“Why can’t you be like other girls and wear what other girls wear?!” This from my boyfriend/son’s father a few months after our son was born. He pulled up on me with his friends at my grandmother’s house; I was outside with my friends and cousins after a day of shopping and shenanigans. I remember like it was yesterday. I had visited my best friend at her job at Nordstrom and I was looking especially cute (or so I thought, lol) that day. Unbeknownst to me, my boyfriend was also shopping in Nordstrom for what would ultimately be my first Mother’s Day gift. A tennis bracelet. Sigh. A tennis bracelet for a girl who had sworn off diamonds early in her teens after learning about the death and displacement of millions of Africans impacted by the mining of diamonds. A tennis bracelet for a girl who exclusively wore silver cuffs, bangles, rings, and eyebrow and nose ring. A tennis bracelet for someone going through a post-partum EMO phase, raging against the confines of motherhood. My hair was dyed bright red, in short starter locs, I had on HUGE yellow bug eyeglasses, a la Missy Elliot’s “I Can’t Stand the Rain” video, an extra-long maxi skirt, tank top layered over a baby tee and extra tall T.U.K. blue suede platform Creepers. I topped that look off with violet blue frosted lipstick. To say I was feeling myself is an understatement. And here he comes with a fucking tennis bracelet.
He chastised me and told me that I embarrassed him with my look, but I only giggled. My de-centering of the male gaze had started earlier in my life, even though I didn’t have the theory to support my actions, and no tennis bracelet was going to change that. In feminist theory, “the male gaze is the act of depicting women…from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.” It was if this man had forgotten who I was. As if motherhood had changed the core principles of which I stood. A one-sided argument ensued (I wasn’t invested) and a battle of wills seemingly began that day. We were at war. A man was trying to break my will and force me to bend to his, even though I had a father that had taught me to succumb to no one. It was laughable at the least. I didn’t even dig my heels in on my look, I just continued to dress (and exist) in a way that made me happy. I wasn’t on a journey to decenter the male gaze, but to be me, to appeal to the part of me that was determined to feel good in my body, and to dress in the way that expressed that.
Honestly, being fat helped me to decenter the male gaze easily. Fat creates a barrier between men and women. If men desire fat women, that desire is usually clandestine; hidden from plain view and rooted in hypersexuality and fetishism. Even though my formative years found me in monogamous relationships, this was still apparent to me. It was easy for me to object to the limitations of the male gaze when it was directed at women that didn’t look like me. It was easy to decenter men when they didn’t express interest in me. While in relationships with boys and men, I could sense their discomfort with me. I could tell they wanted me to be skinnier. I could sense that they liked or loved me but wished I was smaller. More traditional in my look and beliefs. I could sense that they tolerated me instead of accepting me. Fat friends seemed to behave oppositely of me. They wielded to the gaze. Even if they didn’t lose the weight, they dressed and behaved in a manner that made them more tolerable. More accepted. As clothing choices became more plentiful for plus sizes, I realized that a body-con dress, a long weave, and strappy sandals provided entry into a world that most fat women had never existed. The clothing choices removed one barrier for them and landed them that much closer to the desirability of their skinnier friends. Cinching your waist, wearing a “fat-kini”, and shopping in stores with your skinny friends was apparently the key to men loving you.
Memory: I was asked on a date with a man (sigh), and he asked me to meet him at a heavily populated bar in the Chinatown neighborhood. Although this was our first date, we had interacted several times before, and the sexual tension between us was palpable. It was thick. Within the first five minutes of the date, we were locked into a full-on make-out session in the middle of the bar. The couple sitting next to us looked so uncomfortable they moved after ten minutes of us and our mischief. We were very much headed to “get a room” territory. We came up for air when the bartender brought our drinks, and we laughed at ourselves and our ridiculousness. I placed an order of wings with the bartender, placed the menu on the bar and prepared to reenter my make out session with my suitor. With his hand cupping my ass, he asked, “Have you ever thought about losing weight before? You are so pretty, but you would be so much prettier if you lost weight.” There it was. The thing that would end us. I responded, “Of course I have thought about losing weight before, I just haven’t.” I was over him and over the date. I stayed, but I knew that we wouldn’t be a thing. He wanted me to be skinny, to be something other than myself, and instead of running to that, I ran from that.
Everyone wants to be loved, so I don’t begrudge anyone for making themselves more desirable to men. Traditional values, the desire for marriage and children are great incentives to make oneself more desirable to men. I am married now and have a child, but I have never longed for those things. Marriage and motherhood, just kinda happened to me and I went along for the ride. Even without the longing for a traditional relationship and children, it just didn’t sit well in my spirit to change who I was to please someone. As I became more well-read, and able to articulate the theory that accompanied by actions, I became even more staunch in my desire to live a life that is pleasing to me. And that never, ever included the opinions of men. Except my father. Who raised me to be a hellraiser. Even to his own chagrin.
Note: My writing may feel disjointed at times, and that’s okay. These are my thoughts on an issue and my blog is a place for them to live in the world. These are not meant to be published works (in the traditional sense) although I have works that have been published. I have a lot to say on this topic, and will probably revisit this piece, revise it, add on to it in the future. For now, I hope you find something in this. Take what you need.
