Before this past year, I wouldn't have seconded guessed my Halloween costume. If I am being honest, I probably wouldn't have even worn one, because of my lack of self-confidence. But this year, I went for it. I transformed myself into the iconic Mexican artist, Frida Khalo.
Scrolling through the Frida tag on Instagram proved to be conflicting for me on Halloween day. As I swiped through the various pictures, I reflected on my own cultural identity. I also questioned whether or not just anyone should be able to dress up as Frida. Should ANYONE be able to apply fake bold eyebrows and don over-sized jewelry and floral crowns? OR Does dressing as Frida with no personal connection to her culture turn her image into caricature?
I think it does. It is important to ask yourself questions like these when deciding if you should dress up as a certain person or character. Cultural appropriation is an overt problem especially on Halloween. Don't try on someone else's culture as your own even if "it is just for fun." It's not fun or cute. It's demeaning. Celebrate someone from your own culture instead.
Celebrating Frida on Tuesday was something that I have been talking about for years. I felt proud to step into her shoes for just one night. Though I will never truly know how her personal struggles affected her mentally and physically, I can say that she was a powerful woman and artist who overcame her inopportune circumstances. For that, she is an inspiration. Frida Khalo is the embodiment of the phrase "she believed she could, so she did." I hope to keep persevering through my life's struggles with a even just a shred of her grace and badassery. Her work and memory inspire me to do so every day of the year.
To preface my critique of this video, let me first give you some background info. on the narrator. This is Mayim Bailik, and she is most widely known for playing Blossom. She also has a PhD in neuroscience and stars as Amy on the Big Bang Theory--one of old media's most problematic television shows. Back in the early 00's, she appeared on TLC's What Not to Wear which is where I first encountered her. This show definitely contributed to my poor body image growing up as I am sure it did for many other young girls, but I digress.
This video discusses some hot button issues for me: plus sized representation, sexuality, and female empowerment. Her opinions greatly differ from mine, and everyone is entitled to their views even if they are conservative like Mayim's. However, where my issue lies with this particular video is the way she contradicts herself.When we are talking about smashing the patriarchy through feminism and how we educate our young girls, then we should actually aim to let young girls and women make their own decisions about their bodies and their sexuality and support them in their choices. In this video, she definitely misses the mark by saying that empowering yourself through showing skin is wrong. People can choose to empower themselves ANY way that they want.
There is nothing wrong with being plus sized. There is also nothing wrong with being skinny. And for the love of all things holy, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SHOWING YOUR SKIN if it is your choice to do so. It is your body, and you can do whatever you want with it. If you choose to be modest, then that is your choice, and I applaud you for taking claim of your body. However, if you have arrived at this choice because this is what you have been taught, but you have never truly questioned why you choose this for yourself, then self reflection is needed. Some days, I choose to show more skin, and other days I wear a cardigan because my old demons are whispering in my ears. It has taken me years to quiet these demons, and I will not let someone tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. Someone who judges others based on their personal body choices is not a role model that I want for my future students or my children.
We should be educating girls and boys on consent, body image, representation, and empowerment, but by no means should we be attempting to control their thoughts. We need to leave room open for discussion around these issues, point them toward well researched resources, and let them arrive at their own conclusions. My conclusion here is that Mayim is extremely misguided when it comes to what makes a good role model for young girls and boys. For me, a role model should be inclusive, supportive, and empathetic. This video lacks these qualities and isolates those with differing opinions with the mocking segment at the beginning. As much as I respect her as a female leader in the STEM community, this video is problematic at best. As Kimothyjoy communicates in this image, "We fight patriarchy not each other." We need to respect each other's choices if we are going to enact change.
To answer Mayim's initial question, why is everyone getting naked? BECAUSE THEY CAN, MAYIM. Because they can!
What are your thoughts on this video? Please share in the comments.
Finding body positivity, for me, was like finding a best friend hiding around the corner who had been living in the house tucked down the street my whole life that I didn't even know existed. Except, that friend was me in disguise. She was in plain sight the whole time. I just had to wake up from my dreamy daze and look her in the eyes. And I have finally accepted her, my body, as a beautiful part of myself. Body positivity and being at peace with one's self means something different for everyone. I have only come to realize recently --in the last day-- after speaking with a friend that body positivity can have two vastly different interpretations --and probably many more-- depending on the person.
Last night, I was puzzled by a post online that I saw on a friend's Facebook. This friend is a woman that I respect, and I admire as a mother and as woman in general. She had posted something that was in favor of altering her body to appear thinner in order to feel better about herself --I am avoiding specific details as not to single her out, because I respect her. This troubled me, as I am a body positivity advocate, and I turned to a trusted fellow female friend with a very pointed --and I now see, judgmental-- question: Why are people so hell bent on changing their bodies instead of loving them? She had the most eye opening and accepting response for me.
She sent me this video to the song "Most Girls" by Hailee Steinfeld:
Art by me, Stacy Hall, lyrics from "Most Girls"
This song hit me like a slap in the face. I came to the realization that body positivity is not just about accepting your body for how it is right now, but it is, more importantly, about loving yourself overall. If you love yourself right now as you are, then that is awesome, and I am so glad that you have started your body positivity journey. If you don't, then work toward that love in your own way. In your own time. A way that isn't destructive to your body or mental health, but rather in a way that makes you feel good. If that means changing or altering your body to make yourself feel better, then change away, girl! As long as you are doing it in a healthy way, then who am I to judge? Who is anyone to judge? This may seem like a simple revelation and a very obvious one to some, but as a feminist who is still developing and as an advocate, I am learning and trying to unlearn the ideals pushed on me by society every day.
