Ralph Lauren Ad: Wrong on So Many Levels

Greetings to the Ladies Jane!

Today I've stubled upon an odd intersection of feminism and digital rights to share with all of you. My two favorite subjects, rolled into an unlikely bitter pill. This doesn't happen often, so I'm going to enjoy it!

The Ralph Lauren Blue Label ad to the right was originally posted (and commented upon) at the PhotoShop Disasters blog. Apparently, Ralph Lauren objected to said activities and issued a bogus DMCA takedown notice ("bogus" because Fair Use includes criticism).

Since Blogger's policies include automatic removal of content subject to any in/valid DMCA takedown notice, the PhotoShop Disasters post disappeared.

The Streisand Effect immediately came into play, and that's how the outraged feminist in me stumbled upon this advertisement glorifying a soul-crushingly unobtainable female body shape. Thank God for the Streisand Effect, otherwise I would have missed my weekly dose of self-righteous indignation! >only slight hyperbole<
Yes, Blogger also happens to host TJP. As a result, the picture you see to the right is actually residing on a TechDirt server. In fact, because of Blogger's policy to remove any subject of an in/valid DMCA takedown request, all pictures in this post are actually links to files residing on servers that in no way belong to me. I hope those server owners will forgive my poor digital manners because I'm doing this to both prove a point and keep this post alive, not to suck their bandwith.

As for the myriad issues with the advertisement itself, suffice it to say that this is a knuckle-dragging step backwards from the news of recent years that indicates a glacially changing (but changing!) international perspective among swimwear designers, magazine editors, runway model organizers, clothing designers, and a portion of the French fashion industry in the unconscionably thin body types displayed by these industries during the entirety of my lifetime.

Of particular interest is the case of Crystal Renn. In her book Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition, and The Ultimate Embrace of Curves, she discusses the experience of having lost 70 lbs to land a $250K modeling contract while still in high school. Suffice it to say that while she had that $250K contract, she looked like this:

Eventually, surviving on "lettuce with a side of batshit" caused a break. One day, "something snapped," leading her to quit her agency and move to the Plus Size division of Ford Models. She now shoots fashion campaigns for the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, and UK clothing chain Evans. This is what Renn looks like today -- Healthy, happy, and the most successful American plus-sized model:

You can read more about Renn's experience and book here and here.

Posting this recent picture of Renn brings into focus the sharp contrast between it and the monstrous Ralph Lauren ad above. I've studied design at an undergrad level, so I can usually figure out what ads that fail were trying to accomplish, who their target market was, even if they missed that target. This ad that someone intentionally altered to glorify an impossible-to-achieve crack-whore/cancer-patient silhouette simply baffles me from a design perspective. I can't figure out their target market except to know with utter conviction that I was not part of it. Because of this atrocious ad, I will never, ever purchase anything from the label, even as a gift.

Note to Ralph Lauren: When your model's head appears larger than her pelvis, you have created a side-show freak, not an attractive living mannequin for your clothes, so you might want to reconsider the message your freak is sending about your product.

Renn is a realistically-shaped, realistically beautiful woman. She looks like someone that I might befriend, someone that high school girls who aspire to be models (like she once was) might one day become. The fact that this woman is considered "plus size" (just look at her!) astounds me.

Renn is the archetypal beautiful, healthy woman. She is what we need to be portraying as beautiful and glamorous to not only our girls but to the never-good-enough half of the adult population that is female. If we're to ever win the fight for the hearts, minds, and souls of our females, we have to practice what we preach, live what we speak, and further what we write.

That we cannot discuss an advertisement (with legal digital supporting material) that doesn't further a corporation's monetary aims without legal bullying (I am looking at you, Ralph Lauren) and without the recourse the law provides (I'm looking at you, Blogger) is a powerful statement about who has the power in this country.

