WHY DO WOMEN HATE THEIR BODIES? 1.

A man asked me recently,

“Why women had so many hang-ups about their bodies?”

 Where do I begin?   Let’s start with puberty.

.When boys reach puberty what happens?

The get chest hair, leg hair and pubic hair… Yeah! I’m a man!

They get hair on their face… Yeah! Now I can shave, I’m a man.

They get bigger and taller and broader… Yeah look at me, I’m a man.

Yes I know about hormones running riot, I know teenage boys have their problems  but the question was about women and, in general, the changes boys experience are seen by society and by the boys as signs of growing up, of maturity, as good.

When girls reach puberty what happens?

We start start to bleed once a month.   Yikes!  At best messy.   At worst, embarassing stains, horrible cramps, lack of energy and hormonal mood swings. And any time we get irritated/ upset/cranky people assume “it’s her time of the month”.   The comment is, at best, dismissive, at worst an insult.

We develop breasts and this throws our centre of balance.   Or we develop breasts that are small.  Everything tells us that breasts are important but they have to be just right.   Boys comment on them.   Men score them.

We get hair on our legs… eeek!    Every magazine, every ad,  tells us that we should have hairless, goddess-like legs.    And that we’d better  get rid of it quick because, they say, only ugly, man-hating, feminist, lesbos have hair on their legs.   And if we happen  to be lesbian or be questioning our sexuality this only adds to our worries.  So we shave our legs and it grows back the next day in stubble.   The  answer is waxing.   Yiiiiiikes!  Ouch!   Despite the pain the hair  starts growing again so we’re stuck with this for the of our lives!

We get hair under our arms.   But you never see underarm hair in photos of women.   Women with underarm hair, we are led to believe are dirty, slovenly, ignorant, even savage, so that too has to go, yet another chore we’re stuck with for the rest of our lives.

We get hair on our pubis.   There was a time when that area at least could be left alone.   No longer.  Now we are told that only ugly, man-hating, feminist, lesbos have hair on their pubis.   The rest of us must look like children or pornstars.   More waxing,  a lot, lot, more pain and another lifelong chore.

Worst of all, we get hair on our faces.   Well that’s just plain wrong or so we gather from all that we see, hear and read.  Out with the waxing equipment again to deal with the hair on our lips, on our chin and to shape our eyebrows. Yet another lifelong chore.

Then there’s the size that we grow to.   Everything we read or hear tells us that we should be small, a size six or eight.   If we’re bigger than that, too tall or too broad we have endless trouble finding clothes that fit and suit.  

And they wonder why so many women and girls seem to hate thier bodies! They wonder why we  have so little  confidence in them!    They wonder why so many girls give up sport when they reach puberty!  The changes of puberty are only the start of the problem!  

The real wonder is the huge number of women who turn out confident, competent, sane and good humoured!