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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Do You Think I'm Pretty? Because I Don't...But I'm Working On That...

Reflecting back on the last few weeks with all the cruel and salacious attacks on several women in the public eye for their weight and appearance by the media and general public, I struggled with a growing unease. If someone as beautiful as Kim Kardashian (who honestly I can't be arsed about) is called fat and mocked while pregnant, how does that reflect on women as a whole? What made me even more uncomfortable was to see authors under fire. I stumbled across some very snarky comments leveled at two successful New York Times Bestselling authors on a popular celebrity site. Though one of the women has been accused of being plagiarizer (which is a very serious charge), most of the people were mocking her weight and appearance. Even on Facebook I noticed an increase in memes mocking skinny women and declaring "Real women have curves," or ones mocking the weight of Americans by showing overweight women.

As someone who avoids looking at their own photographs, I felt increasingly ill at ease with the nastiness being hurled at women. I began to feel uncomfortable in my own skin. 

Just recently I told a friend how relieved I am in this celebrity obsessed culture that writers are NOT celebrities. If writers had to endure the same nitpicky coverage other artists have to go through, I didn't know if I'd want to stick around in the business. Stephen King, George RR Martin, and JK Rowling are probably the only three authors most people would recognize on sight. Though I have been recognized at conventions and around Austin, but it was by my fans, not by the general public.

Then I realized my relief stemmed from my own issues connected to my appearance.


Last week I saw this amazing video by Dove's Real Beauty campaign and it reduced me to tears and made me face the truth.


I won't lie. It hit very close to my heart. I knew if I had been one of the women in the commercial the image that my description would have created would have been quite hideous.

You see I have spent a huge portion of my life being more cruel and abusive to myself over my appearance than anyone else ever could be. In fact, if someone calls me "fat" or "ugly" it doesn't even phase me because most of my life I have pretty much agreed.

In the last few days I've dug deep to find the roots of this destructive self-hatred. 

My first memory of criticism of my appearance surrounds a family portrait that was taken when I was around five or six. I was incredibly excited about the portraits because I got to wear a new outfit, socks, and shoes. I remember getting ready to go to the studio, taking the photos, then waiting anxiously for the portraits to arrive.  For some reason, I was just enthralled with the whole process. When the portraits did finally come, I immediately regretted ever being excited.

I've worn glasses since I was very small. I was born with awful vision. I had a new pair of glasses and they hadn't fully been broken in by the time we took the photos. My ears are slightly misaligned  so my glasses tend to sit awkwardly on my nose until one side bends and evens out the line. Well, that new pair of glasses sat at an angle across my face partially obscuring one eye. My father berated me over this "flaw" in the photo. He was furious with me. I still remember sobbing as he told me how much money he'd wasted on worthless pictures and how everyone who saw them in our Christmas cards would make fun of me. It was one of the first times in my life I dealt with his rage and certainly not the last. (I do not have a relationship with him and haven't for over twenty years.) He would continue to critique and mock my photos throughout my childhood. (I don't think my mom is even aware of this story, by the way.)

I've not been able to look at a photo of myself without shredding my appearance to pieces my entire life.

In the 1970's an "all-American beauty" meant blond hair, blue eyes, and a tan from the sun, not genetics. All the baby dolls and Barbie dolls stocking the toy stores were blond and blue eyed. The sex icon of that time was Farrah Fawcett. In books, films, and TV shows, most often the heroine was a blond with big blue eyes, the villainess was most likely a brunette. As a kid I absorbed all of this, looked in the mirror and saw a black-eyed, dark olive-skinned, brunette staring back at me. I knew from a very young age I was anything other than pretty according to the beauty standards upheld by the media. 

Living in a largely Hispanic community, I quickly shot up in height over the heads of the other girls. I literally towered over most of them. By 10 I hit puberty and took on the curvy shape of my mother's side of the family. I longed to be petite (most of the girls were shorter than 5 foot 2 in junior high, I was five foot six), small boned, straight haired, and small-breasted. I literally remember walking down the halls and being able to stare over the heads of almost everyone else - boys and girls - for years. It didn't help that my breasts drew a lot of ire from other girls. I was called a slut many times before I actually knew what a slut actually was.

So I wasn't a petite, straight haired girl. I wasn't the tall, skinny, blond, blue eyed girl. I was none of those things. I looked in the mirror and saw masses of dark curls, a big nose, small lips, and a severe lack of cheekbones. By my teens, my self hatred had reached epic proportions. I could barely look in the mirror.

My mother (who is such a great person) realized I was struggling and took me to see a film at the library during a special summer event. Sophia Loren was the lead actress. I had never seen such a beautiful woman in my entire life. She had dark skin and hair like me and a figure very much like my mother. I was enthralled. 

