly helps. If I do some­thing to “improve” my looks (a pedi­cure, some hair high­lights, what­ev­er), it’s now because I like the way it looks. It’s none of my busi­ness what you think of my appear­ance. I look the way I look, and my appear­ance is the least inter­est­ing thing about me. 

And if I know you, I think you’re beau­ti­ful. But that beau­ty aris­es from who you are and not how you look. I also think you’re smart or brave or fun­ny as hell. Ask me about any of my girl­friends and I will tell you how she loves George Strait or how she will drop my name in a room of oppor­tu­ni­ties. I’ll tell you how she just kills it on the dance floor or how she brings me fresh­ly baked bread. 

When was the first time you were cat called? Are you a Me Too sur­vivor (um, almost all of us are)? Do you feel per­son­al­ly vic­tim­ized that Oprah – one of the most pow­er­ful women on the plan­et – is still talk­ing about weight loss inces­sant­ly? Stories are pow­er­ful med­i­cine. Share yours below. Let’s heal together. 

P.S. Please do not com­ment on my body. I don’t need reas­sur­ance that I looked “good enough” to be that hap­py. I was happy.