I was playing with my toddler on the living room floor when she reached for my stomach and grabbed a fistful of flesh. My skin rumpled inside her tiny palm.
I let her hold on.
I didn’t pull down my shirt or push her hand away. I masked the recoil that was pinballing through my nervous system. I refused to suggest that my daughter had done something wrong.
To her, that handful was not fat, or ugly, or bad—it was just mom. Blissfully untouched by social conditioning, my daughter held a fistful of “mom.”
No other meaning than that.
Why was I so horrified that my stomach was “grabbable?” More so—how could an action that was literally meaningless to my child, make me feel ashamed and repulsed?
It was all over in an instant. But I’ve thought about it countless times since.
EVOLUTION
Like most women, I spent the better part of my childhood getting indoctrinated into a standard of beauty that was narrow and impractical. Every magazine cover, every advertisement, every lead actress I saw left an imperceptible imprint on my psyche: beautiful women are painted to perfection and uncommonly thin. Quite unconsciously, I bought into the definition of beauty that the media told me to believe.
The first time I started thinking critically about body image, was when the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty came out in 2004. It was then I learned the average American woman was not super-model-thin, but 5’4” tall and 160 pounds. I discovered that print media usually airbrushes women to erase skin blemishes and thick thighs. I realized how many hours those beautiful women spent perfecting their hair and makeup…how tragically few calories their bodies had available to burn in a day.
Thankfully, things have progressed since then. Brands (at least the smart ones) are starting to represent a wider range of body shapes, ages, and ethnicities in their ads. The definition of beauty has expanded to include a broader set of women. Today, full-figured women are celebrated, seeing a model with a large birthmark is no longer shocking, and older women occasionally grace the covers of catalogs. While many would argue that young, white, thin, ableist tropes still dominate mainstream media, more diverse women are gradually becoming more common in the public eye.
RIDING THE WHIPSAW
In typical fashion, the pendulum has continued its swing. Today, we not only see more diverse women in media, we find no shortage of advertisements and influencers espousing body positivity. The refrain is everywhere: “You’re beautiful just the way you are,” or “different is beautiful,” or “every woman is beautiful in her own way.”
Every body shape, beautiful. The postpartum body, beautiful. Every skin color, hair texture, and body size…beautiful.
The discourse is wholesome and well-intentioned, and to a degree, it’s even refreshing… but in this age of course correction, I’ve found that the swing of the pendulum has bowled me over, more than it has delivered a soft landing of self-love.
The reality is, it’s a gaslighting for the ages. We live in a culture that systematically points out women’s flaws—where movie stars seem not to age, shapewear will “fix” our silhouettes, and ads for Botox and filler suggest that our skin and lips could stand to be smoother and fuller.
But, hey, “you’re beautiful” just the way you are. Right?
I don’t know what’s worse. Creating such a narrow definition of beauty that women learn to dislike whatever elements of their appearance don’t conform. Or, insisting “all women are beautiful,” and that—despite the daily deluge of messages to the contrary—we all should somehow magically believe we’re beautiful, too.
Which brings me back to the living room floor, my belly scrunched in my daughter’s palm.
In all my years of personal work—in co-creating a curriculum on positive body image—not once have I successfully convinced myself that my belly is “beautiful.” That fistful of flesh in my daughter’s hand was the very same miraculous belly that carried and birthed her. I have every reason to adore the part of my body that created my most meaningful experience in life—and yet, not once have I successfully convinced myself that my belly is beautiful. (Strong and amazing, yes! But not visually beautiful.) I’ve tried hard to see it, but so far, I can’t.
So here we have it. A culture that (finally?) insists wider, softer, browner, older bodies are now just as beautiful as thin, youthful, white ones!
So—if you don’t actually feel beautiful, then, something must be wrong with you.
STOP IT WITH THE BEAUTY
I’m not saying every woman, in her own unique appearance, isn’t beautiful. And I’m not saying the “every woman is beautiful” movement shouldn’t be applauded.
It’s just that, to me, this so-called progress is really just the flip-side of the very same coin. It’s an age-old narrative that remains squarely in the realm of physical appearance. Sure, it takes a positive angle, but it keeps women trapped in an appearance-focused mindset. Simply put, it keeps us thinking about how we look.
