by Anne Dickson
Much has been written about how women are perceived and treated as sexual objects in various cultures: my focus in this chapter is less on external structures and more on how women have internalised the concept of ‘body-as-object’ and the psychological repercussions of doing so.
The most common response to looking at a reflection of one’s entire naked body in a mirror (if we ever let ourselves do so) is that, instead of regarding our reflection as an image of wholeness, we gaze with critical evaluation on an assembly of parts. This perception derives from being conditioned to look at the human body in fragments: whether sick or healthy, the human body tends to be viewed in discrete units. One of the effects of fragmentation is that we tend to perceive our bodies as a collection of body parts – breasts, hips, genitals, legs, eyes, lips, hair, waist, thighs, buttocks – each of which can be singled out as an attractive asset to make the most of or an unattractive flaw to conceal: instead of wholeness we see bits or objects to which we attach relative value. In a butcher’s display, for example, you don’t allow yourself to think of the essential ‘cowness’ of a cow, the magnificent creature with a strong straight back, its deep bellow, its softness, its extraordinary eyes, its being. You don’t acknowledge the essential being of the lamb or the pig, each a prime creature in its own right because they are reduced to fragments of the whole: a chop or sausage, mince or steak to be consumed and enjoyed.
We learn to see our bodies in fragments. Although, as very young girls, we experience for a few years a unity and integrity of body, mind and spirit, at the time of realisation of being a potential sexual object, this unity is broken. Our physical identity and selfhood are split: who we are versus how we need to be seen. Living this divide can last a lifetime during which we lose touch with the wonder of our being. It is not hard to understand that when anything is reduced to an assembly of parts, it doesn’t function as a whole. When we assess our bodies as fragments, we lose sight of our totality, our humanity and of our intrinsic femaleness: at some deep level we stop seeing the interconnected beauty of all we are – inside and out – and once detached from this connection, we learn to see, assess and treat our bodies with the same objectivity with which they are viewed through outside eyes.
This launches many women on a treadmill of monitoring, compensating, covering up and imitating. After a while, external persuasion isn’t necessary because it’s internalised. In the end we become inured to being objects, to the demands of being pleasing and attractive in body and behaviour. This explains why women often choose to undergo all sorts of major surgical procedures without any persuasion (sometimes even despite attempts at dissuasion) from the men in their lives to whom they want to stay attractive: our bodies have been transformed permanently into objects in our own perception.
Current trends to ‘sexualise’ little girls before puberty, turning them into self-conscious objects at an increasingly younger age, mean that even those few precious years of bodily integrity – when there is no division between mind and body – are ever dwindling. Awareness of being potential sexual objects brings many attendant anxieties about one’s image in comparison to others. When the seeds of self-consciousness are sown, we become increasingly vulnerable to the cultural pressure to be attractive and to present ourselves in a certain way: of the significance of an external image. How we look becomes more significant than who we are: projecting an external image overtakes cultivating inner integrity. This initiates a burgeoning and lifelong evaluation of one’s own body according to some internalised ideal and from this moment, we start to compare and compete with other females for the right to be considered an object of attraction and desire.
The catch is that being in the female body is not without its disadvantages. Recognition of inequality between the genders means that it takes only a small mental step to connect this inequality to being born in a female body. Depending on which culture we are born into, the disadvantage of being female may be obvious within the family unit or at school; it may become obvious later only through sexual encounters or when a woman enters employment. Whether she’s making sandwiches in the local deli or on the board of an insurance company, she’ll soon spot the inequities. Some young girls become tomboys; some develop anorexia to try and put off developing physically into womanhood. Whether we put all our efforts into endorsing our feminine role or rebelling against it, this process affects every one of us.
Nature as ‘nuisance’ Women’s bodies have been traditionally valued as safe havens, sources of comfort, decoration and pleasure. They are vital vehicles and carriers of reproduction. Our bodies offer softness and curves, a refuge from the angular, linear world. Every natural aspect of the female body defines her as non-linear. We bleed. Our bodies are round and soft and fleshy. They are unpredictable, curved, messy, chaotic and susceptible to rhythmic changes. Many of us are subject to emotions that can’t be understood logically and seem to function according to a system that isn’t rational or straightforward or controllable.
In a world which privileges certain qualities over others, nature (in all its myriad forms and meanings) has become a casualty. Natural aspects of a woman’s body are no exception. This antipathy ranges from hiding menstruation, to morbid obsession with eradicating smell – perfumed tampons during our periods, perfumed mini-pads in between, perfumed douches just in case – to removing any natural body evidence of reality: wrinkle, cellulite, body hair, smell, soft tissue or roundness. In the western world, women look at other women’s bodies through the same critical eyes of distaste for fat or the effects of ageing – ‘Did you see her thighs?’ or ‘Why doesn’t she do something about those breasts?’