Though I wasn't completely cured of my self-hatred, I did slowly start to accept that I would never look like Christie Brinkley. 

Of course, I also grew up around other girls who were being taught to hate their own looks. We all learned very young that to hurt another girl you just had to call her "fat" and/or "ugly." Those two words could shred any girl. Sadly, as an adult, I still hear those words hurled by women at other women.

Throughout my teens and twenties I struggled to overcome my intense hatred of my looks. I couldn't look in a mirror or see a photo without internally ticking off everything that was wrong with me. It wasn't until a trip to Italy that I finally felt beautiful. Seriously, the attention I got was obscene. And, to my surprise, the blond, blue eyed girls from Australia were not the women getting all attention. It was me. Of course, the second I was back in the States, all the self-hatred came flooding back, but for a short period of time I knew what it felt like to be pretty.

I wouldn't feel that way again until I met my husband. When he looks at me, I feel pretty. He's the only person in this world that makes me feel like I'm attractive and desirable. It took me years though to actually believe he found me beautiful. 

In fact, it took me YEARS to learn how to accept compliments. Years! To this day, if someone compliments me I struggle to believe them. It's hard to drown out the voice inside my own head.

Yet, in a weird way it's made me strangely immune to people attacking me and my looks. A few years ago another woman hurled the dreaded "fat and ugly" phrase at me and it slid off of me like water.  I have called myself much worse.

Yet, in the last six months or so I have realized its time to fight back against that internal voice. It's time to fight back against that horrible programming in my head. I honestly can't look at a photo of myself without tearing my appearance apart, but at least I do try to look at them now. I'm always amazed at how some people post a billion photos of themselves when I struggle to just post one. I have sat and untagged photos from book signings and conventions just so I don't have an anxiety attack. But recently I have even forced myself to take self-portraits and put them on facebook. It's very, very hard to do so. When at appearances, when people take photos, I feel stark fear inside myself, but I have started to remind myself that they just want to document meeting a writer who's work they enjoyed.

I don't want my nieces to feel the way I do. I don't want any other woman to feel this way. It's horrible. It's destructive. And it robs so much joy out of  life.

In a society that judges a woman so harshly on their appearance, how do we fight back? How do I fight back?

I'm not sure. But I'll start by posting a photo.


This is me and PJ Hoover, another Tor author, at BookPeople last week. We had a great panel and a lot of fun. When I first looked at this photo, I started ripping myself to shreds, then forced myself to stop. Instead, I concentrated on remembering how much fun I had, how nice PJ was, and focusing on things I do like about myself: my eyes, my smile, and my hair. 

I will never be as beautiful as a celebrity, actress, or model, but I am who I am. I have love in my life, a career that's wonderful, and a life full of goodness.

Someday that evil voice inside of my head that whispers that I'm worthless due to my lack of physical perfection will be gone. 

Someday...



23 comments:

  1. You made me think of this quote:
    “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree, he will live his life believing he is stupid.”
    ― Albert Einstein
    The same applies for beauty. You can't compare yourself to others. Those same blond haired, blue eyes "beauties", can't stand that their breasts are too small, or their hair is too lank. Maybe their nose is too pointy, or their eyes too beady. I look at you and I see an exotic, gorgeous woman, and can't help but feel envy. You're beautiful inside and out. Don't ever forget it!

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    1. Thank you, Lindsay! And that quote is WONDERFUL and so very, very true.Weirdly, I think the nastier treatment of women via the media lately has opened my eyes fully to my own self-destructive internal voice. I'm going to be fighting hard against it for a while, but I hope to break free.

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    2. It's a worthy struggle, I promise you. I found myself face to face with that same tabloid, mocking Kim for being too fat, and I scoffed. Loudly. It's disgusting and unfair that the media considers this newsworthy. Even more disgusting is that people buy it. I, for one, refuse to.

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    3. I don't care much for her sort of celebrity, but it's obvious they want to tear her down. I see it as mental abuse. They're attacking Princess Kate in England for being TOO THIN while pregnant. There is simply no way to win.

      I recognize that I will never fit the beauty standard exposed by the media. Now I just have to kill the voice in my head that says I am a failure because I didn't win that genetic lottery.

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  2. I'm so saddened by the fact that this is such a bloody common issue! We get bombarded from start to finish with different images of perfection and we end up becoming our own worst critic and enemy... But it's a fight we have to win, and one we need to fight for ourselves, and other younger generations.

    I love your pin up style look, and I agree with you, we need to start changing the way we always look for what's wrong and instead look at what we like/love, and not only for us, but also for our friends, sisters, mothers, co-workers and younger females around us. We can change catty comments and make a simple truthful compliment the norm instead of just being awful to each other.