I, for one, do not generally believe that just because Big Money always has the power that it is always right. I, in fact, believe that in the vast majority of cases, the power that Big Money wields is morally (if not legally) wrong. In this case, it is both. Releasing that ad was morally wrong, and submitting a bogus DMCA takedown notice was legally wrong. Since Blogger is complicit in the injustice, PhotoShopDisasters cannot fight back.

We can. Just a little, but we can.

Comment on this post. Tell us how you feel. Drive traffic to this post. E-mail it to everyone you know. Post about it in other blogs that have audiences that care either about women's issues or digital rights, or both. Write a letter to Ralph Lauren, include a copy of the ad. Write about how their ad affects you, personally; women, as a group; and us, as a culture. Write about how their ad is a throwback to an earlier time, and how shamed they should feel. Talk to people: About Crystal Renn, about the small changes we've been seeing in the perspective in the fasion world, about the importance of actual humans as the people we see, not painted stick figures that couldn't possibly be alive. Demand that companies that sell the products you buy use advertising that features people who look like people who could actually exist.

Read. Write. Talk. Demand. Change begins with us.

~Riot.Jane

Ralph Lauren ad: TechDirt
Crystal Renn then: The Sun
Crystal Renn now: The Sun

Back-to-School Shopping Lesson

Long before “Tax-Free Weekend” became a component in our Back-To-School ritual, my mother used the August clothes-shopping ritual as an object lesson in fiscal responsibility. This particular lesson was probably the most valuable financial lesson she ever taught me.

I spent most of my time growing up poor. With the few exceptions of particularly lucky years sprinkled throughout my child- and teenager-hood, back-to-school meant endless hours sifting through used clothes at the local Goodwill or Salvation Army supplemented by sifting through trash bags of hand-me-downs my mother would bring home from neighbors/co-workers or my father would pick up near Dumpsters. The vast majority of cash was usually spent on actual school supplies: Paper, pencils, pens, and folders. Even though my mother would stock up on the actual supplies, taking advantage of the once-a-year sales, I often didn’t have the “required” school supplies.

In fact, here’s the 2009-10 list of Eighth Grade school supplies for the district from which I graduated high school, with the items I would not have taken with me marked with *. The bracketed comments are mostly things my mother would say:

2 packages of notebook paper (to be replenished throughout the year)
*6 spiral notebooks [You’ll get one 5-subject and deal with it.]
3 brad folders with pockets
2 pocket folders
*12 pens (to be replenished throughout the year) [You get five, and if lose ‘em, you deal with
it.]
*1 package of highlighters [Use the map pencils.]
*2 packages of map pencils [You only need one, and you don’t need the big
one. Five colors is enough.]
*1 hand-held pencil sharpener [There’s one bolted to the wall in every classroom. Use them.]
*1 personal hand sanitizer [No one outside of the medical community even knew what this meant when I went to school.]
*1 stretchy book cover [Use the ones the school gives out. I don’t care what the list says.]
*1 composition notebook [Here’s another brad folder. Put notebook paper in it. Don’t look at me like that, we are NOT the VanAsterBuilts!]
1 package of graph paper (1/4” quad-ruled)
*1 spiral set of 3x5 index cards [Here’s a rubber band to hold these normal index cards together. You don't need the fancy ones.]

The summer before my Eighth Grade year was happened to be in the middle of a lucky stretch. Both of my parents had decent jobs, and money wasn’t as tight as usual. My mother saved every dime she could for four whole months to give me a great experience: back-to-school shopping for new clothes. New! Hot damn, here we go!

My mom, at the last minute, decided use new clothes shopping as a learning experience. As we sat at the Waffle House across the parking lot from K-Mart, we made a list . . . Shoes, check. Underwear, check. Socks, check. Jeans, check. Shirts, check. Barrettes and ponytail holders, check. Light jacket for fall, check. Backpack, check. Belt, check. Winter coat, hat, gloves? After-Christmas sales.

All set? Good.

Then she handed me what seemed like an un-Godly amount of money and said these words to me . . .