Many of us put our efforts from an early age into being as feminine and as attractive as possible. The catch is that those women who are adored for their bodies as they naturally occur are in the minority. Most of the time, relentless efforts are made to eradicate nature. All natural hair from legs, arms, underarms and face must disappear; waxing the bikini line or removing every trace of pubic hair are currently synonymous with being sexually desirable. A whole range of medications has been manufactured to help us with our ongoing struggle: HRT is on hand to suppress natural menopausal symptoms; antidepressants to suppress natural emotions. Laxatives substitute for natural digestive processes; scientific formulae for natural breast milk. And then, of course, an infinite array of ‘age-defying’ preparations.
Although attempts to hide or delay signs of ageing have been around a long time, now more than ever before, the fear of ageing has intensified: young women are persuaded to buy products in their thirties to have a better chance of staving off the inevitable, hoping that by the time they get to sixty, some drug will have been found to guarantee perpetual youthfulness.
Cosmetic surgery – ranging from Botox to facelifts to ‘corrective’ surgical intervention – is no longer the prerogative of the rich and famous: celebrities merely lead the way in the trend. In fact some women go so far as to claim that the right to choose cosmetic surgery is a testament to being ‘liberated’. This claim reminds me of the paradoxical psychological dynamic (known as the Stockholm syndrome) which occurs when a captive shows a devoted loyalty and grateful willingness to submit to a captor who has absolute control over her life: it is debatable whether cosmetic surgery is a symptom of enslavement or liberation.
It is rare to encounter a woman who truly loves and celebrates her body as it is. This means that for the majority, having a woman’s body entails a lifelong struggle to suppress the natural in favour of an imposed and artificial ideal. Yet, despite our best efforts, our bodies disappoint us because they will not conform. Our bodies betray us. Even cosmetic surgery does not last forever: skin stretches with time and still more work needs to be done.
So is there any way we can build a more celebratory relationship with our bodies, or at least a less critical and more compassionate one? An assertive attitude to your body means learning to understand it, to trust it and to care for it. It especially means
learning to live with your body in harmony rather than struggling against it.
Tiredness
We have already touched on the issue of tiredness: how we often fail to heed signs of fatigue in our bodies. These signs will vary with each individual but they are often specific: your skin comes up in a rash, your stomach may tighten giving you indigestion, your back may twinge or your legs ache. You find yourself having less and less energy. If you detect and follow the signs in good time you can prevent yourself overstretching your physical and psychological resources.
Health
Finding out what suits you is important. There is no point following tedious or expensive diets and punishing yourself unnecessarily. Monitoring what you put in your body means knowing how to restore the balance: too much of one thing means you need to take in a little more of something else. Young women now are more acutely calorie conscious than any previous generations but try and appreciate your body: not as a thing to be clothed and paraded and judged but as you.
Learn about what your body tells you: how your appetite and digestion changes with your emotions; how it varies with the pattern of hormonal changes in your body, such as your menstrual cycle. Try watching without judgement and criticism, allowing yourself to feel a bit more bloated for a few days without giving yourself (your body) a hard time because you can’t wear your favourite jeans for a while. Learning what is good for your body and bad for your body need not be expensive or time-consuming. Once you start thinking about having a relationship with your body, it is easier to notice how you are treating it and what you can change.
Sometimes women go to the extreme and decide, for all sorts of reasons, to treat their bodies like machines: rigorous exercise regimes and diets are followed with intense discipline to keep the machine ‘lean’. If you’re one of those women, ask yourself whether your approach is rooted in care or control, in acceptance or a wish to knock your body into submission.
Care includes repairing the wear and tear caused by the stress of our lives. Tension and anxiety are inevitable a lot of the time, more than we realise. We flake out in the evening and seem to be constantly sighing with tiredness and moaning about another day, wondering if we will ever have the stamina to get through. Making time to rest is important and learning how to relax, without always needing the help of alcohol, is vital. Appropriate rest may mean more organisation of the way you spend your time: relaxation can take as little as five minutes but makes a remarkable difference. Find out what suits you: walking, meditating, gardening or yoga for example. Learning to breathe and relax in the middle of a tense and important meeting, discussion or journey helps to reduce the stress and strain on your body. Breathing deeply at any time helps.
Find a way to exercise your body in a way that you can enjoy. Going for a walk, cycling, running, swimming, dancing, T’ai chi or pilates: all these forms of exercise can be part of a daily programme. What are some of the ways in which you could make more time for this in your life? Remember it is no good setting your goals too high because you are likely to find it difficult to reorganise your life. Start small. Taking five minutes a day to do some sort of exercise is a possible goal and therefore one you can reach.
Understanding how to care for your body in health will help you care for your body in sickness. If you go part way to finding out and taking responsibility for your health, you can take some responsibility for your body when it is not healthy.
Emotions
Chapter 11 described the importance of listening to your emotional body cues instead of ignoring them: going against your body means denying to yourself what you feel; going with your body means accepting the need to express those feelings in some way. Attuning to your body means taking the time to see what you really need instead of fighting it or resorting to food or drink as a means of suppression and temporary relief. Listening more carefully to what your body is communicating puts you much more in command of your life.
