Wellbeing Thread - who's in?

[AnonWasAWoman]

This is a sort of ?gap in the market? thread really, forgive the rotten title. I was thinking about women and wellbeing and a possible feminist slant on what I feel the beauty industry has colonised.

If I try to find a threads, or a magazine articles, about women?s wellbeing and health I can guarantee half of them will be written in what comes across to me as doublethink: ?you need to feel good about your body, so first you must wage war upon it for a woman?s body is naturally hideously ugly!?. This just makes me sad. So do diluted versions ? the kind of discussions or groups where participants begin with a focus on health, but gradually shift to ?what can you do to look good?, which ? well, just makes me feel ugly if I don?t do those things (And, ah, angry that some people think women should have to!).

It really worries me how, as women, health and beauty are constantly conflated, and there?s an ever-increasing list of treatments that begin as luxurious pampering, then quickly come to be essential ?maintenance? or even basic ?hygiene?. It?s taken that a sign of healthy self-confidence and body confidence is to buy into these ideas about what to do with our time and money and bodies. I?m sure there?s a spectrum of views among feminists as to what we feel is right for us and what?s not, and I don?t want to get into that because I think it?s the least interesting bit of the debate. So I?m not trying to start yet another ?do you wax your fanjo fur? thread ? interesting as they are ?!

I am sure there is a way to resist gendered body care/products without in any way denigrating or ignoring the female body. I bet some of you are brilliant at this and the Resisting Femininity threads were great for showing me the way. But I also want to replace the things I?m resisting, not just get rid of all focus on my body. My mum can as close as can be to this ? everything ?gendered? for women?s bodies, from women?s anti-perspirant, to shaving equipment, to perfume and cosmetics, came under the same heading of ?disgusting things?. In retrospect I find this quite disturbing and not remotely feminist. I am sure I would have been a happier and better-adjusted teenager if I?d not had to sneak off to buy deodorant and nick my dad?s used disposables (I didn?t know any better). If as an adult woman I want to do without any of this stuff, that?s fine ? but I certainly don?t want to feel it?s the only option, or that being a feminist has to mean focusing on the mind and forgetting about the body.

So what I would like to do is to try to hammer out a sense of what you do (if anything) to replace or contrast with what we?re offered by society in terms of caring for your body. So I thought maybe it?d be nice to have a sort of wellbeing thread on here, where we can do all the healthy stuff you hope for on a ?diet? thread (and don?t IME get), and we can do all the ?taking time for myself? stuff that the beauty industry has colonised and distorted, but we can also maybe chat about how to feel better about our bodies, instead of how to make them look better.

So, here?s my list (some, obviously, drawn from a certain S&B thread!). They?re what I?ll hope to do, not what I promise to do!

• I?m going to try to go for a walk at least twice a week, even if it?s just half an hour. And I?m going to take my camera so I don?t end up thinking about work the whole time!
• I?m going to try to eat two different kinds of fruit/veg (I get stuck on apples galore)
• I?ll try to cut my coffee intake
• I?ll try to take 15 minutes before I go to bed to think about something that is not work, or chatting on MN (!), or planning food shopping or whatever
• I?m going to try to make proper breakfast every day
• Go to bed early one night per week
• Ration my (awful) snickers habit! I have eaten three snickers ice-cream bars this morning and it is Not good.
• (You can laugh here) I?m going to do some pelvic floor exercises every week ? I always forget and I imagine I?ll be glad of them later on!

Please add in suggestions if you have them or say if you think I ought to change my mind about any of these.

I completely agree that you can be overweight and fit. In my practice I often hear people say "I'll start exercising when I lose weight" and I *always make the point that you don't have to be a sylph to work your abs and that fitness does not depend on weight. Some patients go , and are obviously thinking (I can see it written all over their faces) "easy for you to say", and some are willing to give it a try. The ones who do try to do what I recommend are often surprised by how effective it is.

Oh, and I teach yoga, too, and am often completely amazed at how strong and bendy some of the larger students are! I can honestly say some are stronger than I am. Which only makes me work harder :o But it's great to see, they're a real inspiration to some of the newer students who might look at the fit little yoga bunnies in their 20s and feel completely discouraged. The older, larger women who can really get into some tough poses make me so proud. Even though I probably have no right to pride in them because they've been doing it longer than I have.

i think there does need to be a feminist space where women can talk about desire to lose weight (for reasons other than aspiring to be a supermodel type) precisely because of the damned industry and crap surrounding it. no one has talked about dieting here - we've mostly talked about increased activity in the context of health and it also making you 'feel' good to be active. if this was a non feminist space it would have been leapt on by people telling those concerned by their weight about fad diets and potions to be ascribed to. instead we're talking about taking better care of ourselves - i think those of us who've complained about our weight have generally been those who recognise the weight has come out of a lack of well being eg. depression, not being active, eating excessively unhealthy food etc.

