Something I’ve found to be a big contributor to “grrl-hate” is the lack of confidence some people have in themselves and their own bodies. I’m sure most of you (myself included) have all found yourselves in a position at one point or another where you have felt “ugly” or “fat” or “weak”, and what makes me most upset about these feelings is the fact that in modern society “conventional attractiveness” is nothing more than a fabrication of things made up by the media to promote a certain body type with no real reasoning behind it.
Sometimes when I hear people making comments about someone being overweight or having a big nose or body hair, or any of the million things that we have to worry about regarding our appearance these days, I question them about why they think it is unattractive. Ninety-nine percent of the time those people can’t come up with an answer other than “it’s just not attractive”. They don’t know why they feel that way and they don’t know when those feelings started, but they’re there.
The truth of the matter is (and I’m sure we’re all well aware of it), we live in a society that is run off consumption. We have been socialized as buying machines. This consumer culture will do anything in its power to brainwash us into believing a certain product or shape or colour is what we need to obtain, and without anyone even really realizing it our subconscious’ start to pick away at our brains, telling us we’re not good enough and that we need to change. Well news flash, folks…we don’t. It’s going to sound cliché but it’s a cliché that will never disappoint, we are all beautiful in our own way, and we need to start treating ourselves that way. Embrace your bellies, embrace your fuzzy pits, embrace your crooked teeth; embrace every bit of yourselves, because the things that you are self conscious of are the things that make you unique, they’re the things that make you beautiful.
What I’m trying to get at here is that we all need to start enforcing some radical self love into our lives. It may sound super “flower child” of me, but I believe body positivity is one of the most important things a person could ever practice. Once we learn to love ourselves and stop comparing our bodies, that is when the competition we have created between one another will end.
Try and think of some different things you can do on a daily basis to remind yourself that you are beautiful.
-Stick a post-it note on your mirror every morning with one positive thing you notice about yourself that day.
-Take some sexy photos of yourself to admire
- Learn to accept compliments
- Compliment others
All of these things will lead you on a path to loving your body, and in turn help to destroy our arguably innate competitive patterns with our fellow grrrl.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other.
-Kaitie