The female embodiment

How to build a home in a house

Women in general are told innuendos about perfection and overachievement. “To break the glass ceiling” does not mean “be yourself, you’re fine” it means “be a man, you are not good enough”. This is ingrained in our cultures, from general society to eco-communities, to workplaces to family dynamics.

The need to be pretty, to be neat, to be perfection in assemble, to at least appear perfect by other women or men who are incredibly confused about what perfection is, is the biggest perils of womanhood.

There is a comparison that goes on inside women’s minds, rather subconsciously for those who do not wish to have it, rather conscious for those who like it. Constant comparison between what another does best, what another is best, what another feels best, what another embodies best.

This has taken such a huge proportion that we are afraid of speaking up, or some don’t even know how to voice it into words, to simply say: we are who we are.

Authenticity flies out the window if someone dares to go against the grain. There is a push and pull to belong, to be a part of, to regret the decision of leaving it all behind, to try the new and not obliviously decided by the rare few. Female authenticity is condemned by those who wish to see others fail, and by those who follow them in the chance that they win a nonexistent race.

It’s exhausting to try to understand, because like Arendt says: “Evil has no depth”.

It’s evil to condone women for being who they are and manipulate them into an idea of who they could be if they weren’t themselves. The ones who most profit out of this? Other women. And abusive men who take advantage of the insecurity of being.

It’s segregation of uniqueness folding into the hegemony of the ideal of a perfect woman who is not only impossible to be perfect as she is also demanded perfection in every moment. The allure of perfection swallows us whole, dare aging to come forth and saggy boobs to occur, there is this sense of failure that is hard to describe.

In trying to find a picture for this article, I went to several open-source websites and every woman depicted in the “female body” tag was sculptured perfectly, with a sad and vacant look of those who do not wish to live in those bodies. Although there were different bodies, a woman with enormous breasts, and other types of out-of-the-box woman, there weren’t any regular, normal bodies, regular tummy, legs, or joyful look of who’s happy to be alive. I couldn’t find any, at one point male gym bodies started to come up, an exhibition of quads and biceps and a look of an exhibition of their inauthentic selves, perfectly mimicked of another just like him.

What is a woman who does not see herself in her body? What kind of dissociation are we asking of women, collectively? Please, do not dare to be yourself. Don’t get angry, don’t voice your opinion, don’t demand independence, don’t demand to think for yourself. You’re just a blip in the radar of men, of other women to have an opinion of you, you’re your mother and all her issues, you’re the living proof of the continuity of humankind, but shush darling, don’t dare to talk about your importance in the grand scheme of things. Be bigger, better than you already are, be the impossible to be.

The sentence my mother most uses when she criticizes me in any way is “I’m entitled to an opinion”. She really doesn’t have the right, but she believes she does.

The need for perfection achieves different heights when it comes to relationships. Society has upheld this idea of what perfection should be in the eyes of consumerism, so most women are consuming items to men. The choosing of a woman comes with the caveat of lists of pros and cons. Even if he likes one best, the other has more grounds for perfection — even if he dislikes everything about her. They won’t last, but it’s an idea that keeps winning inside men’s minds — to achieve the perfect couple, but molding the woman enough so she is perfect in his eyes, which she will never be, by being herself.

I’ve seen me and my friends go from relationship to relationship with this idea in mind: if only I’m perfect he’ll accept me. Is it sad or what?

I’m like: Fuck that, I’m perfect just the way I am. And that irritates just about everyone.

I have a picture of myself about 10 years ago (23 maybe, a good age to be considered perfect) and I’m really beautiful in that picture. It was actually the most awful period of my life, but hey, at least I looked great. Whoever sees that picture has no idea about the horror show that were my emotions and denial about the past. What was going on in my mind to flee desperately from facing all the traumas. The paranoia, the insanity of wanting to belong somewhere I already knew I didn’t fit in.

The embodiment of the female body needs desperately to flee from society to survive and be adequate to herself. Kind to herself. Brave to herself.

Dare to have boobs, dare to have a tummy, dare to have an ass. Never dare to conform to norms of what is said to be acceptable. Never dare to grow pubic hair, nipple hair, a mustache, or anything that resembles imperfection for photos of fashionistas.

I wonder what people would think of Greta Thunberg if she was the typical beautiful 16-year-old. She’s not, and she gets angry, and she annoys the right people.

