Don't call me skinny, that's an insult

Any woman, entering in to any public space can expect to have her body judged by both men and women alike. We have so many ways to describe women's bodies, so many different criteria that we are constantly judged against:

How small are her breasts?
How big is her ass?
How broad are her shoulders?
How slender is her waist?

We describe women as curvy, thick, fat, skinny, slender, voluptuous, petite, athletic. While we often describe men in three ways: fat, skinny, muscular. It's no secret that women are held to a stricter standard when it comes to their appearance, and that's often because we're taught that a women's appearance equals her worth.

A fat woman, is an invisible woman, an ugly woman is someone to be ignored because when you're a woman, you must be attractive to prove your value to men and often to other women.

For a long time I bought in to this ideal. I didn't wanted to be stared at, judged, or worse, completely ignored because I couldn't manage to keep my appearance together. I developed an eating disorder, starving myself, working out excessively all to prove my value to society. And that's why I think as women, we need to stop congratulating one another for being thin or skinny.

It's not an accomplishment by any means, and calling someone skinny isn't a compliment, it's a body type. Some women look like that because of genetics without being healthy or exercising at all, meanwhile other women, not unlike myself, go to extreme measures to meet a certain ideal.

We continue to value one another based on weight, and it needs to stop. The body shaming needs to stop. The small, critical comments about each other's arms and legs has to stop.

And now there seems to be this influx of women's bodies that are sculpted, ripped, and muscular.

I will be the first to admit that I regularly lift weights at the gym, heavy weights, and I do it because I like the way it feels. Not because I'm trying to meet some new, trendy ideal of what's sexy. This new ideal is passed off as being about health, fitness, and loving yourself, and I just have to say that is complete and total bullshit.

If I have to hear, "your health is your wealth," one more fucking time I'm going to gauge my eyes out.

It's not about health, it's about vanity and you fucking know it. It's about shaming other women, who you deem as unhealthy, and you fucking know it.

There are overweight people who are healthy, so if it was really about health we would not praise some bodies while shaming others. It's a specific body, a look, that we deem as healthy and for most of us that look is completely unrealistic.

So I'm done trying to meet some fantasy ideal of what a woman should look like. This is who I am. This is what my body looks like, cellulite and all, and I don't give a fuck if it doesn't turn you on.

Keep your arousal to yourself.

My body isn't perfect, but it's mine so shut the fuck up. No one asked you anyway.

Love,
Kris

Competitive Women: Are you a mean girl?

I have an obvious confession to make: all throughout high school and much of middle school I was your typical nasty/pretty girl who put other people down to make herself feel better. I wanted to be the best at everything and any girl who came along and threatened that had to be put in her place.

My arrogance and insecurity proceeded all other personality traits, and my tongue was as sharp as a machete. I made people feel bad, really bad and I regret much of what I said and did during that time.

I developed the habits from my Mom, a mean girl in her own right. The key is to build people up when they please you and then completely destroy them if they do anything to upset you. You feed them compliments and they like the attention you're giving them because you're smart, pretty and popular and then you take it all away if they don't do exactly as you say.

I call it "meangirling" and we women do it all the damn time. We shun certain women while praising others, and we all have that bit of competitive nature about us because we live in a capitalist society. It's inevitable to experience, but not impossible to circumvent.

But I've grown past that now, or at least I'd like to think so. It's not as easy as you might think to reverse your mean girl ways, but at a certain point you realize that manipulating everyone around you only makes you feel empty and alone. It's much better to try to relate to others than to always prove to them that you're better than they are because you aren't. That shit won't get you anywhere and so I revamped my mean girl ways but a few traits still linger, and it's often subconscious.

When people like me and compliment me, I eat that shit up. I love it, and get off on being the prettiest bitch at the party, the smartest, most successful, but you can't always be that. And if that's the foundation for your self-esteem, it could crumble at any second.

A good friend of mind had an outing for her birthday and didn't invite me because she assumed it was too sporty of an event for me. What she forgot is that she'd mentioned the outing to me and I reluctantly agreed to go. The day of the outing came and I asked her what time we were meeting up and she let me know that I wasn't included.