We’re told to see our bodies as beautiful—as if that’s the extent of what our bodies are for. So really, the same old directive lives on: “if you’re anything in life, be something that’s nice to look at.”
Of all the things women’s bodies are—appearance is just one of them.
PARADIGM SHIFT
Unpopular truth: when I look in the mirror, I don’t see beauty. But here’s the thing, I'm done trying to convince myself that I should.
The scars on my legs—not beautiful.
The bulk in my shoulders—not beautiful.
The wrinkles between my brows—not beautiful.
For so many years, I’ve labored to insert the self-talk I’m “supposed” to have when my gaze sweeps across a body part I don’t love. It’s never helped. And while I no longer try to convince myself that my stomach, wrinkles, and small chest are “beautiful,” I’m NOT telling myself they’re unacceptable or ugly either.
If I need to describe my body, I’m choosing a story that’s so much more accurate, so much more relevant, and so much more meaningful than a shallow narrative about how it looks.
Want to know what I see in my scars? A lifetime of resilience. My scars memorialize my courage. They tell of leaps of faith and broken bones. They show how I’ve been poked and cut, hammered and sewn. Most of all, they prove how, time and time again, my body has healed.
In my broad shoulders? Incredible strength. My shoulders shovel snow and pick up my children. They hold my body in a handstand and carry ten bags of groceries at once. They don’t tuck neatly into a cap sleeve because they’re unconventionally strong. In no world should that bulk be a trait to wish away.
In my wrinkles? Critical thought. Every hour I’ve spent in thought is etched in the tiny folds between my eyebrows. Each crease is carved by the problems I solve, the plans I make, and the rhymes I write. Do the traces of every good idea I’ve had, every wonderful thing I’ve created, really need to be smoothed away?
The issue lies not in the exercise of telling ourselves we’re beautiful, it’s that focusing only on beauty is like trying to appreciate a symphony by only listening to the violin. Sure, you can appreciate the violin, but you’re missing out on the masterpiece as a whole.
My body is so much more than beautiful.
VESSEL AND VEHICLE
My body is a vessel. It contains vestiges of my past and everything that makes me me. It is a vehicle. It carries me places—from the magical to mundane. Talking about my body in terms of appearance is reductive. It overlooks its capacity, and strips it of its value.
After all, for as long as I’ve been alive, there’s one thing that’s always been there for me. One thing that’s stuck by me, through every fall, disappointment, trauma, injury, heartbreak, transition.
My body. My body has been there for it all.
I’ve beaten her. Bruised her. Worked her and betrayed her. Tested her and tweaked her. Ignored her and pushed her. When I wanted to give up, my body didn’t. Through it all—she’s been there. She’s a force and a miracle. A consistent presence. A bona fide badass.
So, you see, aesthetic descriptors don’t do my body justice. To declare my body as beautiful, and stop there, is like writing a period before the sentence is over.
A NEW WAY
When it comes to physical appearance, it seems women have been offered two choices to date:
Chase an unattainable beauty ideal, or
Find a way to see yourself as beautiful (even though our culture will continue to point out ways in which you don’t meet its conventional definition of beauty)
For my remaining trips around the sun, I’ve decided those choices, well, suck. So—I’m going with option #3.
It doesn’t require any spending, fixing, or grooming. No searching in the mirror for physical beauty in stretch marks, wrinkles, or soft parts.
It exits the realm of appearance altogether. Drops the visual vernacular.
Yes, a woman’s body is a physical thing, it appears in this world. You look at it, other people look at it—so there’s no denying that women’s bodies are a visual thing. But we’re the ones who attach meaning.
Words shape our experience, and we can choose the story we want to tell. Cultural precedent may suggest otherwise, but beauty doesn’t need to be benchmark.
MAKING MEANING
I may never reverse what culture has taught me about beauty, nor may I ever erase the years I was conditioned to prioritize beauty over all else, but every time my nervous system hits me with that automatic, appearance-focused judgment about my body, I think about my daughter.
When she grabbed my stomach, she didn’t hold onto shameful softness, she held onto “mom.” It had nothing to do with how my body looks. It had everything to do with what my body does for, to, and with her. It had to do with how I make her feel.
As far as my daughter believed, she held onto what she knew to be me. And with all of her heart, she loved what she held inside her hand.
For the rest of my days, I’m going for that.