Saying ‘no’ and ‘yes’ for your body means saying ‘no’ and ‘yes’ for yourself. Having learned the truth of this, many women benefit from assertiveness training by being able to say ‘no’ and ‘yes’ for their bodies, seeing it as an important statement of doing something for themselves: saying ‘no’ to cigarettes; saying ‘no’ to sex when you don’t want it; saying ‘no’ to extra work when you are tired; saying ‘no’ to eating all the children’s leftovers; saying ‘no’ to swallowing back tears; saying ‘yes’ to cycling; saying ‘yes’ to an extravagant box of chocolates; saying ‘yes’ to a long luxurious soak in the bath; saying ‘yes’ to an extra hour in bed; saying ‘yes’ to sexual pleasure; saying ‘yes’ to a weekly swim; saying ‘yes’ to buying yourself a bunch of flowers; saying ‘yes’ to the offer of a lift when you are tired or saying ‘no’ to the offer of a lift when you need the exercise. Look at ways in which you can say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for your body and yourself in your own life.
Information, familiarity, care and pleasure: it sounds like being a friend to your body which is exactly what it is. It is important to respect, cherish and care for your body, for yourself. This is far more than an encouragement to get slimmer or fitter or healthier. It is certainly more than improving the exterior and more a question of healing the split between outside and inside. As we’ll see in the next chapter, excessive preoccupation with the external image we project does not lead to consistently high self-esteem. Of course, there is the short-term satisfaction of having our worth and status confirmed by admiring eyes but in the long term, we risk losing touch with the core of who we are and failing to build a resilient self-esteem which we need to achieve a measure of emotional independence.
20
Self-Esteem
A long-term consequence of a preoccupation with how we look to others, remembering that this involves both the need to be attractive in physical appearance and behaviour, is a chronic self-consciousness: in many women, this leads to confusion about who we really are, what we want, how we feel and what we think we should keep hidden from others. In short, we risk becoming over-dependent on outside reflections.
A woman looks in real and imagined mirrors to see how she appears to others. She also looks to the mirrors in people’s eyes, which reflect back how she appears. In one mirror she sees a particular image. In one person’s eyes, she sees another. Maybe in someone else’s eyes she sees yet another. The images may conflict or converge. At times, she thinks that the reflections show all of who she is, at other times one single facet.
Reflections give reassurance of our existence, our credibility and our worth. We become accustomed to relying on reflected evaluation. We develop ‘winning ways’ in parallel with ‘winning bodies’; we become expert at responding to other people’s cues, testing the ground for approval, making the right impression, matching and adapting our actions, words and movements. Obviously, if we choose to live, work, sleep, talk, travel and generally share our lives with other human beings, it would be pointless to stay in a vacuum and close our eyes and ears to everyone else. Problems arise when we become over-dependent on outside approval and validation to the point of breaking the thread of connection with an internal, grounded sense of self.
A constant preoccupation with concerns about what might happen, what the response will be or what someone else is or might be thinking decreases our ability to focus on our own inner responses. This is why we lose touch with what we want and feel and also why, when considering changing our familiar response to a situation and behaving uncharacteristically, the first worry which comes to mind is ‘but what will they think of me?’
Over-dependence on how others see us makes for a fragile self-esteem. How does Dulcie see herself? Dulcie escapes into daydreams where she sees herself in fantasy – the model, the boss, the star – to avoid looking at herself realistically because what she sees in reality is hopeless and inadequate. Her self-esteem is low and she depends on others to strengthen it. This works to some extent but it is never enough to compensate fully for her o
wn conviction of her lack of worth.
And Agnes? She punishes the vulnerable and fragile parts of herself that allow her to feel hurt. She keeps them firmly locked away. She is quick to attack first before she is wounded, rejects before she is rejected. Her self-esteem looks high but isn’t and she is often quite desperate to be loved and accepted even though she would rather die than admit it.
Ivy appears to think highly of herself. She seems to be quite satisfied and confident although secretly she subjects herself to all sorts of critical pressures and punishes herself pitilessly when she fails to meet her own expectations. In order to avoid rejection, she holds on more and more tightly to the control in her relationships, ever more desperate to avoid any risk of losing approval.
Self-esteem is not conceit or arrogance: it does not depend on being a winner every time. It does not depend on any kind of pretence or denial of vulnerability. In the context of this book, self-esteem is based in a strong, anchored sense of self which survives both failure and success; it survives the buffeting caused by the aftermath of mistakes, disappointments and even occasional disasters.
Selma accepts herself as she is which means acknowledging both her strengths and weaknesses. The more she values herself and feels strong in herself, the more she can allow herself to look at those aspects of herself which she doesn’t like very much but can acknowledge. The more she accepts herself with limitations, the more she is open to listening to other people’s criticism and learning from it, without sinking into self-reproach. The more open she feels, the more she is free to be herself. She can take the risk of changing without clinging desperately to the known and familiar.
She conveys her certainty of her own value as well. She is open to acceptance and love from others: if she is rejected, she is not demolished. If she is not accepted by others, she can choose to weigh up the importance of their approval against the importance of being true to herself. From an inner base of certainty she can risk the uncertainty of change.