I think you’re old enough to do this on your own. Remember, what you buy now, you’re stuck with for the rest of the year. Be smart. If in doubt, don’t buy it.

I was stunned. I had no idea what to do. I shoved the money in my pocket, keeping it in my fist and my fist buried so deeply in my pocket that I almost pushed my shorts down, as I blindly wandered across the parking lot to the front doors of K-Mart.

What I sight I must’ve been! That I never thought to ask her whether she watched me go and look back two or three times is a shame. She died before I thought to ask.

I’ll spare you the details of a prospective Eighth Grade girl’s first solo shopping expedition. Suffice it to say that by Christmas Break I was crying for a hell of a lot more than just winter gear . . . I’d either not bought enough of one thing, or too much of another, or cheap versions that fell apart or shrank so much as to be unwearable because I had no idea how much I needed of anything or what might constitute a good purchase or a bad one. I bought things that didn’t match, didn’t fit, and didn’t hold out.

By the time my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I’d already been borrowing her socks for two months and had stolen her work-worn oldest jeans, cut them off at the knees, and hemmed them myself. Years before workman-chic became the rage, I’d pulled my dad’s ruined light-blue uniform button-ups out of a trash bag, had a friend draw pictures over the stains (with a black Sharpie, the only kind then!), and covered his company patches and embroidery with music band logos from other people’s torn-up concert t-shirts salvaged from another Dumpster.

Needless to say, all I wanted for Christmas was, “Clothes! And you’re coming this time!” Christmas break was a thrift-store bonanza. And good God, was I was happy for the opportunity. I never went shopping with her again, for anything, without paying close attention and asking so many questions that she would eventually have to give me “The Look” to shut me up.

We didn’t have uniforms in public schools back then, so there was no “financial assistance” to purchase back-to-school clothes during the other years when we really could have used it. I wonder what kind of changes going to “uniform schools” would have made in my life, if any at all

~Riot.Jane

Operation Beauty

I've discovered another (in addition to TJP) community blog I'd like to share: Operation Beautiful

Operation Beautiful's mission is to leave positive messages on the mirrors of womens' public bathrooms "at work, at the gym, at the grocery store. [...] Whatever comes to mind — “You are beautiful!” or “You are amazing just the way you are!” [...] Maybe some people read them and just smile, but I bet some people are truly touched by the effort of a random stranger."

Over time, readers have begun leaving notes in more places than the original public bathroom -- Cancer ward gift shops selling wigs, drug store Alli displays, elevators, grocery store SlimFast cases, menus, subways, gas pumps, et cetera.

Those of us who have found such notes, left such notes, or otherwise been touched by the Operation are encouraged to send snapshots and comments or stories to Caitlin, the blog owner, for posting on the blog.

While the messages do blend into obsequiousness when read one-after-another in a long stream of self-help book personal reaffirmation, the idea behind Operation Beauty is indeed worthy, especially for those who have a Karmic view of the world and an overriding sense of "Things happen for a reason."

Do yourself a favor: try not to view Operation Beauty for very long at a sitting, try not to read too many pictures in a row. Much like a fine single-malt Scotch, while valuable, this blog is best sipped.

~Riot.Jane

Gender Neutrality: Pop and the X-Child

A young couple in Sweden have decided to raise their child in as gender-neutral a way as is imaginable: They've decided not to tell anyone which gender their child Pop is.

An article in the English-language Swedish news source The Local, tells the story of "Pop" and parents "Nora" and "Jonas" (all are pseudonyms). At the end of The Local's article is a link to an interview (original Swedish, English machine-translation) with the parents regarding the reasons for their controversial decision, their life with Pop to date, and comments from three professionals: a psychologist/newspaper columnist, a gender equality consultant, and a pediatric endocrinologist.