it is ok for women to want to pay attention to their bodies. it doesn't have to be patriarchal preening v not acknowledging you are a physical being with a body being dragged around under that brain. the trick is having the focus on (as this thread aimed to i believe) well being, feeling better, taking better 'care' of oneself as opposed to external measures. i guess the premise is that for those contributing to this thread we do feel a need of some kind to take care of ourselves and were looking for ways to fulfill that need without recourse to patriarchal, consumerist crap that is sold to you on the premise of you not being good enough.

not everything has to be spelled out in one go - some things can come out as we go along. so people might join thinking oh yeah i need to lose weight etc and sound a little bit wrong-headed from a feminist perspective but they don't have to be jumped on and told immediately as with a bit of time and exploration and listening to others ideas and motivations they may work that out themselves. and that's a much better way to learn i reckon than being jumped on and told you're wrong sometimes.

Why do you think it has to come from a feminist perspective though SAF?

If you need to lose weight for health reasons (a person would have to be very overweight for that reason) then surely General Health would be a better place.

Trying to claim that dieting is feminist is incorrect and as far as I can see an attempt to dilute feminism. There are lots of things we do that aren't feminist, the trick is not trying to change feminism to argue that these things suddenly do become feminist.

"patriarchal preening v not acknowledging you are a physical being with a body being dragged around under that brain"

That's your framing, not mine. I certainly haven't talked about preening, and I certainly haven't said that women should ignore their bodies. In fact it's the diet, beauty and fashion industries that say that women should ignore their actual bodies and their experiences of them in favour of hunger, damaging products and uncomfortable or impractical clothes.

Also nobody ever does talk about dieting these days. It's one of the tricks of the dieting industry. It doesn't mean that that's what's happening. Also everybody claims it's for health reasons. There's a lot of denial around it.

i never said that dieting was a feminist activity - though i don't agree it has to automatically be seen as anti feminist.

i'm sorry i'm struggling with your coming on and basically attacking the premise of the thread without contributing to it.

weight has been mentioned in a thread that also talks about a myriad of other issues - people have mentioned it because it is a concern for them and they want to be able to talk about it and how to approach it healthily with other women who also understand the problematics of culture and patriarchy. i for one don't want to make them feel shit for it.

i'm exhausted. today is monday so the boy is back at school. i feel i should be 'doing' something (especially given the state this place is in after a busy week and weekend) but i'm going to accept that 'resting' is doing something and make that my first priority today. even as i type that a reem of 'urgent' things that need doing is pressing in on my head with loud buts. going to try and ignore them and have at least this first hour to just rest.

i have been thinking about how women, especially mothers, just keep going even when they are ill. how little time we get to just rest and how even flu ridden we have to plough on and take care of other people's needs. we tend to make a joke of how pathetic men are about illness eg. 'man-flu' but it really demonstrates something doesn't it about our division of labour and responsibility that there is a trend of men allowing themselves to be ill and asserting they are ill and need rest and women soldiering on.

YY SAF excellent post. I was talking to a friend about her upcoming holiday and she said she was dreading it as her 'D'H would do nothing as it was his holiday and she would do everything because she doesn't work. I wasn't sure how to deal with it tbh as we aren't that close and I know she finds me rather bossy full on.

Actually this is a real lightbulb moment for me. Most husbands work and travel extensively here. Most women don't work. Most people have an ayi to do cleaning, childcare and some shopping and cooking. Women often go out in the day without there kids and its rather sneered at especially by men and some women without children. The division of labour is so poor between husbands and wives that this is there only down/me time. They need childcare to do it for them because their husbands don't. Bit :( actually.

DD has a bug so still no go on sleep training.

I was on the Resisting Femininity thread, it was one of the spurs that drove me to take a pair of clippers and buzz my shoulder- length hair off. I LOVE my hair as it is, love the breeze on my neck, and am never going back. In fact, it needs a cut. I will always be grateful to that thread!

Regarding Thunderbolts's distaste for the more S&B aspects of this thread: I agree and I disagree and mainly I think some of this stuff is incredibly hard to parse, because it's been so successfully tangled up with patriarchally mandated beauty standards and christian (mainly Pauline and Augustinian) body-hatred. The biggest struggle for me has been to say: I am good enough as I am. And to make decisions about what I do for my health based on my EMOTIONAL as well as physical health.

