Monday, August 13, 2012

Size doesn't matter


I think this picture describes my daughter perfectly.  I will make this quote artwork for her room.  With the constant thumping on our heads about how us women are never enough, I want my daughter to be reminded that she is enough...no matter what size.

My girl has it socially easy in the respect that she is naturally very petite.  Much easier than those girls who are naturally larger.  I get that.  I truly do.  I think back on my own childhood, I was average, but since I had other quirks, and bullies LOVE to just be mean...I was called fat, ugly, anything that could degrade my body image.  I look back at those years...I wasn't fat, or ugly.  I was a kid.  And truthfully, even if I was "fat" who the hell cares.  No one, let me repeat NO ONE should critique another person on how they look.  And as much as I believe its whats in the inside that counts, the media, bullies, and other asshats...will tell us otherwise.

Even those amazing Olympians who we just watched on TV are not immune to the body policing that us women endure.  Really - a conversation about Gabby Douglas's hair?  That makes me physically ill inside.  The weight lifting gals...those women are mighty!  But the crap they get, makes me want to punch someone.

Not sure what everyone else got to watch during the Olympics...but here at my house, with no cable I saw a lot of beach volleyball.  Now, those women are athletes by all accounts, but I would also like to see some women boxing, weightlifting, or just about anything else too.  But since those women aren't what media considers ideal, I guess my son gets to watch what NBC forces on us...the ideal 5'10, no fat, all muscle body.  Well, not really, I get to turn off the TV, and I do.

We watched swimming, more swimming, gymnastics and a little track/field.  I wanted more of a variety, but NBC wasn't really into variety this Olympics.  They were into half naked athletes, and creating soft porn commercials.  Even my husband was taken back by all the exposure beach volleyball got...but the comment that made me laugh was his anger at a camera man who was on the court taking an upshot of these athletes.  He said "that should be illegal, he should NOT be on the court, whats he trying to do? Get a closeup of her ass?"  why, yes dear, that's exactly what he's doing.  Didn't you know, women athletes are only worth watching if their jumping in a bikini.

Ok...off my "women are constantly sexualized" soapbox.  Back to my daughter. Her size, even if it socially acceptable, is still against her.  She is unusually short for her age.  So she gets treated like a baby.  People pick her up, talk down to her, and my favorite is when people do baby talk to her.  The child is six years old.  I don't care how short she is, you can tell she is older than 3 by the way she carry's herself, along with the fact that she has a pretty strong grasp on the English language.

So this quote is perfect.  My daughter is small but mighty, and people who try to prove otherwise, are in for a world of hurt!


Like the boys who tried to imitate her after she did her handstand...it was awesome watching these boys, who were all bigger than her...keep trying but basically kept doing "head" stands and falling.