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    1. Thanks, Pili.

      I agree that we need to fight not only for ourselves, but the next generations of women. Our self-worth is being completely tied up in our appearance, not in our character, our successes, or our intelligence. It feels like a disease that I'm struggling to find a cure for.

      As for compliments, I always give them to other people and they're sincere. Yet, I watch lots of women struggle to accept them. I do the same thing. But maybe if we all put it into practice with sincerity and love, it will start to chip away at the darkness.

      Thanks again for your comment!

      Rhiannon

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  3. I understand completely where you are coming from. I often times force my daughter to take pictures with me just so people focus on her instead of me. If I do take a picture of myself, or someone is taking a picture of me, I make a goofy face to distract from the rest of me.
    There a lot of people out there that think you are a beautiful person in and out, and I am one of them!

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    1. Thank you, Lori! Honestly, I always love those photos of BOTH of you.I think you're both adorable.

      I know we discussed this topic before in passing and how difficult it is to fight the programming, but hopefully together we can do it!

      *HUGS*

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  4. Wow, I cannot even begin to express how much I relate to this. I have a sister that's three years older than me and let me tell you, she is naturally a Christie Brinkley clone whereas I am not. I have a bigger nose, light brown hair and am only skinny if I starve myself into exhaustion. As we all know, school kids can be extremely cruel but it has been the treatment from my family that has hurt the most. I did well in school so my mother, who I don't even think realized she was effecting me, would introduce us to people as the beauty and the brain. Well onto my teen years I managed to make myself look more similar to my sister via bulimia and bleaching my hair. It took a lot of therapy, but I overcame the bulimia even though sometimes a part of me still agonizes if I eat the 'wrong' thing. I'm 31 now and just recently decided to stop bleaching too. I think I'm just getting too old to put this much energy into obsessing about this. I know most will never consider me as pretty as my sister but I have to look at the positives because I have a daughter of my own now. I remember another thing that had an impact on me was my mother's preoccupation with her own weight. She still complains that since she hit menopause she can't wear size 2 anymore. I want better for my girl, she deserves it. For the record, I think you look like a modernized take on Bettie Page. It don't get much hotter than that. I'm no Kardashian fan myself but the headlines I've seen on grocery store magazines make me sick, to berate a pregnant woman's weight just seems like the pinnacle of sexism. For crying out loud, just because some people don't like her tv show they can't even let her enjoy becoming a mother? That to me is what is really wrong, not the weight.

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    1. It's amazing how those comparisons can just shred you, isn't it? I once lost 20 lbs (through starvation sadly) and was so proud of myself. I finally felt thin. My aunt informed me I looked like I had gained 20 lbs instead. If she had just shot me in the face, it would have been kinder.

      The older generation of women can be quite cruel in their remarks without meaning to be. My mother once apologized because she was surprised at how much I weighed. Though we were wearing the same size (9/10) at that time, due to my structure (she's very fine boned, I'm heavy boned), height (I'm 2 inches taller than her) and muscle mass I weighed more than she did. She said something about me having to lose weight, but later realized this was unfair to me.

      Yet, it's so easy to file all that stuff away in our heads.

      I'm trying to clear out all the muck and concentrate on my inner beauty. And, honestly,the fact that my husband finds me very attractive and loves me really does a lot to help me not care what others think.

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    2. Oh, man, my mom used to constantly berate me about my weight. In high school I was 5'2" and usually between 120 and 130 lbs. and she was always telling me to diet, to watch what I eat, then turning around and telling me to eat this or eat that. I was like "MAKE UP YOUR MIND WOMAN!" Now I'm having the same sort of weirdness from my doctors. We don't always have money to keep a lot of food around, so I'll frequently lose weight simply because there is nothing to eat, and my doctors are all worried I'm losing weight. *shakes head* Good lord, I could lose another 60 lbs without it causing any problem, but I'm perfectly content as I am. I just don't see the point in stressing myself about it.

      If you have a daughter... it's SO IMPORTANT not to fill her head with neuroses like my mom did. My mom was always very thin; she told me once that when she was in high school, she could count all her ribs like that was something of which she should be proud and I should try to emulate! Me, I've always been padded; it's just the way I'm built. If I lose enough weight to where my bone structure shows, I look like I'm sick.

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    3. Honestly, it sounds like your mother may have had an eating disorder. :( I have noticed that children pick up on those cues very young. My sis in law obsessed with her weight when my nephew was very young and by three he told me his baby tummy was fat and he had to eat less.

      I'm so sorry you have to lose weight due to the poor economy. That's a tough diet to be on. I've been there in the past. A bag of potatoes and plain yogurt once kept me fed for a week.

