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February 20, 2008

Hi everyone,

In the past year, I've noticed that there's one topic above all others that works this community into a lather. No, it's not Barack versus Hillary versus John versus Mike, although that's very hot. It's not even whether New Year's resolutions are the devil's own invention or whether women should breastfeed in public -- although, for the love of all that's holy, I'm really NOT recommending we dredge up that last topic.

I'm talking about body image. In an ode to the incredible discussions we've watched women bloggers have about their bodies in the past year, BlogHer has opened a new channel called Body Image. We're kicking off this topic with a new community essay event called "A Letter to My Body." Our goal? To feature YOUR writing, natch.

Kicking it off is Suzanne Reisman -- yes, that same Suzanne of the popular Swimsuit Brigade for Honest Photos -- who launched this event with her own valentine to self:

Dear Body,

I know we've had our differences in the past, but I am very happy to say that I'm learning to appreciate everything you do for me more and more each year. Since we live in a world which foists unattainable beauty standards on women, destroying our ability to appreciate our own figures and dashing our self-esteem on the hard rocks of media saturation, I have been unfairly harsh in judging you for years. (However, I felt vindicated for you when I read that a study in Spain of 1,000 women "concluded that Spanish women were not the very skinny tall types that designers idealize, but rather fell into three main body types: hourglass, pear shape and cylinder. It also found that 4 of 10 women had trouble finding clothes to fit, mainly because sizes varied from store to store and because what was on the racks was too small." I also thought, No shit, Sherlock.)...

Here's how this writing exercise works: Every two weeks, BlogHer is going to feature a new blogger and her letter and do a call out for more letters. We want the good, the bad and the ugly, baby. We want in on that private dialogue you've been having with your self -- whether it's with your thighs, your insomnia, your heart or your own harsh inner voice. Join us: Just add your post to our automatic tracker, Mr. Linky, at the bottom of this page so that we can find you!

I think you'll love the wildly different letters posted so far. For example, check out Cecile Weekly, the very first blogger who responded to Suzanne's call to action:

Dear body,

...[W]hat are you trying to tell me? That I’m too busy? That I lead a too stressful life? That I should cut back on my ambitions? My sweet package of blood and bones, do you honestly think you are the first to tell me? Don’t you think my boyfriend, my parents, my friends and even my colleagues haven’t been telling me the same already? Because they have, and still are. In fact, you are rather late telling me things I already know...
~ More at Cecile Weekly

Cecile ends up asking her bod out for a glass of wine and a cease-fire, but Y of Joy Unexpected is having none of it:

Dear body,

Making peace with you, learning to love you is harder than I imagined it would be. You gave me my beautiful children, my three beautiful children. It should be easy to love you for that reason alone. I do love you for that. I do.

But, my God, I hate you too...
~ More at Joy Unexpected

Y is one of a crowd -- so many women who have written letters thus far about fighting with our bodies, even as we condemn the media messages that inspire us to shred our own self confidence. Some letters go right there yet still manage to be remarkably funny. "Dear body," writes Marste. "Thank you for losing weight on 1800 calories a day, but gaining weight on 800, because you know what I’m up to. Thank you for doing your damndest to ensure that we would survive, even when I was actively trying to destroy us both." Don't miss all the links already at the bottom of Suzanne's post, including JeninShanghai, Average Jane, Loss of Memory, One Fat Momma. Still other posts are love letters, like Nudemuse, Go Workout Mom and A Stitch in Time.

It's a love-hate mashup, sometimes both in the same blog -- which may be why this initiative earned a video from fitness and diet guru Susan Powter who was inspired to do some spoken art on the topic. Watch her An Open Letter to My Body. You have to see it to "get" the mantra and her sense of humor. Here's my favorite quote:

An open letter to my body is "thank you." Over the years what have I done? What has every woman done?
~ More from Susan Powter

Not every woman, however, has taken this letter in the same direction as two bloggers whose personal circumstances and artistry with words take them beyond their mirrors into a different study of the physique. Nickie of Nickie's Nook, who is blind and in chronic pain, writes:

"My letter isn't the typical letter, focusing on typical body image issues, but it I've felt the pull to write it since I saw this call for letters. So, here's my letter. Dear Body, Let me first say that this isn't an easy letter to write. There has been a lot of tension in and between us, and it's not always easy for me to get in touch with you. Further, there are things I may say that you won't like, and things you may want me to know that I don't like. But I hope that this letter can be the start of a dialogue between the two of us. You know, sometimes, I honestly don't like you..."

My favorite of them all, however, is Liz Henry's 2006 essay, re-posted for this occasion on Badgerbag. Swimming out from under the influence of anaesthesia, Liz revisits the moment of her son's birth, bonds with the woman in the next bed, muses about sex, peeing, and calls herself out as captain of a mutinous ship of self:

"Oh, body. I like you okay even if I crack jokes about wishing to be a brain in a jar...You're so fragile & yet robust, like a ... spaceship with a rogue AI in some of its limbs and engines, so that the wires that come out of my pilot-self in the navigation console are getting strange messages. My orders get lost on the way to you, eddying in electronic backwaters, static on the line, sensory input down. You refuse to be a perfect tool for me, you buck and protest, you're a horse and I'm the rider, and you let me know it."
~ More on Badgerbag

Read. Enjoy. And then we invite you to throw your own body on the keyboard and join us.

Best,
Lisa

for

Elisa, Jory and Lisa

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