Sunglasses and sweaters

From a young age, I have harboured a disdain for my body, perceiving it as lacking in various ways. From the way it curves in places where it is told it shouldn’t, to the dimples embarrassing my cheeks. This constant feeling of inadequacy, like a fish out of water gasping for air, has been a lifelong companion.

Society has brainwashed us women that our bodies should be alike, with tiny waists and flat stomachs. It dictates that we should look upon the world with large eyes framed with thick eyelashes. That we should speak using our plump lips which are begging to be kissed and that we should walk by on skinny yet sculpted legs with our glossy hair spilling down our backs.

The pressure to fit into this narrow definition is suffocating and it fills me with resentment. All women are beautifully different, like a field dotted with spring flowers. Some flowers are painted a dazzling blue with a yellow-ochre centre, some a fiery red streaked with black, some delicately white, their innocence spilling over, and some simply coloured an autumn orange but all equally wondrous and unique.

Our bodies cannot be tabulated, put into Excel sheets graded by numbers and made into ridiculous statistical figures because they aren’t and will never be simple, straightforward and mathematical; they are forever changing, evolving, maturing and ageing like fine wine.

This unrealistic idealisation of women’s bodies is exploited by industries. Make-up, shapewear and clothing industries are all pumping money out of insecure pockets and deepening the doubts within the crevices of women’s minds. We slather make-up on daily to cover up the purple eye bags and the angry spots we picked at anxiously.

We violently contour all the edges of our face with every shade of brown to shrink what we deem is too big, too wide and which is taking up too much space. We fervently rub tinted foundation and bronzer on our skin colour, trying desperately to give it the look of an effortless tan and us the feeling of being adequate and in line with society. We squeeze ourselves daily into jeans that are trending  and not ones that envelope our bodies and hug our curves.

We tug on sweaters that are branded with Gucci and Bottega Veneta but are labelled by us as stuffy, scratchy and suffocatingly tight but, mind you, it is branded! We place glasses on our heavily made-up eyes to give us some reprieve from our peer’s scrutiny which is being dictated by photoshopped picture-perfect models.

Then, after jumping around our flat for 10 minutes struggling to fit our legs into the tight entrances of our jeans, we rush out of the house trying to ignore the waistband digging into our skin, the rumbling of our stomachs and the helpless tears threatening to ruin our overlined, mascara-laden eyes.

We dash out of our houses stomping down on our need for food, validation and for love and pushing on through the throngs of people all wearing sunglasses, branded sweaters and tight jeans.

What a way to live! Fighting tears, ignoring the pangs of hunger, trying to muffle the waistband biting into our skin and seeking solace in the blackened shades of our sunglasses.

We have so much strength within us if only we harnessed it to challenge the unrealistic standards imposed upon us and foster a self-love so deep that no amount of photoshopped perfection or societal expectation would make us doubt our beauty, our value or our worth.

MILENA SCICLUNA BARTOLI – Birkirkara