Gisele Bundchen is now a meditation teacher. I’ve listened to a couple of her stuff and I feel weirdness. It’s not she’s entirely bad at it, but she’s not exactly a Buddhist nun either. But she’s her, and that’s enough. Is she her, I wonder? I looked at pictures without make-up and I wouldn’t recognize her in the street if I passed by her, she just looks regular, tall, and blonde. I think that’s the version of herself she likes most. With makeup, however, she’s Gisele Bundchen. Her pictures on Insight Timer provoke that idea of the perfect woman, all that white men think white women wish to be. There are wonderful meditation teachers on Insight Timer who don’t get the time of day for their work. And I wonder, if they wish us to all look like Gisele Bundchen, would they accept the female reality?

I think we think they wouldn’t. So that’s why we scaredly hide between their ideas of perfections and our ideas of perfection and keep the mask of “I don’t really care.”

Because the perfect female embodiment is messy, dirty, confused, dichotomic, not always pretty, not always beautiful, not always confident, vulnerable and sensitive, confused and manipulated for centuries by a society who wishes to demonize the wildness of what women truly represent.

The Wild Women movements attest to the ideal of perfection. You go on Instagram and Facebook and everything is supposed to sell you an idea of what women should be: goddesses. It’s not like they’ll ever be, but they wish they were, that’s the level of insecurity of the female embodiment. Do women need to be goddesses to be accepted? I don’t think so. All women are authentic, not just the Goddesses. And if it’s about perfection, have you read the actual stories? It’s full of messiness and horribly tainted with demons and insanity.

Is the male obsession of human-godlike fantasies of power translated into women’s ideal perfection types?

True human female embodiment resembles that of a snake shedding her skin, an eagle hunting, a tree shedding its Autumn leaves, the messiness of a life full of expectations and achievements to awake up to. Human female embodiment wouldn’t know how to be Goddesses, they just want to keep up with the charade of perceived perfection in fear of creating a wave of male dissatisfaction and sexual drought.

To be Wild, to be savage, to be brave enough to fight the perfection myth. That for me is the female embodiment. How to bravely be our authentic selves without the need for embellishing towards what will never be.

The inner workings of the human body dare to be a home for those who accept their insignificance, that’s the real issue. The 5-minute fame Instagram account of perfectly taken pictures that are all the same, is just a mirage of what the idea of perfection can be.

This myth of a godless Earth has shed its true markings: a decline in human ideals. Nietzsche said it best that superman would never be completed until humankind surpassed his highest need. Humankind's highest need is to feel complete. And that will never happen in the search for an inauthentic self.

A godless Earth is bare earth, no nature no animals, no humans. The search for the inauthenticity of humanity, the having the house without it being a home, is the search for self-destruction. Humanity has thought of itself as grand in the grand scheme but limits itself with the ignorance of insignificance out of fear of not belonging to the patriarchal views on how to be the best.

Socially constructed views of how things should take place instead of acceptance of what they are. And we’re all part of it.

Life isn’t bad or is confused. She’s just waiting for the goodness of humanity to come to the front.

The female embodiment needs to understand itself and good first and foremost, to win this battle against the idea of perfection. Evil women make history for being stupid, good women make history for being daring. Good men rarely make history.

We don’t need to follow this line of thinking and acting in order to be ourselves. We just need enough distance to reappropriate what is authenticity and to understand what that means.

To be a woman in your own body, what does that mean to you? Do you secretly feel like an object that must rise to an expectation that you don’t truly want?

To feel embodied, we must accept the realness of things. And that sometimes means that our ideas of love, acceptance, genuine caring, compassion, were wrong.

To feel liberated while embodied, one must accept that whatever it is life has in store for us, it won’t be a disappointment if we make better choices towards being more in tune with one’s self.

The Earth will save you, and it can keep you gravitating in this land for the time being while you sort yourself out. It can however show you how to be here, if you ask nicely, without the intent of appropriation.

Oscar Wilde said: Be yourself, everyone else is taken.

I do not wish to be Gisele Bundchen, or Megan Fox, or any of those beautiful women who suffer way too much for their own good. My only wish at the moment is that I have the respect I deserve, and that starts with me.

To build a home in a house is to create a living space where you’re comfortable and want to spend time. More than that is clutter.