I am a fat woman who'd like to be fitter: why? Because I would like to be stronger (I LOVE feeling strong!) and I would like to be able to run faster for longer. But something prevents me working harder at the activities I do, mainly the fact that I spent my twenties punishing my body for not being 'thin' - and so a lot of sporty-like activities are triggering for me of a period of self-hatred. A period, incidentally, when I recieved a great deal of social approval and pats on the head for 'making the most of myself' Well, I wasn't. I was making as little of myself as I could manage. I was shrinking myself.

Now I love to move my body. It makes me feel good. And, fat as I am, I dance and do yoga and cycle and walk, but I doubt I will ever enjoy running (as some of my marathony- friends do, whom I admire for their great attitude towards their bodies) because it reminds me of all that joyless jogging in the dark and rain, in tearful pursuit of an 'acceptable' body. The patriarchy has taken something grand - the feeling of physical exertion and physical achievement - and soiled it for me, to the extent that when I was last properly depressed I ate as if the only way out of my sadness was through the bottom of the fridge. I really am still learning how to take care of myself properly, and this is because, as noted above, women aren't encouraged to do that at all.
But here I am: I have a body and I like living in it, I work hard to like it and what it can do. Learning to like what it looks like means deprogramming most of my life's lived experience, but I'm damned if I'm not going to try.

For me a useful analogy is my marriage. I am a woman who chose to marry a man, a good solid ally and worthy life partner.. My choice was partly a influenced by various visa/health insurance goodies that are restricted to married people, and I was resistant to all the pressure from the patriarchy to marry because that's a woman's greatest achievement- but I may have married him anyway rather than cohabited forever. Now, I love him, more now I see him as a good solid feminist dad to our DS than ever before- and I LOVE and our life together. But the institution of marriage is shot through with horrors and BUILT on horrors and designed in pretty much every way to make me patriarchy-compliant. So I have had to think hard and monitor my choices, and I have had to enlist my partner and ally to think the same way and do the same feminist work or 'reclaiming' a heterosexual partnership that isn't oppressive of the woman partner.
I doubt we always get it right, but we want to and we work to make it possible. And thanks to years and years of feminist blood, sweat and toil from my foremothers, I have a better marriage than a woman did twenty, or even, (Hello Susan Maushart!) ten years ago. Feminism means I get to parse my choices and, at least, participate in a patriarchal institution with my eyes open, while holding my nose.

This is where I have to assert the feminism behind my conversation of colour analysis above. I was told recently by my (toxic in this regard) DM that "It doesn't matter what you wear, until you lose weight you won't look nice." FWIW I am somewhere between a size 16-18, and pretty tall. So not actually shockingly fat. But I was (as was intended) deeply hurt by the assertion that until I was acceptably thin again, and until I starved and tortured myself to that shape again, and until I dedicated all my time and mental energy to restricting my food intake and curbing my bodily requirements - I was never going to 'look nice' because I was fat and therefore- of course! - disgusting.

Getting my colours done was a big old 'fuck you!' to the assertion that my life is on hold until I am more patriarchy-compliant looking. I love colours, I love surrounding myself with colours in my house, I love being outside under bright skies, and I loved trying on various colours and working out which ones made my eyes sparkle and my mouth smile in delight. So, for me, enjoying my physical appearance is a small act of feminist resistance to the idea that I cannot take pleasure in myself because The Man does not approve of my body. It's the body of a woman who's not complying.

And it's wearing a gorgeous blue today, which lifts my spirit every time I see it.

yeah.

this is the thing - i think the patriarchal and commercial 'beauty' or 'diet' industry exploits something that is a real need and plasters false need and issues and aims on top. of course we want to throw out the industry and patriarchy but the real needs they exploit don't need to be thrown out too.

so i saw on this thread that we were trying to separate the two - for example i went on about incense, essential oils, the difference nice smells can make to mood and sense of self care because we are sensual beings. the industry exploits that with over priced perfume, with adverts for shampoo that go on about the smell and associate it with relaxation, self nurturing etc. the fact is for many of us indulging our senses, such as smell, is good for us and we enjoy it and we still want to do that in ways that suit us without buying into the crap. so incense, essential oils, mixing yourself up your favourite oils with a bit of basic moisturiser and massaging your hands/feet etc.

and people have also expressed that they like to feel their body gaining strength and health and energy. those natural enough feelings and likes and needs have YES been massively exploited and tangled up with diet/size/fashion industry etc etc. but that doesn't make the desire for a healthy strong body and the satisfaction in losing excess weight or getting fitter a bad or pathological thing. some women, credit to them, are happy with their bodies despite being what would be called overweight and still find they are fit and healthy and strong - they don't fit the stats and are fine. others don't feel healthy and strong and are aware their bodies aren't doing great with extra weight, sedentary lifestyle, crap diet etc. some of us it is even more complicated for because it is health problems that have led us to gain weight and the same health problems are exascerbated by the weight.

