The Numbers Game

I hand-wrote (!) this message yesterday during some down time at work (days before holiday weekends are generally very slow).  After talking with my relatively new artsy-nerdy friend Emily over coffee this morning, I felt it very important to post this today.  I am certain that there are a lot of women, and probably a lot of men, who are dealing with the same feelings as me, and this is something that needs to be addressed right away.

As I inch (literally) closer to my weight and health goals, I realize that I have reached a very dangerous place.  It has nothing to do with BMI or blood pressure or Daily Recommended Allowances.  It has everything to do with identity and self-image.

I have come to the jarring realization that I am on the brink of defining myself almost exclusively by my appearance.  And that terrifies me.

It's hard for me to admit this because I am a huge advocate of teaching the next generation, young women in particular, of the value of inner beauty.  It would be easier to pretend I was not having this struggle, to simply smile and say "thank you" when people notice how different I look now.  I hate what the media does to the value of womanhood.  I hate that we, as a culture, accept the cheapened version of femininity - the image of women as sexual objects, the condemnation of stay-at-home moms and working moms alike.  I hate that, as I myself eye my scale, I have begun to base my worth on how low the number dips.  The lower it goes, a little voice tells me, the greater my value.

I know this way of thinking is wrong on multiple levels.  First and foremost, it's shallow.  To assign a value to any person based on appearance alone is thoughtless, foolish, and often cruel.  How do we learn such injustice?  Look to Hollywood, full of scripts in which the well-meaning loser guy gets the gorgeous girl, but rarely the reverse.  Look to magazines, full of countless glossy pages of women so airbrushed they hardly look real.  (Can I also say here how much it pains me to see spreads in which the "affordable" clothing pieces top $400?  That's neither here nor there, of course, but man, that gets me riled up!  Moving on...)  My heart sinks when I think of all the truly talented, hard-working people who will never attain the "success" they desire because they don't have the right "look".  We are often chided not to judge a book by its cover, but it's something we do on a daily basis, often subconsciously.

And it hurts.

Another reason that this line of thinking is wrong is that it's simply untrue.  The Bible says that every person conceived has value, and nowhere does God indicate that any person is more important than another because of appearance alone.  In fact, 1 Samuel 16:7 indicates that God is speaking through the prophet with these beautiful and encouraging words: "But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him [a brother of David]. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  That's pretty darn clear that, although he designed our looks, they don't indicate value before God!  We don't have to think, act, speak or look a certain way before he gives us his love!

Yet another argument against these thoughts is a less profound, but equally important one: it robs me of my joy.  Instead of enjoying a hearty meal, I find that I eye it warily, mentally calculating the "damage" it may cause.  I have been, without even realizing it, labeling myself a "good" or "bad" girl depending on the amount of calories I've consumed and expended each day.  Why have I been punishing myself with insults when a chocolate craving attacks me or I don't count out each and every tortilla chip in a serving?

I don't exactly know.  In fact, the thing is, I absolutely know better.  I have both Bible verses and other words of encouragement to speak over myself.  I have a husband, family, and friends who loved me when I weighed almost 170 pounds and they'll also love me when I reach my goal of 126 pounds.  I'm not a model or an actress; I'm not in the public eye and therefore required to look a very specific way.  (I mean, come on, people, I wear scrubs to work.  Comfy, but hardly glamorous.)  I'm not trying to "shake my thang" in a bikini on a beach to drop jaws.  Even in regards to signing up for the Great Race, I am not trying to win - just to finish.  So why is this obsession getting the best of me?

I wish I could say.  All I know is that I am not alone.  While I do not have an eating disorder, I am aware that I don't have a healthy relationship with food right now.  I do wonder - would I feel the same way about myself if I'd been born tall and lanky, with a boyish figure?  Or with dark skin and kinky hair?  Or even shorter than I am now, with golden skin and almond-shaped eyes?  Do all women truly compare themselves to others?  Worse, do they compare themselves to those magazine models who don't even exist?  Are we all "just 10 pounds" or "just 4 inches" away from accepting ourselves as beautiful?

If my experience is any indication, I'm going to say that no, we're not.  You don't automatically gain self respect when you lose weight.  Oh, you find yourself more confident, more comfortable, but if you've developed negative habits before you lost the weight (or kicked smoking, or left an abusive relationship, or made whatever life change you needed to in order to be more healthy), you'll hang onto those habits until you realize they're hurting you more than the unhealthy conditions did.  Emily told me this morning that the things that wake her up at night aren't reminders of the physical abuse she had suffered - although that hurt, too.  She says what troubles her most are the psychological effects - including her own self-image, damaged by relationships that were not right for her.  