Pop's parents are raising Pop in this way as a result of the feminist belief that gender is purely a social construct (I personally disagree) . They believe Pop will grow up less constrained if allowed to develop without the societally-imposed baggage of gender role expectations. "If I can keep my child from being forced into a slot, I want to do it," Jonas said.*

Nora and Jonas believe that they can already see the effects in Pop of their alternative upbringing, "I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime," Nora said. Nora and Jonas describe Pop as a confident and stable person.

Pop is currently 3 and a half and living with parents (no siblings yet, although Nora is currently expecting her second child in August). Pop has a range of clothing (from dresses to pants) and clothing colors to choose from daily, and Pop's hair changes regularly. More often than not, Pop chooses what Pop will look like on any given day. Though Pop is aware of the physical differences between males and females, the parents never use personal pronouns when referring to Pop. Much as this post is phrased, they just refer to Pop.

Nora and Jonas allow others to assume Pop's gender without correction. When asked directly, they respond with something to the effect of "I've chosen not to disclose my child's sex."* Some people approve of the concept, others do not, but the couple doesn't often have trouble with naysayers because, according to Nora, people are afraid of conflict. According to Jonas, Pop has remained as quiet to outsiders as he and Nora have.

The part of this story that I found most fascinating is that only other people don't know Pop's gender. Pop is fully aware of Pop's gender. Pop's parents have discussed gender in general and Pop's gender in specific with Pop, just not with others. The parents believe that the time to reveal Pop's gender is when Pop is ready to do so.

Nora and Jonas believe in what they are doing, and approve of how Pop is developing, so they're planning on raising their second child the same way, i.e. raising a child instead of raising a girl or a boy.

Pop's story, as Nora and Jonas present it, reminds me of a Lois Gould story purportedly published in Ms. in 1972 with the title "X: A Fabulous Child's Story." X is the fictional story of a baby raised without gender that focuses on the trouble this causes other people rather than the (mostly minor) troubles this causes X.

While I can't find a copy (digital or analog) copy of the 1972 issue of Ms. magazine, I did find the story itself republished in Issue 22 of Polare with the title "A Fabulous Child's Story."

Polare is an in-service magazine that provides a forum for the discussion/debate of gender issues and is published quarterly by The Gender Centre Inc. The Department of Community Services funds The Gender Center Inc. under the S.A.A.P. Program and is supported through Australia's New South Wales Health Department, AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch.

In a gender-issue discussion magazine, this particular story found its home. It's a timeless piece that still speaks to us clearly 37 years after its (purported) first publication. Excerpts are below, click through to read the entire story of X.

Once upon a time, a baby named X was born. This baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn't tell anybody else. They couldn't even tell Baby X at first.
. . .
Also, long before Baby X was born, all those scientists had to be paid to work out the details of the Xperiment, and to write the Official Instruction Manual for Baby X's parents and, most important of all, to find the right set of parents to bring up Baby X. These parents had to be selected very carefully. Thousands of volunteers had to take thousands of tests and answer thousands of tricky questions. Almost everybody failed because, it turned out, almost everybody really wanted either a baby boy or a baby girl, and not Baby X at all. Also, almost everybody was afraid that a Baby X would be a lot more trouble than a boy or a girl. (They were probably right, the scientists admitted, but Baby X needed parents who wouldn't mind the Xtra trouble.)
. . .
But, finally, the scientists found the Joneses, who really wanted to raise an X more than any other kind of baby - no matter how much trouble it would be. Ms. and Mr. Jones had to promise they would take equal turns caring for X, and feeding it, and singing it lullabies. And they had to promise never to hire any baby-sitters. The government scientists knew perfectly well that a baby-sitter would probably peek at X in the bathtub, too.

The day the Joneses brought their baby home, lots of friends and relatives came over to see it. None of them knew about the secret Xperiment, though. So the first thing they asked was what kind of a baby X was. When the Joneses smiled and said, "It's an X," nobody knew what to say. They couldn't say, "Look at her cute little dimples!" And they couldn't say, "Look at his husky little biceps!" And they couldn't even say just plain "kitchycoo". In fact, they all thought the Joneses were playing some kind of rude joke.
. . .
On page 1654 of the Official Instruction Manual, the scientists prescribed: "plenty of bouncing and plenty of cuddling, both, X ought to be strong and sweet and active. Forget about dainty altogether".
. . .
Mr Jones wandered helplessly up and down the aisles trying to find out what X needed. But everything in the store was piled up in sections marked "Boys" or "Girls".

