From a very young age, we look at the reflection of ourselves in others’ eyes. If someone takes the time to see who we really are, we know ourselves. We learn to trust and love our core being. Instead, I fear, most of us see how others measure us against cultural standards, especially women in my generation, the first generation to deal with contrived image saturation in visual media.
Recently, I went with friends and family to see Barbie, a movie about a doll designed to perfectly depict a contrived image of beauty that saturates television, magazines, book covers, and advertisements. We all expected fantasy, a perfect woman in a perfect world gone awry. What I didn’t expect was a profound statement about the way each of us as women see ourselves. We need to sit up and take a look at this.
As the movie progressed, Weird Barbie was introduced. Just the mention of her made me sit up. When I saw her I thought, “My God. This is the first time I have seen myself depicted in the media.” I can’t say it’s the equivalent of the reaction that women or men of color have, but it certainly was a reaction that I couldn’t ignore.
I saw myself.
Weird Barbie.
Huh.
This set off a chain reaction. I started to remember and notice things I never had before.
As a young prepubescent woman, I didn’t hear sex ed in school, nor did I hear it from my mother. She never spoke of such things. I believe my father worried about me because my self-esteem was poor. He taught me how to be a woman with his Playboy magazines as examples.
He loved me, but that was not the right approach for a little tomboy that developed quickly into a BIG girl at age ten.
To say I wasn’t ready is a gross understatement. I loved climbing trees, riding horses, playing imaginary games of hunt, shoot, and capture, playing the saxophone in marching band, swimming, tennis, jumping (I loved to jump off roofs and balconies). You name it, my blossoming got in the way of all I loved to do. Big breasts were the bane of my existence.
Later, when I was old enough to have crushes, I learned from magazines that men liked big-bosomed women.
Why didn’t they like mine?
What turned them off? My legs? My teeth? My hair? My eyes, hands, feet, intellect (I was a smart girl.) Was it because I didn’t do girly things? I didn’t play with dolls or other girly toys. I felt uncomfortable in dresses.I found lizards and brought them home. I had a pet crawdad. Once, I had a pet fly. I continued to ride horses, to play tennis, to swim with a team, and chuck hay bales out of a barn. I talked to frogs.
I was weird.
I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be the stereotypical girl that boys sought. I had breasts, dammit.
As a teenager I felt comforted by The Velveteen Rabbit. It wasn’t because I loved soft, worn things. Rather, it was because I felt pitted against my culture’s vision of ‘ideal woman’ and didn’t believe I fit it. I thought if I could allow myself to be loved, to get shabby with attending to others’ needs, it would prove I was worthy.
It turns out, life doesn’t work that way.
I practiced yoga to keep perfect proportions. As I aged, I found it was more meditative for me. Recently, I learned a new way for me to practice meditation. I found it in a book called, belonging here: A Guide for the Spiritually Sensitive Person, by Dr. Judith Blackstone. In it, she teaches a technique to fully inhabit one’s body. During it, one focuses breath in the feet. I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t acknowledge my feet.
I really only noticed them when they hurt.
As I moved my breath into my ankles, it was easier to focus, though I worried I didn’t have the delicate ankles I was supposed to have.
Then I moved breath into my legs.
With devastating clarity, I realized I saw my legs as objects – not part of self – objects!
Did I classify other parts of self as objects? My hair? My hands, my eyes, my breasts, hips, belly? OMG! My neck, my chin, my nose? Is there anything about my person that wasn’t an object to be presented and judged as worthy, or in my case, not?
Then it occurred to me. If I have this problem, do other women my age suffer this way? How about men? Do men suffer this way?
I suddenly resented Mattel for not giving us Weird Barbie before this, because now I am old and can never become stereotypical again.
My daughter asks, “Why would you want to be?”
That’s an excellent question. I can only answer that I have spent a lifetime worrying about it. Am I good enough? Am I thin enough? Am I desirable? Are my breasts big enough? Are they too big?(Yes, dammit.) Do I meet the code that others impose upon me?
Why, indeed, should I worry about this?
I fear I am not the only one with such self-conscious judgment. What can be done?
For me, seeing Weird Barbie has been a god-send.
While I resent Mattel for not presenting her earlier, I am also grateful she has finally made her appearance. After meeting her, I am beginning to see my own body as the finely tuned instrument it is. Without it, I could not produce the tone I have when I sing. Without it, I could not have birthed my babies. Without it, I could not have fed them for as long as they needed. Without it, I could not have jumped off roofs, or out of trees and felt that exquisite moment of flight. Without it I wouldn’t feel the pain of a stubbed toe, or the caress of ocean waves. Without it, the cool evening breezes wouldn’t thrill me as they have. Without it, I wouldn’t remember what it is like to touch another human, or pet my favorite cat, or feel the earth beneath my bare feet. Without it, I couldn’t smell the deliciousness of Spring or see the vibrating color of a bright orange rose.
When I asked my daughter if she remembered her Barbies, she said, “No. I didn’t have Barbies.”
Trust me. She did. I know. I spent hours making clothing for them.
As we talked more, she did mention she had dolls that rode her Breyer horses. I looked it up. The Barbies in her day had knees that bent.
She had Barbies. How Barbie looked did not define my daughter’s self-image. If anything about Barbie defined something for my daughter it was what she did.
Barbie rode her horses. Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Looking back, I don’t think boys turned away from me. I am fairly certain I turned away from them because I didn’t believe I was stereotypical enough. Physically, I may have been, (I have breasts, dammit) but, psychologically, I am Weird Barbie. I don’t claim that proudly, I just am. I always have been. The image I see in a mirror does not define me.
The Barbie movie says it best. If you get a chance, watch it. I’d be interested to hear about any awakening you might have had after the experience. Now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone were to design an Old Weird Barbie with saggy bits? And a Ken to adore her?
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