The Flip Side of Body Shaming
How compliments and “helpful” advice can also hurt
It still bothers me. My mother seems to have a compulsion. Whenever she sees me, she must comment on my appearance.
Her comments are never negative. They are always positive. My mother is a strong believer in positive reinforcement. She believes that my self-esteem depends on it.
But actually, it doesn’t. My self-esteem comes from within. If I rely on validation from others to love myself, then I don’t have self-esteem, at all.
Compliments are still judgements. And I don’t need judgements. I need acceptance for whatever I am, and whatever I might be.
By the time I reached adolescence, my mother’s positive reinforcement also set up a paradox for me that made me feel like I lived in two different worlds. Adolescence is when the body shaming and other unkind judgements started.
At home, I was told I was the most amazing, wonderful person in the world, based on this or that quality. At school, I was told very much the opposite. Not by my teachers, but by my classmates.
Yes, they recognized that I was smart. They recognized that I was talented at art and music. But they also made it clear that those were things they didn’t value much. What they valued were someone’s looks and athletic abilities. Their physical prowess. And it was made very clear to me that I did not have that.
Most of the time, this was not expressed in direct comments. It was more often conveyed by pointedly ignoring or excluding me. Boys didn’t flirt with me (or harass me), girls didn’t try to be my friend.
But sometimes, it was expressed directly.
One example of this that I remember was when a boy in homeroom, who I considered to be almost a friend, suddenly pointed at me and yelled, “Ew, ew, flesh!” I looked down at where he was pointing. My shirt had ridden up slightly on one side, as I had turned in my chair to talk to him. A tiny bit of my midriff was peeking out — soft, pale, and covered in goosebumps. The boy’s obvious disgust at my body was shocking, offensive, and embarrassing.
But other comments actually undermined my confidence more than that outburst.
Because we were usually seated alphabetically in class, I often found myself near a girl, who I’ll call Nicole. She became another kind of pseudo-friend.
Nicole was pretty and athletic, but not as popular as some of the other girls. At first, I was thrilled that she seemed interested in me at all.
Then the “helpful” suggestions started. Why didn’t I do my hair differently? Why didn’t I dress differently? Why didn’t I wear makeup? In short, why didn’t I try harder to make myself look like other girls, as most of the girls were striving so hard to do themselves?
It wasn’t that I didn’t try. But my parents couldn’t afford — or were unwilling — to buy me trendy clothes or makeup, and I just didn’t seem to be very good at curling, teasing, and hair spraying my bangs into the must-have hairstyle at the time.
Probably more than all these reasons for me not “fitting in” though, was the inherent resentment I felt at being told I wasn’t good enough, and that I had to be different. So, while I did try to conform somewhat, I also resisted it to some degree.
All of this, together, left me feeling like I lived in a lonely limbo. My parents didn’t understand what life was like for me at school. My classmates didn’t understand what life was like for me at home. It was hard. I was depressed.
But I was also resilient, because deep down I refused to live by the compliments or the insults. Deep down, I knew that I was worth exactly as much as anyone, because a person’s worth is not based on how they look, or anything else, for that matter. A person’s social worth comes from being human, and we are all worth the same.
Looking back at pictures of myself as a teen, for the most part, I’m amazed at how normal I look. Sure, there are some awkward photos. But, on the whole, I just look like a regular girl, if not a very happy one. Sometimes, I think I even look more normal than my peers, because I didn’t go in for the trends very much, which seem silly now. But, at the time, I was made to feel like I was an absolute freak, either incredibly weird and unattractive, or incredibly amazing, even if only my mother thought so.
I may have held onto my self-worth as a teen (barely). But the insults, the patronizing comments, and the over the top compliments all had the same effect on me. They made me feel like I wasn’t just accepted, or loved for myself. They all made me feel like I had to be “good enough” to belong. That I needed to earn acceptance, instead of being given it, freely and unconditionally.
Over the years, people have continued to try to convince me that my worth depends on the criticism and judgements of others — their approval and disapproval, their likes, their absence of likes, their comments, their following or not following — rather than on our shared humanity.
But I know they’ve got it wrong. Our worth comes from the simple fact that we’re all human. I know my own worth, and theirs, too. And we are all worth the same.
Lipstick and Powder is currently addressing body-shaming and its effects.
