Through whose eyes?

“I wish you could see yourself through my eyes”, my husband assures me as I berate my body, compare my cup size, and generally degrade, offend, slur, and affront every conceivable part of my physical being. His wording makes me wonder whose eyes I do see myself through in these embarrassingly unflattering moments. I’d prefer to blame it on advertising, which survives on the psychology of creating insecurity. I did watch television yesterday for the first time in a modern-world eternity. I would also be happy to place the blame on men. My identity as a sexual being is nothing I can closet walking on Third Street after dark, where an astounding number of guys, strangers, find it appropriate to use the endlessly offensive word “cunt” to refer to me as a woman. Or even my best male friends, who do not talk about meeting women, but about meeting “pretty girls”, as if it were perfectly natural for them to dictate that standard. Though, another plausible source of this verbal mutilation I subject myself to all too often may be any other woman I have ever met. I am not sure I know a woman who has not commented on her weight or hair or teeth or toes with disapproval. It has led me to the conclusion that this is what we women do, and where we place our worth. None of us are good enough. If Suzy thinks she’s fat, then I must be a whale! And if Joan finds herself unattractive with those lips, then I must be the blandest person in the world! It becomes this balancing act; this way of finding my place in a delusional but still very hellish pecking order. So, of course, it is my own eyes that too willingly see the beauty in the many women of my life, but use it only to evaluate myself. How do I stop this? I can, at least, stop degrading myself in front of other women, in hopes that I play no part in spurring on this dialogue in their head. Can I stop putting emphasis on my physical attributes once and for all? I don’t think so. Not alone, at least.

Sometimes Shrek almost gets it...