There were "Boy's' Pyjamas" and "Girls' Underwear" and "Boys' Fire Engines" and "Girl's Housekeeping Sets". Mr. Jones went home without buying anything for X. That night he and Ms. Jones consulted page 2326 of the Official Instruction Manual. "Buy plenty of everything", it said firmly.

So they bought plenty of sturdy blue pyjamas in the Boys' Department and cheerful flowered underwear in the Girls' Department. And they bought all kinds of toys. A boy doll that made pee-pee and cried, "Pa-pa". And a girl doll that talked in three languages and said "I am the Pres-i-dent of Gen-er-al Mo-tors". They also bought a story-book about a brave princess who rescued a handsome prince from his ivory tower, and another one about a sister and brother who grew up to be a baseball star and a ballet star, and you had to guess which was which.

Whenever the Joneses pushed Baby X's stroller in the park, smiling strangers would come over and coo: "Is that a boy or a girl?" The Joneses would smile back and say, "It's an X". The strangers would stop smiling then, and often snarl something nasty - as if the Joneses had snarled at them.
. . .
Finally, Joe and Peggy's parents decided to call an emergency meeting of the school's Parents' Association, to discuss "The X Problem". They sent a report to the principal stating that X was a "disruptive influence".
. . .
So the Principal reluctantly notified X's parents that numerous complaints about X's behaviour had come to the school's attention. And that after the Psychiatrist’s Xaminiation, the school would decide what to do about X.
. . .
Wiping his eyes and clearing his throat, the psychiatrist began in a hoarse whisper.

"In my opinion", he whispered - you could tell he must be very upset - "in my opinion, young X here -"

"Yes? Yes" shouted a parent impatiently. "Sssssh!" sssshed the Principal.

Click through to read "A Fabulous Child's Story" in its entirety.

What do you think about the real case of Pop and the fictional case of X? How much of gender is biological, and how much is societal? Are Nora and Jonas enlightened or barbaric? Short of physical damage, where does the parental right to raise a child as one sees fit end and insanity begin? How realistic is X's outcome when compared with Pop's parent-reported current status? Do we want to follow Pop's life with a series of interviews and psychiatric evaluations over the next 20 years, or would such have unintended side effects on Pop's development, therefore raising questions about the observations gleaned?

*The machine translation from Swedish to English is not of high quality, so these "quotations" are paraphrased.

~Riot.Jane

What Hides Inside

Beauty = Full?

Let us talk about beauty.

I am beautiful. I am full of face and have eyes that men have fallen head-long into like a chasm of grief and pain and pleasure and have been lost. Forever. I have a mouth full and sweet like a rosebud, just on the cusp of bursting into a full and long flower that men have kissed and nibbled and sighed into. I have full breasts and midnight hair that tumbles down my back. Yes, it’s true, I am beautiful.

In our society beauty can be everything. Ever since I was a girl all around me have commented upon my face, later my body. I have held value because of these things. I have been lost and devoured and used because of these things. I recognize that I am beautiful, but what is that exactly?

I am visually appealing. I am easy to look at. I invoke pleasant feelings in those who glance in my direction. I kill myself slowly a little more every day to live up to the expectations that others have placed upon me and that I have made my own. I starve myself; I fill my body with chemicals in a desperate attempt to become thinner. Diet pills, laxatives, endless diuretics. This is some months. Then there are the months when I am so exhausted and spent that I just eat to fill the hole left behind. I am filled with guilt and pain and I am filled with more guilt. Every morsel is a punishment and I do this to remind myself that I must be beautiful to have worth. I obsess and the ones who love me the most suffer with me.

