Stubborn Belly Fat

I want to write about Epst*in. No, I don’t. I want to go outside and feel sunshine and post dancing videos and make dumb comedy sketches, but instead, the wild mare of my feminine rage said ‘sit down, bitch, we can’t think about anything else.’

A well-meaning friend asked “are you okay, today?”

All I could think was, is anyone?

Since I lack the mental capacity to process a world on fire, I do what we all do: Scroll. Partially to stay informed, stay loud, and try and be a force of change, and partially to experience the joy of seeing how funny random internet strangers can be. But every few videos between Gamechanger reels and Heated Rivalry edits comes an ad, asking me in one way or another, to change my body.

Want to get rid of that stubborn belly fat?

Gravity got your tits down?

Erase the evidence of time on your face with this new and improved formula!

And the worst of it is, the people doing these ads are of course, women. Women getting paid (and no you’re not the problem, get your bag, ladies) to sell other women the quiet violence of self-rejection. Funded by corporations profiting from our wild goose chase to look younger, be thinner, be poorer, hungry, and busy.

Busy chasing an ever-moving target so we don’t stop long enough to ask the obvious question:

What happens if we don’t comply?

What if we revolted? Demanded equal pay, equal rights, and equal respect? We are pressured into fixing ourselves… so we are acceptable? To whom? Whose currency matters more than our sense of self?

And this violence is not evenly distributed. All women in this country (at least) have been fed this narrative of needing to clear the high jump bar in order to be what men desired, and in turn, have value. But what about women of color, who can never reach the finish line by design no matter how extraordinary they are (and they are so extraordinary)? And gender-diverse people, who can’t win no matter who they choose to be? What about fat women, who are constantly subject not only to a world built for “straight-sized” bodies, but a diet industry that has programmed society to think thty have a ‘responsibility’ to others to look a certain way?

I am so filled with rage about a life I sold myself to in hopes of achieving enough currency through male validation.

I am so filled with grief about the years women I love - and women I’ve never met -spent folding ourselves into something palatable

Our independence and humanity has been sold off to the fallacy that we are only valuable if we are desired by men.

I have been on diets since I was 8, dyed the life out of my grays, gotten countless laser treatments to get rid of the turkey neck that showed up after a medical procedure. I spent the better part of my one wild and precious life of trying to be good enough, thin enough, look young enough.

I’ll say that one again. Look young enough.

Think about that in the context of what we’re learning about the files.

Young enough, for who, exactly?

So.

Women, people, friends:

I hope you scare the ever loving shit out of people with your rage.

I hope your laughter is too loud, your body too real, your existence too inconvenient.

I hope you eat whatever the fuck you desire.

I hope your orgasms wake the neighbors.

I hope your belly fat jiggles as you stand on the necks of the people who told you to shrink.

I hope they choke on your joy.

And dear god, I hope you age.