Before last night, I saw body positivity as a one way street. The song "Scars to Your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara was a good interpretation of my views toward it previously. But, now I see body positivity as a two lane highway. You just have to pick your lane and drive down your own path paving the way as you go. Pick your lane, or your team if you will. Love yourself as you are now, or work toward it in your own way. Whichever team you pick, I am here to offer you support and hopefully learn from your experiences. That is what is so beautiful about life--if we open our ears, eyes, minds, and hearts, then we can continually learn from one another by educating each other. Thank you, kind friend for broadening my world view. You kick ass, and your girls supporting girls attitude is so powerful and influential!
I have always struggled with my perception of myself and the way I fit into this collage of a world. Am I a torn tattered piece ripped from a ratty and weathered magazine? Sloppy. Careless. Or am I a piece snipped with the utmost precision? The lines and edges smooth and straight. Am I both? Growing up an overweight female, an ethnically diverse one at that, in a predominantly white town in a country that capitalizes on the sexualization of women hasn't helped me grapple with my struggling perception of myself. I can tell you with assurance that after 25 internally warring years that I perceive myself as a body positive Hispanic woman.
Body positivity in a nutshell.
A collage I created in middle school. This was an attempt to define myself through my art. I was trying to give myself a voice when I felt I didn't have one at all. I worked on this for years if that tells you anything.
The world tells me that many things are wrong with this idea of myself that I have crafted, molded, shaped and reshaped in my mind. I have only come to realize in the past few years that it is not me that is wrong, but the world and society in general. Why can we not be human with flaws and individual distinctions? And why is there this underlying pressure and system that exists and is forced upon women to adhere to? To be thin. To be quiet. To wear a smile always. To love a man. To be light skinned. To be dark skinned.
In this world and the U.S. in particular, women are told who to be, how to be, and what to be from the day that they are born. I have been told by the women in my life--my entire life--to be "thin" or "curvy" but not "fat." I have been told to speak my mind and that I "can be anything," but as soon as I speak with conviction, power, passion, then I have been told that I am being too loud and that I need to reign it in. I am sorry if my truth--the truth I so desperately need to speak-- that has been welling up inside for my entire life beating its fists against my insides trying to break free just one hushed whisper is too loud for you. Not. Sorry. I am not going to be told who I should be so that I fit into society's idealized and outdated perception of a woman. I. Am. Not. I am a size 18 woman with belly overhang, cellulite, jiggly arms, and stretch marks. And I am beautiful. I love my body and everything that it does for me.
I am sure if you look at these photos long enough your implicit biases will start to activate, and you will be able to decide which photos show a picture of a white woman and which show a Hispanic one.
What about these selfies?
As I have made peace with my body, I have had to examine where my features originate from. They come from my mom who is white and my father who is white and Hispanic. This is who I am, and I can't change it. To say that I have not benefited from white privilege in my lifetime would be ignorant at best. And to say that I have never been discriminated against for looking Mexican and having a Hispanic last name would be even more so. No, I don't think your jokes about my ethnicity are funny. They aren't cute or harmless. And neither are you. I might smile through them or even muster a small laugh, but I promise you that in my mind I am calling you an idiot. The interesting thing about my appearance is that I can look very white which I am. Or I can look Hispanic which I also am. It depends. My skin stays much much lighter in the winter and darker in the summer. If reading this, you do not think that this has impacted the way I am perceived and treated by others, then you're lying to yourself about how biased and discriminatory the world can be. How biased and unknowingly discriminatory you, yourself, can be. Lucky for me, I now have what would be considered a white last name through marriage. Or is it lucky? Or does it just make everything that much more complicated?
Does one of these images de-
pict a Mexican woman and one a Cau-
casion woman? Or do you just per-
ceive it to be that way? Why? They
are the SAME person.
Take it from me, speak your truth as loud or as soft as you wish. By doing this, you can shape the perception of yourself. You can be a voice that advocates for yourself. You can be you--wholeheartedly you--and not what the world perceives you to be. Speak it now and release it from its internal cage.
Throughout my young adult life, I have encountered people from all walks of life. As Malala Yousafazi affirmed in an interview, "There should be no discrimination against the languages people speak, skin color, or religion." My takeaway from this quote and my belief above all else: there should be no discrimination. I, myself, am a minority. I am a person of color (POC), a teacher, a mother, a woman, an Oklahoman, an artist, a body positivity advocate, a feminist, and so much more than these labels. But society defines us, so I might as well OWN my labels.
Despite all of these labels that have somewhat of a positive connotation that make up my person, I have been labeled much more harshly lately, or rather I should say ignorantly. Have you heard the terms "snowflake" or "lib 'tard" being used recently? That's me in a nutshell. This is how many members of my community would choose to define me. These labels do not bother me. If this is what it means to believe in a world that can one day be more inclusive, then yes, I am by definition a "snowflake."
I hope I have not scared too many of you off by using terms like "lib 'tard" and "feminist." So many people find these terms offensive or threatening in some way. I want to use this platform to help you examine why you feel this way. I want to have a discussion. But let me make this clear, I want to have a discussion free of belittlement and harassment. Once the discussion becomes unproductive, I am done with whomever makes it so. My goal is for this to be a safe space, and I will NOT let people make me feel unsafe.
This is me. I will be sharing my thoughts on Oklahoma's educational system, healthcare, equality, feminism, motherhood, and a variety of other topics. I implore you to join in on this discussion with me.
Before this past year, I wouldn't have seconded guessed my Halloween costume. If I am being honest, I probably wouldn't have even worn one, because of my lack of self-confidence. But this year, I went for it. I transformed myself into the iconic Mexican artist, Frida Khalo.