The funny thing is I do not believe that others must live this standard that has been set for me. I recognize the beauty in others I love so much. Fierce independence, self-assuredness, the ability to survive, spirituality, loyalty, innocence, worldliness, a loving nature, a protective nature; all are things of beauty and make the bearer beyond compare. I even recognize some of these qualities in myself.

Yet…

Yet, in my darkest hours it’s the ugliness in my psyche that haunts me. In my deepest of depths every pill, every morsel withheld, every graze of the razor across my arms and wrists and thighs is a secret message to myself; a message that says “You must do this to be loved.”

It seems boundless, this pit that I have dug for myself, but I have just written this down. I have acknowledged that it happens. This is my admonition, my cry for help, my pact with all of you and with myself to stop this insanity. I will stop this. I will write and maybe even talk and I will stop this.

I want to be free.

Darkness Becomes Light

I have been lost in the dark

I have been lost in the dark….lost in my addiction….lost in my insanity, my pain, my grief. I have been lost, a throw away, a nothing. A child of the street.

A slave to the darkness was I.

Most of the time, I was invisible to the “good people”. I was junky thin, reeking of death and despair, my withdrawing body shaking. I was dying slowly in full view and they would glance quickly over me, across my face, pretending they did not see me. My fellow humans would walk past me. I did not exist. I was invisible. My sins to great even to be…….

A slave to the darkness was I.

When the “good people” did see me they forced me to become invisible again. I was not even considered human by some. I was denied a place to sit or rest. I was denied water on hot summer days when my thirst was so great I could no longer swallow and my exhausted body would almost faint. I was denied a place to refresh myself or relief myself, instead using bushes and running behind building and risking arrest for my need. Debased and ashamed I sought places to rest only to be chased away again and again with the threat of imprisonment if I did not “move on”. I was told NO you cannot come into this store, NO you cannot shield yourself from bitter wind, NO you cannot get warm here, seek shade here, or ever, ever rest. You must make yourself invisible again because you are too disgusting. You do not belong. Not fit to view or consider. You are not a human-being. You are an animal.

A slave to the darkness was I.

To some people though, I was quite visible. Predators saw me clearly even when I did my best to hide. They hunted me in the dark…..animals, hunting animals in the dark, on the street. These memories are too painful to recount. To be trapped by one of these meant rape, murder, or death…..so I spent a great deal of time running, hiding, afraid…….I’ve been raped, tortured, pimped and beaten. I have been emotional and physically used and abused. My value was reduced to my vagina and nothing else about me mattered to anyone. Some days, most of those dark days, not even to me.

A slave to the darkness was I.

I was visible to the tricks when they required sexual gratification but became invisible again after the fact. I was also invisible to them if we came across one another in public even though just days before they may have sworn to help me in any way they could. Many claimed to care, to love me, to be my friend yet only when they desired sex was I visible. Still, I welcomed them because the only relief from the physical agony of the street and my addiction was when I prostituted my body and was able to slip inside a cool or warm car. The only way I had to bath was when a John got a seedy room for an hour. I had to put back on my filthy rags, more often than not throw away my shameful underpants, always carefully hiding them somewhere in the bathroom or stuffing them in my pocket so my “client” would not witness to my personal decay. I would pass the time and cover the shame by praying “please God, let this be over soon”. I would hold on the truth that the act brought the money that I, or we needed to get more crack and that meant that soon, very soon the agonizing pain of my being, of my existence would end shortly and I would once again be numb, gratefully numb. I would finally once again be dead inside and it was only in that death of mind and spirit in which I could comfortably dwell. It was the only time I was safe from myself and my conscious.

A slave to the darkness was I.

