Yesterday was one of those days when before leaving the house, I changed my outfit three times. Trying this on. Trying that on. Too tight. Too revealing. Walking in front of the mirror with disgust only to see that disgust reflected back. Turns out no matter how many times you "change" on the outside, if your insides aint right, the mirror will just reflect your insides. This is a ritual of shame that I know too well. It's been a long time since I've been back and forth that many times, with that degree of angst and disgust, but apparently rituals cycle in and out of our lives until we are done learning what we need to learn.
Before I get going on yesterday, let me be clear that I am a gender queer (meaning I have body hair, muscles and desires where I'm not "supposed to"), big bodied white womyn who comes from maternal ancestors whose fat shame conditioned every notion of vulnerability/justice that I've got. The terror of being targeted around gender non-conformity started when I was 6. Play ground bullying is a bitch. The terror of watching my mom get targeted (internally and externally) around size goes back before I can remember. These rituals of out-fit shame are learned behavior. The terror of targeting around attraction and rape started once my body shifted in puberty. That terror got harder and harder to differentiate from when I actually got raped. The accumulation of years and money I've spent in therapy learning to reclaim the sacredness of my body cannot be quantified. Let it be known: for me to leave the house without fear is a fucking miracle. Let it be known further: I am young, light/white-skinned, of European descent, am able bodied (right now), am first generation middle/upper class, Christian, employed, married to a cis-man, and highly educated. These non-target identities make it easier/safer for me to walk out the front door each day than many many other womyn. For some womyn, even leaving the house at all, is a fucking miracle.
Back to yesterday. I recognize now, a day later, in writing this reflection, that some of my early morning angst, being expressed in the ritual of shame, was a sort of anticipatory wisdom on my part. You see, we (my spouse and 2 children) were planning to spend Memorial Day at Fort Custer. That's a place where (mostly) patriotic, light/white-skinned, working class, hetero people gather with gaggles of children next to Eagle Lake. There's a "beach" and hiking trails there. Hubby and I are from California, so beach and hiking trails mean different things to us than they do the life-long Michigander. But we are grateful for the C+ version. What I'm not so grateful for at Fort Custer is how a supremacist notion of normalcy appears to provade the air even though 90% of the folks there wouldn't fit the category. Perhaps I'm just bringing the lingering hypervigilance of my hollywood-influenced youth into this mid-western space--and i'm the only one harmed by this obsession with on the surface appearance--but I could swear that when my mixed race family and my gender queer body starts nearing the waters, heads turn, eyes stare (hard) and lots and lots and lots of whispering happens. So when I was trying to "dress" for the day, I had much to consider, you see. How can I be low-profile, not get sun-burned, hiking comfortable, swimming comfortable, and, well, myself comfortable? I anticipated the hot eyes of old white men, former military personnel, drinking beer already at 11 a.m., conservative, and mocking. I anticipated the sneers of girly-girls in their bikinis. I anticipated how my appearance might throw my spouse and children into questionable judgment. It's a lot to consider at 9 oclock in the morning.
The first time, I walked out with cut off jean shorts and a black tank top. My husband looked over me casually, which I took to mean that I looked unacceptable. So I went back to my closet and put on black adidas track pants. Then I walked back out and he asked "Don't you think you'll get hot in those?" I took that to mean I'd made the wrong choice. Why do I look at/to/for him to be the final judge of anything I do? I'd love to blame this phenomenon on heterosexual control and patriarchy, but the truth hurts. I've been in relationships with womyn identified as dykes, transmen identified as queer, and in every space, I've walked out and changed out and changed out and changed looking for some "judge" to pronounce me worthy of my own reflection. Besides, when I talked to my spouse later in the day about what I was going through between the wardrobe changes, mirror sessions, and marriage consultations, he admitted that he had absolutely no clue what was going on.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a cis-man who has no clue what it's like to walk out the front door each day with fear preceding you no matter what you're wearing. That level of cluelessness just boggles my mind. I know they carry fears of a different sort, but Lord Almighty, I just wonder what that freedom is like.
