The holidays are a time of joy, togetherness, and feelings of good for all man and womankind, right? Of course.
The holidays also seem to be a time when I hear more and more women than I can count talk about their fear, insecurity, and anxiety about their bodies going into the holidays: fear of gaining weight, insecurity about how they already weigh more than they’d like to, anxiety about the expectations surrounding food at this time of year…
In my typical scrooge fashion, I would like to call attention to the absurdity of our national obsession with gorging ourselves on food for holidays. I’m all for festive food traditions, but it is unclear to me why we have this notion of eating so much that you feel so full and so sick after the meal. We have thousands of hungry children in this country who don’t even get three meals a day–and we have this strange tradition of eating way more than we need to.
That aside, this feels like a great time to highlight something called the #365FeministSelfie movement.
The original blog post that started this movement is here.
Avital Norman Nathman, who writes for Kveller, wrote this about it here.
In an industry that elevates bodies that are unhealthy, and in a country with such a skewed sense of what is worthy of our time and set of values, I applaud #365FeministSelfie for attempting to empower us by encouraging us to show what real women look like.
Here is the selfie I am going to post.
Learn about feminism and post your selfie with the hashtag #365FeministSelfie. Feminism is not about man-hating, and it’s not about disproportionate superiority of women. It’s not just for women who don’t shave (that’s me; see this Kveller post about that!). It’s not just for women who hate being called “honey” at the workplace. It’s not just for lesbians, because I know that’s what a lot of people think. Grrr. It’s for women–and men!–who believe that women should be equal–not the same; equal. And not judged only by appearances, but by the content of their voice and their brains and their perspective. It’s also about empowering people of all races, classes, and genders, since feminism seeks to speak up for other populations typically marginalized.
Support this movement by helping send women to a feminist family conference in March or go to their online auction to help that way.
The more we normalize what “real” women look like, the more we can hope to not be judged by our appearances and compared to unrealistic images presented to us in the media.
Happy eating, happy celebrating, and please take time this season to appreciate your body, back off on the anxiety, and enjoy being together with loved ones spreading goodness to all, including your awesome self.
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