I was visible to other addicts, other street people. They recognized my despair and loneliness and they fed on it. I would provide money, cigarettes, food and shelter and dope to those who professed to be my friend. They, in return, would make promises then vanish with all that I owned onto the darkness. Even those who said they loved me, in the end, encouraged me sell my body while they waited for me in the dark. I step from the car still lost in my own filth, reeling and in pain from yet one more act of degradation. No words of sympathy ever came. Just “how much money did you get?”, “how much dope do you want?”, then a flurry of phone calls and activity, then the tense, unbearable waiting. Finally, the dope. My body sick with the want of it. My emotions, out of control. My need to be numb, overpowering me. He moves deliberately slow….him, taking the first hit. Is it real? Is it real? Finally! My turn, his turn, my turn, his turn. On and on until there is no more. We have to have more! We cannot stop! There is no choice so out into the darkness walk I. We tell ourselves this is the last time. We will stop after this. Freezing, one more time. Raining, one more time. Blistering hot; one more time. Day or night. ; one more time. Dangerous wee hours of the morning…one…..more….time. I AM AFRAID and the addiction lies “One more time”.

A slave to darkness was I.

There is no choice you see. We have to have more. An endless cycle of “one more time”, “one more hit” When at last I can endure no more and my body collapses, after hours of sleep deeper that death I awake to my lover who looks at me calls me whore. I run back to the street and bring him what he desires so he will stay with me. More money, more dope so we can forget that we are lost and dying in the dark. I am afraid because time is fleeting, one week, one month, one year, five then ten then on and on. A lifetime up in smoke, one hit at time, one more time.

A slave to darkness was I.

I remember, very clearly my reemergence from the dark. It was when I became visible to people like you. You know, those of you who see me as a troubled person, an addict, someone who needs help and deserves love. Those of you who see me as a lost daughter, a lost sister, a lost mother. Those of you whose love of transcends those narrow, cruel societal views of me. Those of you who look into my face and say “I see you and you are beautiful to me” with an understanding smile. Those of you who dared to touch this leper. Those of you whose loving actions said “I love you and I am here to help because you deserve help, not hate.”

A child of The Light am I.

I did not become visible to myself all at once. Perhaps the pain of who I had become would have killed me where it so…..I could not look in the mirror at first, even to try to straighten myself out to look presentable. I was afraid of that lost, hunted person in the mirror. That person who was trying to kill the real me. The person who was burying me alive, coldly deaf to her/my screams of terror. You saw these things, you Children of The Lord, and you continued to reach out. To smile, to look in my eyes…To Remind Me Who I Am…..and slowly, oh so slowly, I began this journey to remembrance. Slowly, one meal, one bath, one meeting, one service, one word of hope, one action of love at a time you Children, you Saints, brought me to The Light. To Love. To God.

A child of The Light am I.

Sometimes I acted as if I did not hear you. Sometimes I believed I was not worthy and ran away, back deep into darkness. But always, even when I ran I hid, like a starving child, your love, deep in my heart and in the darkest of dark I would remember this love and yearn for more….so your love acted as light to guide me back to His Children. I learned to seek you as you sought me. I learned to seek God……I learned to see myself through first your eyes, then His eyes. Then I learned they were the same. His heart was in your heart and I began to BECOME. I began to heal, I began to change….I REMEMBERED WHO I AM…..A Child of God. Worthy. You taught me who I am. You showed me God’s Love so in a way that I could understand, then embrace then desire, then seek then live. You forgave me and that taught me God forgives me

A child of The Light am I.

Barbara Rhyne Tucker

Secrets

Dear Janes,

I wasn’t sure about writing this. I don’t like talking about stuff with anyone who isn’t like me. I really don’t even know if this a topic about “women,” but I am one and this is about me. I am an addict. I’m not just addicted to one thing, I have multiple addictions. I smoke, I drink every night after work, I do cocaine on the weekends and holidays. I smoke pot, every single day. I have never, not once, tried to stop.