Finally I put on some black and grey spandex work out shorts that stop at the knee. They are skin tight which might be problematic, but given that swim-suits will be all around, I can probably escape the war. They might get wet while I walk my daughter on water-slushed sand, but work out pants dry quick. So that's cool. And they are a total winner for the run/hike I hope to take once the weather is right. Feeling pretty good about this 3rd choice, a Facebook status update that one of my (well-intentioned yet horrifically misguided) friends wrote recently flashes through my head. His partner is pregnant with their first kid. The status was about how he'd never ever let his daughter leave the house in spandex because of how sexist and objectifying other men can be. Then I think about that dude that shot up a bunch of students in Santa Barbra last week because he hated womyn enough that it it drove him to light up a bunch of strangers.
Controlling how we "look" will only protect us so much. What about how you/they look? What about that?
I say a silent prayer for my friend who is about to become a father of a daughter and a silent prayer for myself and my own daughter and son and for the shooter and those parents who just lost their kids--that we may know peace, peace, peace. Peace. One day.
A few weeks ago my therapist asked me: "Have you ever tried to practice being unseen? Do you know what that's like?" I shake my head, nope. "How much of this hypervisibility dynamic do you bring on yourself?" she asks. What's the answer to that question that doesn't involve incinerating guilt and shame gushing forth, like molasses, from my guts?
Back to yesterday. It's time to dress my children.
In the act of preparing them for our family rendezvous, I find myself shaming myself about my ritual of shame. After giving them both 45 second baths, complete with shampoo and soap, I put a little sun dress on Aurora because that's what she wanted. I put shorts and a t-shirt on Isaiah because that's what was clean and avaible. Simple. 5 minutes total. Then I think back to the 20 minutes of my own "changing" and say to myself, "come on, look how easy this is: you put on clothes, you put on sun-screen, you pack your bags and you walk out the door. What the fuck is wrong with you Emily Joye? If your feminist friends knew what you were doing, they'd all think about what a sell-out you are. And now, just think about what you're doing to your children. You're doing exactly what you watched your mom do every morning. You're passing on the shame ritual to them! You are no better than your mother. They'll be just as bad as you." Shame shame shame.
We often talk in our feminism about how the media sensationalizes and hypersexualizes and exploits womyn's bodies. We talk about rape culture and slut shaming and competition between womyn being the chief corner stone of capitalism. But rarely do I hear about the way we've been taught to internalize all of that and shame the shit out of our own selves as ritual practice--and then to feel guilty about it all and shame the ritual itself. Are body hatred and feminist-shaped shame the religion of womyn in this economy? Or is self-obsession and guilt about self-obsession the means whereby competition and greed package themselves within to be bought and sold bought and sold bought and sold? The problem with all these "health" and "wellness" initiatives is that even eating "right" and exercise can be based in shame. There's nothing healthy or well about rituals based in shame, even if the means are commodified by our culture as ends themselves. Before and after pictures are not your friend, sisters. Not your friend.
As we are driving to the lake, I confess to J.R. that I've been wrestling with internalized oppression all morning. I cry hushed tears admitting the cycles of what feels like self-torture. He says "you must walk around in terror a lot of the time, huh?" And then I cry tears of a different kind because after years together he kinda gets that he doesn't get it. That's comforting to me.
We arrive at the "beach" and I watch him take my daughter hand in hand, down to the water. I'm grateful she is in his care. Maybe that peace I prayed for is closer than I think.
Later in the afternoon, he jokingly dares me to do a second loop on my lake-side run, and to huff and puff up the very steep hill at the loop's end. Even though I'm already out of breath, I side eye him and do it, just because it hints of a challenge. When I meet up with him and the kids after that exhausting climb, my heart is racing, my muscles are spiked and aching, and I feel more righteous than ever. With loving approval of my rigorous effort he says "I can't belive you! You're a beast!" I smile a huge grin, but before my own strength can occupy the mercy seat, I think to myself, "Beast like Abby Wambach or beast like too big, too ugly and too aggressive?"
Maybe that peace is further than I think.
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