I am lucky to live in a house filled with amazing artwork and in one of the bathrooms is this amazing poster that inspires me every single day:
I love this poster. It’s so simple and yet so amazing. This morning in my attempt to track down a copy of the poster (which seems nearly impossible!), I found myself reading article after article, blog after blog of feminist, body-loving, free spirit writing. The first article that I came across gives a simple background to the “Ruby Campaign”, the self esteem campaign put out by The Body Shop in 1998 and a little reflection by author of her own struggles with her body. After reading the whole article, I realized that it was by none other than Kate Harding, the co-author of Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body, which just happens to be the book that I am reading. The book was recently given to me by my amazing friend Ms. Guava and has really open my eyes up to a whole new notion of beauty.
I soon found myself reading more about the campaign and came to Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop’s website. Here she said something very powerful to me, she said:
Ruby [the Barbie-like doll used in the campaign] was a fun idea, but she carried a serious message. She was intended to challenge stereotypes of beauty and counter the pervasive influence of the cosmetics industry, of which we understood we were a part. Perhaps more than we had even hoped, Ruby kick-started a worldwide debate about body image and self-esteem.
Ironically enough, The Body Shop was forced to stop their campaign because Mattel sent a cease-and-desist letter, arguing that Ruby made Barbie look bad. Roddick said that she “was ecstatic that Mattel thought Ruby was insulting to Barbie — the idea of one inanimate piece of molded plastic hurting another’s feelings was absolutely mind-blowing.” Of course, by this time, I felt my blood boiling. I don’t know if now, 12 years later, anything is any different. I found a moment of relief when I came across this blog and was so grateful to see someone else asking the same questions.
And then I saw this picture:
Not a doll, but a real woman. And I thought back to what Kate Harding said in that original article.
I did not personally want to look like “Ruby” ever again, and yet, I couldn’t stop looking at that picture of her every damned day. I loved it. I loved her. I just thought I would never, ever be able to be as comfortable in my own skin as that plastic doll. I thought I would never, ever be content with my lot as one of the 3 billion.
That is me. I am so inspired by this ad, by seeing a real woman, loving her body and in the same breath, I am tearing her apart. I will never be happy being a size 14, I hear myself thinking. And I’m reminded of something frustrating that my roommate said. She said, referring to someone else’s struggle with weight, “She could lose weight if she wanted to. She just needs to exercise more”. And even when I confronted her about how triggering that comment was, she didn’t get it. She didn’t truly get that it’s not that easy. When you have issues with overeating and your body is in physical pain, losing weight just isn’t that easy. And losing weight isn’t really the real issue we’re dealing with here. And so now, I feel the fury boiling greater and greater. I do not want to be obsessed with losing weight. I do not want to deprive and restrict myself so that I can fit into a size 8 again because even when I was a size 8, I wanted to be a 4. I look at these images and read these blogs and think, that is good for them, but I will happier when I’m skinner. I hide behind the notion of “being healthy”. I’ll be healthier when I’m skinnier. Which, frankly, is bullshit.
I want to love my body instead of grabbing the rolls and wishing them away. I don’t want to fear running into people from my fast, afraid that all they will see is how much weight I’ve gained. And I don’t want to look at pictures of people I knew in high school and comment in my head about they weight they’ve gained.
This cycle, this evil, cruel, demeaning cycle, MUST END NOW!
So the question is, in this society, can I truly be fat and happy?