Because of the things I do I’m pretty much regularly out of control. I am consistently in bad situations. I have been beaten, raped, had car accidents, lost jobs, been arrested; I’ve served jail time more than once. Yet I never try to quit. When I think about living without my addictions I feel like I can’t breath.
My family has no idea I live like this. I live in a different state, and my mother actually thinks I’m still married to a man I haven’t been with in 3 years. He left me because I was a wreck. The thing is, NOBODY knows about this. Not even my friends.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this.

Maybe I just wanted to tell someone...

Fat

I am fat.

I have always been fat.

When I was a chunky toddler people would tell my mom how cute I was and she had my picture taken at the fancy photo studios in the department stores. She took endless pictures of my cute dimpled ass as I raced across the living room. She filmed me eating cake. She rewarded me with candy for good deeds.

When I was a fat child people began to tell my mother I would become obese soon if she didn’t do something. She would pat my hand when people were thoughtless. She would buy me ice cream sundays to help me to feel better. When I was 7 she took me to Sears to have my picture done in a pink dress that looked like a dollop of strawberry icing with my red hair all done up in banana curls like Nelly from "Little House On the Prairie". I remember wearing white patent leather Mary Janes and holding my mama’s hand as we went through the store. I remember thinking I looked exactly like Nelly from "Little House on the Prairie", only better, on account of Nelly being such a wicked child and I had just helped watch my little sister that very morning.

When we got to the studio another mother was in front of us with her own daughter who looked like a real-live princess in her white satin dress with the big pink bow in the back. She didn’t have banana curls in her brown hair, it was instead naturally curly and ran all down her back all the way to that big pink bow. I think that was my first pang of female jealousy. She was a slight girl with a light dusting of freckles and I had wild red hair and suddenly I could feel the rolls of fat underneath my strawberry frosting dress. When she looked at me, I smiled. I said “Do you want to be friends?”. She just turned to her mother and whispered “fat”.

My mama never had my picture done again.

When I was a fat teenager, I was still popular. I had lots of friends and people didn’t pick on me like in the movies. I made sure to be available to my friends for whatever they needed. I kept lip gloss and extra money in my purse and extra pencils and pens in my locker alongside my diet pills and my gum and my empty candy wrappers. I smoked cigarettes when it was cool. I drove them all wherever they wanted to go. I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. I debased myself and made them laugh. But they were friends. They weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me.

In my junior year I got a boyfriend. His name was Evan and he was fat too. Everyone thought we were the perfect couple. Evan liked to pinch my double chin and share diet tips with me. After 3 months of being a couple he forced himself on me in his parent’s den one afternoon when we were skipping school. I ran home with bare feet and called my best friend Patty. When I told her what happened she told me she was glad I got laid. She said I should go to the drug store and get a test just in case.
I did. When I tested three weeks later it was negative.

I went to prom with Evan.

My mama decided to practice tough love with me. She began to install pad locks on the pantry doors and wrote down everything I ate. She took me to the fat doctor and he put me a strict diet. My mama told me, “Fat girls don’t get husbands.” She told me, “If you don’t lose weight, you’ll die.”

I stopped eating.

When I was fat young adult I grew to hate women. I hated my mother the most of all. I hated them for using me and for not standing up for me when I needed them most. I hated women because I was one and I hated ME. I went on crash diets, I drank away the pain, I dated men who hated me.

I abused myself.

Now, I’m still a fat adult. I’ve gone to therapy, I’ve had surgery, I’ve gone to therapy again. I’ve lost over 120 pounds and on the outside, I’m not a fat girl at all. On the outside, I’m one of them. I’m a skinny girl. Inside though, there she is. The fat girl still lives there and I know I need to make peace with her.
These days I have friends who are women. Some, like me, are fat girls. Some are ugly girls, some are nerdy girls, some have buck teeth or thick glasses or big feet. Some are beautiful and have never, ever been a fat girl. I am learning to live with myself, with help from these women. I hope someday to finally look in the mirror and just say:

“There I am. Just me.”

Personal account submitted by a Jane Doe in Birmingham, Alabama, written with cooperation by Mellissa Ybarra.