As my time in Fiji wanes I find myself reflecting on the things I will miss, and there are many. Besides the obvious beaches, indian baubles and the pervasive sense of living in a coconut tree bordered postcard scene... one of the things I will miss is living in a country where big is bountiful, where beauty has many shapes, and where women don't walk around sucking their stomachs in... One of the things I am starting to dread about my return is re-entering plastic dolly girl land... the land where so much emotional and mental importance is attached to hair follicles, fat particles, textile adornments and cell distribution. Why do we do it to ourselves ????
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan claimed that women do not want to be loved, they want to be wanted... And I agree - people are loved for what is inside, but wanted for the picture they project... Polly Young-Eisendrath in her book "women and desire" talks about the way that "the compulsion to be desired and desirable undermines self-direction, self confidence, and self determination in women....wanting to be wanted is about finding our power in an image rather than in our own actions"...
And I find myself thinking about why this is... obviously the instinctive orientation towards physical attractiveness is determined by the evolutionary drive for reproduction and survival. Prehistoric man did not plant his seed in the woman with the witty sense of humour...he went for one with childbearing hips. And so on through generations we have shaped and plucked ourselves into the contemporary ideal breader. Blindly following a now redundant biological urge, we find ourselves more and more disorientated, dissatisfied and with a sinking sense that everything we are doing is in fact meaningless and has become purposeless. And it is true...
We no longer need to compulsively breed to ensure the survival of the human race. As a species we have blindly bred ourselves to the brink of extinction. And so as women we are now stuck in the limbo land between biological historical survival instinct, and the formation of a new sense of purpose and worth based on far less tangible constructs. Such things as self worth, integrity, intelligence etc were once irrelevant to the survival of the species but are now crucial to the health of the individual and society as a whole. It is now these characteristics that will determine our survival as a species, as these are now all that stand between us and self destruction on a global scale. If we are indeed the "mothers" of the human race it is well past time for women to stop defining themselves and their worth according to their physical characteristics and start taking a stand for the personal qualities that are necessary for our continued evolution. When we look in the mirror and think "Ug - I wish I was thinner/more shapely/taller etc" we are part of a system that no longer works, and is now actively destructive. If we are to think globally and act locally - then while we cannot change the world as a whole, we can each change the way we think. Everytime we refuse to have our worth defined by ancient breeder characteristics - but rather by our ability to feel compassion, to think inventively and to discriminate between right and wrong - then we are part of ensuring the survival of the human race. Its not just about us and the fact that we will be certainly be happier if we are less obsessed about our bodies and our physical attractiveness... we have an obligation to save the world and the future of humanity.
Look within...
Judge yourself and others by how we think and feel, not what we look like...
Save the world...
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