She felt guilty that she left me out, but that wasn't enough for me. I needed to dig the knife in to her back a little deeper and make her feel even worse. That's what the old Kris would have done -- shunned her until she proved herself worthy and that's complete crap! You can't mean girl your friends, let that shit go and stop trying to compete with every woman you meet.

So she's prettier, skinnier and smarter, who gives a fuck? Do you, and stop worrying about the next girl, because it will only distract you from everything you're meant to accomplish.

If you find yourself always comparing yourself to other women, or disliking another woman simply because of jealousy, stop and evaluate your thoughts and feelings because it's just not okay to treat people that way.

Love,
Kris

And she thinks she's the pink of perfection...

That's a line from a film called "Summer Magic" that I watched as a kid. When I was little and did a good job someone would always drop the word "perfect." 

I was a cute kid so adults constantly gave me attention for my looks, and then when I did something smart I got coded as "perfect." 

"She's so perfect," they'd say. 

"You're perfect," my mother would tell me. "Not my perfect Crissy," she'd utter if anyone ever spoke a word against me. 

"I love how perfect you are," said my husband and I was always afraid to let everyone down.

Because I'm not perfect, and for the first time in my life I'm not trying to be.

I used to think that if I acted as perfect as possible my life would be easier and everyone would love me. I thought if I always looked beautiful, excelled professionally, kept my house clean and baked elaborate desserts for everyone, I wouldn't have a care in the world. 

Well, as I'm sure you've guessed by now it didn't work out for me. I became a warden of my own thoughts and actions. Anything that didn't seem perfect was banished from my personality, and anyone in my life who wasn't trying to be perfect, I condemned. And really all I was doing was condemning myself, judging myself along the same strict standards as I did every person I met. 

I felt as though I had to be perfect or my friends and family wouldn't be able to brag about me anymore. I was desperate to keep up my persona and then one day I just broke -- cracked right down the middle. 

There was no hope left. I couldn't be saved and so I had to give up the battle for perfection. I had to stop counting every single calorie I put in to my body. I had to stop punishing myself for my own mistakes and short-comings because no one is perfect, and anyone who might be perfect is probably horribly boring. 

So my point is that you should always do your best, but who gives a fuck if your house isn't spotless. Who cares if a few cookies have some burnt edges -- you'll eat them anyway because they taste amazing. Imperfection is beautiful, it's unique. 

Don't turn in to a drone, and don't have a break down like I did. Love yourself and your friends and family because they aren't perfect and neither are you.

Love,

Kris

On Weight and Self-Worth

Sitting in my neighborhood bookstore and having to hear a very young girl, around 18 or 19, describe herself as "chunky" breaks my heart. It hurts to hear her say that to her group of friends, but it hurts even more that they only offered their friend more negative comments about their own bodies.

I'm not judging these girls. Because I know where those thoughts come from and just how hard it is to constantly work against them.

We all do it. We criticize our bodies and in turn diminish our self-worth. And I'm one of the biggest culprits. I'll stare at myself in the mirror looking for dimples and extra fat to pull and tug on, comparing my body now to the body I had in college or in high school, and wondering why I didn't realize how I awesome I looked back then.

For women, it's often a constant struggle to learn to love and accept their bodies. For a large part of our history women felt that their appearance and beauty ultimately determined their survival, and it did. All women were expected to marry, and you married based on how attractive and complacent you were. We live in a much different era now, but these ideals still cloud our judgement because they're constantly recycled and repackaged in ways that we often don't recognize. We only know that we should feel bad about our bodies, that we should always be looking for a way to improve our appearance because for women our appearance is important..

And it is important, but it should never be the sole determinant of your worth as a person. I bet that girl had a million other things should could have been focusing on -- work, academics, art, culture, but we allow our obsession with our appearance to cloud our brains and shadow our true potential.

But you're more than your body and you're more than your weight, so don't listen to society's mantra of thinness equaling happiness, because it doesn't.

I've had times in my life when I ate very little to stay thin, and while I looked great I was the unhappiest I'd ever been. So let so and so worry about getting her boobs done or skipping dessert, while you worry about putting in overtime on that big project. One worry will benefit you while the other won't.

Determine for yourself what looks good and don't let the images on a telescreeen dictate for you. And banish the little voice inside your head that tells you you're fat. Cuz you ain't, honey.

Love,
Kris