06.20.01

words i need to hear...and maybe some of you, too.

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We stand in this night -- united. United physically in a desire to destroy that which separates us in isolation and fear. Fear of the night, fear of ourselves. The dictators of popular culture tell us we live in a time when there are more options open to women than ever before - but distinctly missing from these choices is our option to walk safely in the night and our option to appear as we truly are. We will speak of violence tonight, of the madness of fist and blade that would obliterate our daughters, mothers, ourselves. And in so speaking we will begin to carve away at the smothering force of our oppression, as every day that we do not accept violence we begin again to carve away at the force of our oppression. Yet, there is a more subtle form of violence, no less killing, that carves away each day at us. Whether it is literally beneath the plastic surgeon's knife in search of acceptance in the form of a prettier face, a smaller size, or the phantom blade that carves away by inches at the soul of a woman who stands before the mirror in terror, not at what danger her life might hold, not at what she may or may not accomplish, but for bearing the shameful burden of having thighs that are "too big."

As women we have been named vanity -- told again and again that our concern with our appearance is both superficial and natural. So then it is only natural that we pay $33 billion every year to the diet industry, that we spend countless hours of our lives when we could be doing something, anything else, making ourselves "presentable." Natural? Vain? Superficial? Not when you step back and see that a woman's place has become more than ever on the scale. Our economic mobility, our career advancement, our acceptability to friends and family have become contingent on our success as an ornament. If you have any doubts then let's look together to see how many 250 lb. female top executives in comfortable shoes we can find? Instead, how many automobiles being sold with the unspoken promise of a pretty, blond accessory? How many times the word fat is used in one night on American television as the ultimate put down?

America seems to be always at war with something these days. American women are at war with their bodies, and losing. More American's have died from weight-loss surgery in the last twenty years than died in the Viet Nam War. Three times that number die every year of eating disorders. Mostly women. And when we count our dead, stack the bodies and ask why -- why the Thigh Master, the Slimfast, the stomach stapling -- they have the nerve to answer, "for your health." Everyone "knows" that being fat is dangerous. I will concur, fat is dangerous. The question is to who? Fear of fat, hatred of fat, is hatred of women. Those dips and curves, those breasts and bellies and vulva that are our birthright as women are made of fat.

And what do we achieve with our constantly encouraged self-alteration, are we stronger for our marathon starvation, are we better workers thanks to Max Factor, does a silicon implant improve your I.Q.? Beauty, a woman's most valuable asset -- mutilation the penance we pay for not conforming to this years models. And to follow that model, to torture and tease our bodies into the correct form, is to be literally acceptable, to be reliable, to be small and controllable and not to be dangerous.

There is no danger in women's bodies to women. They have never betrayed us, denied us or forsaken us. The danger in your acceptance of your own beauty, your diversity, is in the collapse of the industries that depend on your insecurity for their wealth, the danger in your body's power is not to you but to the society that cannot standardize your shape, or manipulate your cycles of being into more linear, tidy and, dare I say, man-like package. There is no danger in knowing that the strength of a woman's body is part of woman's power.

It is with great joy that I share with you my personal discovery that my body is not my enemy and that your bodies are not my competition.

Look around, look at each face near you -- each beautiful woman's face -- look and know that in this act you are changing consciousness. In this act you are doing what we came for -- destroying the fear of what we are not, building the force of what we are. Gaze upon the face of she who stands next to you and know that this is what real women look like.

--Written by Marius Griffin of the Body Image Task Force

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xoxo,

moonbird

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