You Don’t Have To Love Your Body
By Ijeoma Oluo
When it’s only us in the room, only fat women, someone might quietly say, like a guilty confession:
“I’m trying really hard to love my body, but . . . I just can’t.”
And we look at her and nod with sympathy and provide encouraging words like, “You’ll get there! You’re beautiful and deserve to feel beautiful.”
But many of us feel the same way more days than not, and we’re ashamed to admit it.
Most of the world tells us to be ashamed of our bodies. We do not fit the norm established by white patriarchal society. We have not conformed to the standards set by the men for whom our bodies were apparently created. If we cannot do these things, the least we can do is feel horrible about it.
The alternative to hating our bodies, to trying to starve ourselves into being less, to trying to will ourselves invisible, to refusing to enjoy a single outfit or a moment of exposed flesh, is to love our bodies.
Yes, to be free we must love our bodies. We must flaunt our curves and show that belly, and each and every day know that we are fucking beautiful. Anything less than this is proof that the poison of the patriarchy has infected our minds.