dealing with these issues gets complicated because, as people have said, they need to unpack what are the real needs and health and feel good issues from the external pressure, patriarchy, commercially promoted issues. hence i do think being able to explore it with other feminists is a good and helpful thing. i dont' think my life and my health and other women's lives, health and well being are trivial or watering down feminism. i see nothing wrong with reclaiming our well being as our issue to deal with as we see fit in resistance to an exploitative industry that tries to tell us how we must do it. to deny needs and desires because a crap industry has exploited our needs and desires and tried to pervert them seems to be throwing out the baby with the bath water to me and an approach that is bound to short circuit.

sorry - epically long post

yy. i will not be made to feel as though i am compromising my beliefs because i acknowledge i am obese and uncomfortable and want to do something about it. i think being trapped in an unhealthy and painful body on principle is more damaging to me as an individual.

i think i had assumed a much greater collective/ corporate knowledge of the issues than tal, though, who presumably assumed the opposite. so a lot of people were discussing their moves towards personal wellbeing having already considered the issues of conformity (if not on the resisiting compulsory femininity thread, then internally) and so were posting mindfully, rather than ignoring the wider concerns.

what SaF said

for my wellbeing i am doing 'acts against the partriachy'. they can be small & trivial. size doesnt matter....

my second act against the partriachy is to make an effort with both my SILs. i used to think they are odd, girly girl creatures and i really did not bother to hide my distain. no i dont give a shit about your hair being straight - why have you spent a hour in the shower & used all the hot water?!?!

but i have decided that there is something about being the second sex that sets women against women. so i am going to make a genuine effort with them to find common ground.

then obviously attempt to charm them away from their foolish ways but goal number one is not to be a woman setting against another woman.

partriachy ..... WTF... my talent is not spelling!

Wow... have just read back a bit and my head is reeling, but in a good way, I think. You're all making me think really hard about a lot of things and that's good!! It really is... and I would love to keep posting on this thread if that's ok, because I like it when my brain is being stretched, but I also know that I can't really keep up because I don't know much anything enough about feminism. Sorry, should it be Feminism? With a capital F?

I think I'd be one of those women most Feminist would despise, because I am a girly girl. I try not to be annoying about it and take stupid amounts of time with my hair and use up all the hot water, but I do wear make-up, I love gorgeous scents like vanilla essential oil, I like dresses (they're comfortable)... and after reading back this morning I started thinking about why I like all that. Have I been groomed into it? Or do I like it on a visceral, it-makes-me-feel-good level?

Why do I wear mascara?
Because I like that it brings out the colour of my eyes.
So my eyes aren't good enough by themselves, they need to be improved. Who said so?
Oh... good point. :(

I like having manicured fingernails, it makes them look pretty.
So they're not good enough as they are? Who said so?
Oh... :(

I like making the best of my hair and having a nice shiny swingy bob. And I like playing with hair colour, it amuses me.
So my hair isn't good enough in its unretouched form? It's not good enough if I either grew it long and didn't style it, or cut it off?
Oh.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick thinking like that? Because it's making me a bit sad.

The thing is, any of the grooming and styling things I do, I do for me. I'm not chasing a man, I've got a man, and he loves me exactly as I am. He loves me on a Sunday morning in baggy sweats, with coffee breath and rat's nest hair, and he loves me on a Monday morning, when I'm dressed and done up for work. He doesn't care if I shave my legs or wear mascara. So I don't do these things for him. I do them for me. Or I think I do. But I am wondering, how much of this have I been conditioned to think?

Please be patient with me as I'm trying to think my way through this, and if the discussion goes over my head. I'm really grateful for the brain-stretch.

no one would despise you for you being girly - well they would be odd if they did then called themselves a feminist. they might point out that 'girly' is probably a misleading word though - as in it is acting out femininity of the variety that is socially constructed in this culture which is no more girly and maybe less girly than a woman with hairy legs, pits and possibly upper lip, no make up or hair product on etc iyswim as that is what a 'real' girl would look like isn't it? so what is girly is actually very different to what is 'feminine' as defined by patriarchy and it's industries.

:)
But I think I get it.

Posting on this thread, I do feel a bit like a very little girl wanting to keep up with her big sisters. I mean that in a nice way. :) As long as I'm not annoying anyone I'll just try to keep up.

"feeling a bit like a very little girl trying to keep up with her big sisters"

Jacksmania - I feel exactly the same way! What a perfect turn of phrase :)