I’ve always been seen as small. From the moment I was born, I was behind the curve. Every annual physical included my doctor presenting me with my chart, a little blue line lagging behind the norm. I was always aware of it; everyone in my life deemed it acceptable to remind me of my size every time they saw me. Family members declared I could use an extra sandwich; friends laughed amongst themselves as they placed their fingers around my wrists; or my mom would assure me that boys like petite girls most, and always following up with the fact that she used to look just like me.
As I entered middle school, it suddenly became a race to buy your first training bra, get your period, or invest in a razor. Womanhood seeped into childhood almost seamlessly, without notice or apology. But I never seemed to cross the finish line of puberty, let alone come close. I began to watch my friends hit every benchmark while I lagged behind. I began to notice that the more my friends developed, the more the boys in my class would want to talk to them. Even in the sixth grade, it was the end all be all to be recognized by boys. Their attention was instantly elevated and placed on an untouchable pedestal. I quickly realized it didn’t matter how many math problems I could answer correctly or books I could read; they were only ever looking, never listening.
I knew there was a shift in me and my friends’ conversations; men and boys gained a monopoly on our every word. The ashes of our girlhood were scattered and would take years to find. But I didn’t care at the time. I wanted to talk to boys, I wanted them to like me, I wanted to be wanted, and so I became hooked on male validation, a powerful drug that instantly overtook my friends and me.
As I entered the pandemic, another drug took over, Chloe Ting. Chloe Ting quickly emerged during the pandemic as an internet personality who created fitness content. Her at-home workouts soared to TikTok fame during the lockdown with flashy titles such as “How to Achieve a Thigh Gap” or “14-Day Abs.”
Clik here to view.
(One of Ting’s Youtube Workout Video Covers, 2020)
It started as harmless fun, an activity to get moving after a day parked in front of a zoom screen. But it quickly became destructive. My friends and I developed a toxic culture with each other, exchanging what workout we did that day, how long it was, how hard it was, and if we saw results. And I suddenly started to feel the need to beat them. I wanted to win. I had strived for perfection my whole life. I needed to excel at everything I did, or else I lost my purpose. And as much as I felt I could perfect my grades, I could never perfect my body. All my friends were developed, except me. I felt I had to compensate for my lack of a desirable “full” body with a small one. I needed to keep the “petite” image I had been reminded of my whole life. If I didn’t, what boy would want me?
I soon swapped my lunch for extra workouts, eliminating breakfast and limiting dinner. I had no idea the trap I had fallen into, but now I was in too deep. I was deprived of happiness while risking my health and I wasn’t even doing it for myself. I had lost track of who I was even doing it for.
I didn’t fully know it then, but I developed an eating disorder, specifically anorexia nervosa. According to The Eating Disorder Foundation, “over 50% of teenage girls use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.”
But developing an eating disorder doesn’t simply happen; there was a reason why I craved to change my body so deeply. I wasn’t isolated in this immense craving to change myself, I had been told I wasn’t beautiful by the media my entire life. This was rooted systemically.
From the moment we can consume media, we’re deceived into believing a strict standard of beauty–an unattainable one designed for men. Beauty is now impossible, for every imperfection is airbrushed or deleted, whether you’re scrolling on your Instagram feed or flipping through a magazine. We have nothing to look at that is genuine. This harmful rhetoric starts affecting girls earlier than we think. The Eating Disorder Foundation found that 81% of 10 year olds fear becoming fat or gaining weight, and 46% of 9-11 year-olds report being “sometimes” or “very often” on diets.
Clik here to view.
(An example of photoshop in the media: the same model is shown in both images)
In our feminism class, we’ve grounded our work in centering Black queer feminists. One writer and feminist theorist we focused on was Audre Lorde and her collection of essays, Sister Outsider. In Lorde’s essay, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” she outlines the importance of discovering the “erotic.” The erotic is a type of power and state of mind, and it’s not simply a sexual one. Unleashing the erotic means unleashing joy without any constraints. By harnessing the power of the erotic, it provides us with tools for liberation, both emotionally and physically, and freedom essential to surviving in a male-dominated world.
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(Radical Black feminist, activist, and writer Audre Lorde)
Lorde writes, “The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the physic and emotional components of that need–the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, it’s erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment.”
Lorde explicitly outlines how an oppressive system, in this case, the media, preys upon us immediately as young girls, entrancing us into a state of self-deprecation and self-objectification that lives within us through adulthood. Reading Lorde’s essay has allowed me to truly understand how the media’s worst nightmare is women discovering the erotic within themselves. If we all could unleash the erotic, the “master” could no longer profit from our insecurities and drive us to illness. The master could no longer assume the role of puppet master, dangling the possibility of perfection in front of our faces.
Instead of being raised on the principle that our power lies in our passions, creativity, intelligence, or drive, it’s dwindled to our bodies. And yet, this harmful message isn’t just affecting girls and women, but also men and boys. Men are now led to expect an unattainable standard of women’s beauty crafted for their gaze only.
I thought if I could stay skinny and become skinnier than I ever had been, I’d be able to gain some sense of power. But this power didn’t come from within, it stemmed from the approval and praise of men and boys. I thought I could force myself to become more attainable in their eyes. I believed that validation and the feeling of finally reaching perfection would bring joy, freedom, or a sense of control. But the only true power we can unleash and use is the power we find within ourselves– the erotic within ourselves.
Lorde continues in her essay, stating: “In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.”
I’ve spent so much of my adolescence believing I needed fixing, and I’m not alone in that. Taking a feminism class in high school and learning about Lorde’s notion of the erotic has allowed me to realize that we can fight back. I can gain power, confidence, and motivation as I am; I don’t need to acquire it from the patriarchy, the media, or any system of power. As feminists and young girls, we need to realize that the media is feeding us poison which blurs our sense of judgment.
We don’t have to follow inhumane standards to be good enough. I challenge all of us to continue fighting the urge to legitimize false molds the media attempts to squeeze us into. We must call out destructive behavior between friends, family, communities, and celebrities who normalize toxic comments about bodies or participate in immense photoshop. If we can’t commit to this, we’re allowing ourselves to become puppets that will continue the vicious cycle for generations to come.