As with many of my more pensive posts, I don't exactly presume to have an answer.  I just wanted to be vulnerable and put this out there.  I strongly desire to be a good role model for the young ladies in my life - my friends' daughters, my nieces, the girls in my church's youth group.  And, when the time comes, for my own daughter (as bleak as things look right now, somewhere in my heart I still believe I will have a little girl someday).  It's the humanity of people who seem to be invincible that makes you realize no one's perfect, and although I don't claim to be a hero, my writings have brought me a lot of comments along the lines of "you're so strong".  

I don't feel strong right now, but I do feel like it's okay to admit that.

Who's the Victim?

In general, I prefer to stay away from hot topics and current events.  Mostly because I find that the news media rarely reveals more than one side of the story - although there are usually several that should be explored.

Still, the whole Steubenville rape tragedy is something that has been rolling around in my mind a lot lately.  I am hearing so many different opinions, and a lot of them seem to me to be fueled by nothing more than outrage.  From the students who accused the victim of ruining their lives, to the reporters who lamented the loss of the rapists' "promising futures", to the feminists who are squawking against the double standard, to the media "geniuses" who concluded that the best and most important "lesson" from the rape case is that social media can be dangerous...I think many people are missing the point.  The point is that, as a culture, we don't respect women.

This past weekend, noted speaker, writer, and women's advocate Lee Grady taught at my church.  On Saturday night, he spoke to both men and women about many of the terrible things that happen to women - on a regular basis - across the globe.  He talked about female genital mutilation, spousal rape/abuse, and many other things that saddened our hearts.  He said that much of the violence continues because women have been taught to accept it.  

How are things different in America?  They aren't.

For all of our "modern" ways and our first-world lifestyle, I challenge you.  Think about it.  If women in South America have been conditioned to accept physical abuse because it is an "understood" part of marriage according to their culture; if women in Africa hold their own screaming daughters down as they are circumcised because it is "necessary" according to their culture, we are no different.  Women in America are being taught by the media that their bodies are of no value unless they are changed - shaved, enhanced, diminished, colored,  plucked, clothed - in a way that is more appealing to men.  It's an easy brainwash, if you start out young - which, of course, we are.

Image from www.blog.bratz.com.

Many of my peers have babies and toddlers now.  I'm learning from their blogs and from other social media that many of them, regardless of their religion, agree with me that something is very wrong with what the media is teaching our children.  It's as though young moms and dads have had their eyes opened - they see the commercials and products aimed at their babies as though for the first time.  They are shocked to read articles about children in first-grade referring to themselves as "fat".  Some of them don't like the idea of Disney princesses, because they're afraid their girls will think that finding a "prince" is their only job in life!

Image from www.filmschoolrejects.com.

Yet the self-esteem-crushing industrial monster, fueled by the masses, blazes ahead, marketing also to teens and young adults.  What do we have available for them? The Twilight series, one of the best-selling trilogies of all time, which features a young woman who is actually in an abusive relationship (read a clear, simply-worded explanation here).  We're teaching our daughters to desire men who control them and manipulate them, who won't allow them their independence.  I am by no means a feminist in the extreme and somewhat twisted sense of the term, but I can definitely get on the wagon with them concerning this.  Bella is a poor excuse for a heroine!  Instead, my children will admire brave Princess Leia, who got down in the trenches to fight a rebellion.  They'll watch the adventures of clever Martha Jones, who overcame unrequited love and accomplished her goal of becoming a doctor!  They'll read about historical heroines like Anne Frank, Harriet Tubman, and Ruth, Deborah, and Jael of the Bible.  They'll read Jane Eyre and learn that a woman does not have to compromise her standards to find true love. 

At the same time as it has been repressing women, our culture has allowed, encouraged, and instructed men to take advantage of women doing just that - because such actions, of course, make them "manlier".  Men who are respectful of women's boundaries are shamed by their peers, considered weak or feminine - unable to "score".  Men who are sensitive are sometimes negatively labeled as "gay".  We reward brutality with scholarships and idolization.  We allow child abuse cover-ups on a huge scale, which in turn allows more children to be abused as leadership "figures things out".  Our popular music tells young men to "get some" without any thoughts about the future - or the past.  That's pretty dangerous.  Ask anyone with an STD - if you find someone willing to talk about the experience.

Can you see what I am getting at?  The Steubenville tragedy was awful, and yes, a lot of lives were ruined by the actions that took place that night.    Whatever poor decisions she had made - and I do personally believe that heavy drinking, regardless of age, is always a poor decision -  this girl absolutely did not "deserve" what she got.  No one stepped forward to help this young woman, because no one really thought anything bad was happening.  Their perception of the situation was influence by both alcohol and the effects of the media, which teaches that "she probably wanted it anyway".  Their obsession with social media allowed them to witness the events as through a lens, like they weren't even participating.  Just think!  If someone had been brave enough or angry enough to step in, maybe this wouldn't have happened!  Maybe reputations and friendships would have been preserved and the community would have remained intact.  

If we put out efforts into raising a generation of young men and women who respect themselves and each other, maybe the media will have less and less of these stories to feast upon.  

Eventually, that bloated beast just might starve.