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  5. Reblogged at Now is Gone. Also sharing again my post from last September in case anyone here wants to see:
    http://katysozaeva.blogspot.com/2012/09/celebrating-women-womens-friendship-day.html

    I avoid most media nowadays; everything is so negative and modern societal standards for women are an absolute joke. I have so many beautiful friends who are certain they need to lose weight, or wear makeup or just do this or that to be acceptable, and to that I say BAH! You're all beautiful. We need to keep telling ourselves and each other that instead of listening to society.

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    1. I think all women should define their own version of beauty for themselves. I, personally, love makeup. I also love very fancy gothic clothing or some of the retro pinup styles. I've had people tell me to wear less makeup, dye my hair a normal color, and dress more "normal." Ha!

      At least I have my head on straight about that.

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  6. First of all I want to say thank you I so loved that you posted this because I have often had the same "self hatred" you talk about in fact I try so hard to tell my 9 year old daughter how beautiful she is but failed to see that she hears me thinking I am FAT or UGLY I battled cancer recently and have a HUGE scar across my neck and I feel its ugly but now I need to focus on the beauty to see that it is beautiful because that scar means no more cancer that scar means LIFE! Thank you and if it is ok I might re-post the video and link it to your blog. Let me know:) Thanks OH and I have always loved your face and I not just saying that your style is awesome I wish that I could have your wonderful style and beautiful face I thought that way before you posted this!

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    1. Kirsta, that scar sounds like a badge of victory to me! I actually have a burn scar that goes all the way up the interior of my arm. It's not rough, but smooth, so I've had people tell me to "wash your arm. It's dirty" before.

      We can pump up kids as much as we like, but if we're their bad example they're not going to listen to our words, but our actions. That's another big reason I'm trying to rid myself of self-hatred. I don't want my nieces to see it.

      Thanks for commenting and thank you for your kind words, too!

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  7. For what its worth I think you are a gorgeous woman inside and out. Reading this was like reading the thoughts in my own head, I grew up listening to my mothers voice telling me I wasn't good enough, wasn't thin enough. I haven't seen her in 14 years and have no contact, but I still hear her voice in my head to this day. While I can't switch it off (yet, I'm slowly working on not listening) I have a 4 year old daughter who I tell everyday how beautiful and wonderful and clever she is. And how much she is loved. I'm not going to do to her what my parent did to me.
    I love your writing and the strong female characters you write, your beauty shines through your work. Keep on keeping on Rhiannon, don't change for anybody but yourself.

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    1. Thank you so much for commenting and your compliments. I'm so happy you enjoy my novels. Thank you for the comment about inner beauty. I would rather have that than be beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside.

      You sound like a great mom to your daughter.

      Rhiannon

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  8. I know how you feel. I haven't felt comfortable with my body since puberty. I can't think of a picture of myself taken past the age of 12 that I don't hate, and I'm never comfortable walking around in public. Even when I was at my thinnest and my self-esteem was at it's peak, I don't think I was ever content with my body. Although all those gender studies classes I'm taking have helped quite a bit.

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    1. I have several photos on my desk of myself at different ages that I used to hate. Now I look at them and think "Wow, I was so pretty!" I'm trying to remind myself that I may look back on this time period and think the same thing in the future. It's hard to break that programming though.

      I agree about gender studies. It does help to know why we're brainwashed to feel this way.

      Rhiannon

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  9. Wow. Such a powerful video and great post too. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. I always look at "Good Will Hunting" in the scene where Robin Williams' character is talking about his late wife and what he loved about her; the peccadilloes. I found myself too nit-picky over so many little things about a person that I couldn't find a way to truly love a person. After that movie, it helped me look at the world differently. I love my wife so much, even more so, because everything about her, even her habits that I absolutely hate, I find I would miss if she weren't around. I love her completely. Everything about her makes me smile. Everything. That's why I hate how my wife looks at herself. She is so beautiful and she constantly finds ways to look at herself in a similar way that you have for so long. It is a process to beat back the years that you have let it go on to let a beautiful person out. It is worth it and just like everything else in life it is always the everlasting pursuit to be a better person.

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    1. I honestly believe that men can help turn the tide if they'll just speak up like you did. I think men buy into the beauty myth too then end up missing out on some truly beautiful women because they nitpick their "flaws."

      Thanks for commenting!

      Rhiannon

      P.S. Your wife is very lucky to have such a supportive husband.

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  10. I'm gobsmacked. You are absolutely stunning, and you're a cool person to add to the icing.

    I hear where you are coming from. I've been called names, and had strangers stop on the street to give me 'joy' about telling me how ugly I am. (One stranger even told me I was too ugly to be smiling. o_O ) I now look at pictures of me in my 20's and want to go back and time and sock those creeps in the solar plexus!

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Thanks for commenting!