“Mirror! Mirror! On the wall! Who’s the prettiest of them all?”
What is perfection, if it doesn’t please a few eyes or gather a few compliments? This is not what I say, this is what the society says. Pretty much since the time we could crawl, this has become the social norm that was implanted deep down in us. Being plus-sized made the society spontaneously class us into the “no longer beautiful” category. Of course! You had to have the picture perfect body to flaunt and please them all.
Your body had to appease their judgmental eyes. Your body had to fit their definition of attractive. Every time I stand in front of the mirror the same thought keeps on reverberating from the back of my head. “Ugly. Fat. Not good enough.” The disgusted mind automatically begins making the usual list.
Thin legs, flat stomach, long hair, white teeth, soft skin and what not. We are stuck in an ecosystem that is obsessed with defining and re-defining variations of beauty, with just numbers, and women have majorly been at the receiving end of this tirade. They say be skinny but not too skinny. They say be girly and lady like, for that is pretty. They say be curvy, but only in the right places.
Who made such ludicrous rules? Why can’t we just be ourselves? They expect an hourglass. But they didn’t realize that beauty, is not bound by corsets and numbers on a scale; that beauty, comes in all shapes and sizes. It has literally been ingrained in every one of us that being fat is something to be ashamed of. Sticks and stones couldn’t hurt me. But just a simple statement, “You seem to have put on some weight” shatters me every time.
Body shaming disguised as health concerns is totally unacceptable. Just because we listen to your insensitive comments with a gallant face doesn’t mean it doesn’t kill us every time. Being told that you are fatter than your sister. Not being allowed to wear clothes you desire, just because of your body size. What’s worse is that, most of these shaming commenced as family jokes. It may be subtle; it may not. But either way fat shaming is harmful and it needs to stop.
We are all born beautiful. Our flaws were our beauty all along. But the greatest tragedy is being convicted we are not. How many times have we denied our body the kindness it deserved, just because it didn’t fit the social bar of beauty? Who gave others the right to beat us down with their verbal baton? I’ve seen society attempt endlessly to Taser our body with their tongue and try to handcuff our love for ourselves. Just because their words shouldn’t affect you, does not mean that it doesn’t affect you.
Don’t tell me that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty, because in this society, it isn’t. No one gives you the chance to show your inner beauty unless your external self is attractive enough to woo them in. They don’t see us writhing in pain and humiliation, raging with insecurity, as they continue to redefine our semblance. They stomped down on our self-esteem, and simply labelled it with a “we just care about you” tag. They hunted us down the streets, until we finally began giving into their words. Maybe we are ugly. Maybe we are fat.
We are all ruined by their words not once, not twice, but a little bit in every single bite. They diminish us to such an extent that we feel empty and hollow, while they just sit and enjoy the sound from their mouths. This rage is pure fire, and with every ragged breath we take, our lungs get more and more shredded by all this hate and misery. We are not beautifully broken. Not even close. Instead we are ripped to shreds from inside out. Training and encouraging ourselves to ignore it. Pushing through while suppressing it and pretending like nothing’s happening. Why? Oh why do we bring this upon ourselves?
Don’t even waste a second of your time, trying to convince others that your worthy of loving. Fitting their classification of splendor is not what you pay as a rent to exist in this world. Apologize to your body. Perhaps, that’s where the healing begins. From within ourselves. Give your body the love it needs. Then maybe someday we would be able to embrace ourselves, turning a blind side to the absurd and bizarre social standards. Maybe then, they will realize that there’s more to people than what meets the eye.
If only our eyes saw souls instead of our body, how different the ideals of beauty would be. Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a lot to love a leaf. It’s ordinary to love the beautiful. But it’s beautiful to love the ordinary.
“So, Mirror! Mirror! On the wall! This time, show us who we really are…”
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