lately this talk about self loves makes it seem like all we need to do to find bliss when we look in the mirror is dissolve a bath bomb. a blue explosion in the tub and the world will right itself again. like all we need is a little r&r and then we’ll be just fine. like buying a new lipstick will make the smile come naturally. dove is running a campaign about choosing beauty, so that’s enough, right? stop complaining, choose beautiful.

something about the way the genetically tiny Nepali girl I babysit said “my thighs are so big” tells me maybe it isn’t about choosing beautiful. it isn’t about self love through consumerism and consumption and evasion. it has to be a revolution, a rebuke of the idea that our beauty even needs to be a part of the conversation.

i have seen the way men strip themselves down, in front of each other, in front of us, in locker rooms and basements and on beaches. there is so rarely the flicker of fear i see in my sisters. we learned too early on to fear the watchful hungry eyes, the ones full of pity, and the ones seething with criticism. to wrap our bodies up in shame and wrap our tongues around “sorry” before we knew loving ourselves was a possibility. 

they told us to wear one-pieces so as not to distract the boys, but the trouble was with each other, and we learned every trick in the book to hide our breasts behind towels while we changed in and out of swim suits. so much humiliation for such little bodies to bear. we were not strong enough to lift the bricks from the bottom of the pool, but we somehow managed to survive this. and i don’t think we could’ve told you why if you asked us then. were we afraid of one another or ourselves?

always there will be girls on movie screens who don’t get the guy until they get the makeover, and never will we see ourselves in these girls who just needed to take off their glasses to be worthy. “smile, you’re beautiful” the bathroom mirror tells us, not “smile, you’ll pass your exam,” not “smile, you bring so much joy to people’s lives.” i understand the desire to make us confident in our beauty, but no matter how many sticky notes speak to us, there will be a male whose gaze permeates our own and turns us against ourselves.

i want self love to be motivated by the boundaries we break down, the barriers we overcome, always with grace and with voices that do not aspire to the decibel of the men we supposedly compete against. i want self love motivated by how many lives our bodies and hearts can sustain, our own, our children’s, our friend’s, giving with our lungs and blood and hands, kind and comforting and steady. self love motivated by knowing when we have given enough, by sustainability that we do not call selfishness, by acceptance of our sisters with blind and open arms. i do not believe we will find self love in our wallets or mirrors or the eyes of the men we wish would love us too. it will be in our strength, even if it is only in admitting when we feel weak.