Being ‘Body’ Brave

The media in my mind has potential to do and share so much good. It could inspire, motivate and help grow a world a positivity…

But instead it tends to be devoted to stereotypes which play on our weaknesses and manipulate our society into one of commercialism and exclusion.

When I was younger I was shy and I hid my ambitions and abilities beneath my cloak of self-consciousness and I believed myself to be inadequate because I did not feel comfortable in my exterior.

This is because in the media, whether it be film, social media or advertisement women are presented in specific forms and the general movement is one which glorifies women’s abilities based on their beauty and body image and this is only really applicable in specific categories. The media has blown up this idea of beauty being defined in a specific way completely out of proportion to the extent where we judge each-other and ourselves based on how we fit into the entrenched socialised norm.

I was never this girl. I never could be her. Because of this, I went through very long periods of self-doubt and anger because I believe myself inadequate. I was so manipulate by society needing me to conform to that I didn’t think that I had any chance of being described as beautiful and that my body image was inadequate and therefore so was my entire being.

It has been a long journey to try rebuild my belief in myself and although I have had much success and now have some confidence in what I have to say it is a continuous battle for me. Every time I look into the mirror I have to rediscover my beauty because deep inside of me is an ingrained fear of not fitting in.

However, as I said, I have grown and I’ve learnt a lot and I have met many young women who believe in themselves and it’s their confidence which multiplies their natural beauty exponentially and I hope, as someone now on a media platform, that instead of focussing our techniques on empowering some based only on specific outward attributes we should rather aim to be inclusive and inspiring of all people.

My friend, Fifi (allzuri.blogspot.com), and I are entirely different. We both love fashion but even within that love we have different tastes and different aesthetic identities. We also have different body shapes…

It is rare that we wear anything which is the same but the new suede-type skirt which has re-entered street style is so cool that we both ended up buying the first one we saw… Oops.

But it didn’t matter. The nature of the skirt is so incredible that it flatters basically every body shape and it’s so legitimately awesome that it gives an instant confidence boost.

Photo taken by Carl Jacobs – carljacobsza.tumblr.com

As you can clearly see… we wore it differently.

Photo taken by Jemma Richmond (me)

Fifi went for a contrasting grunge look, combining the skirt with chunky black accessories and a monochromatic polar neck that was the perfect shade to compliment the skirt. The look was cool and edgy and she pulled it off effortlessly (and from experience fashion is rarely without effort). She worked with her slim figure by belting the skirt emphasising her waist and the leather jacket contrasted with the look and gave her that I-could-be-a-rocker-if-I-chose-to look.

On my side, I went for a completely different take, opting for a lighter, casual look. I paired it with a fun printed T, one of my Friends shirts which always gets thumbs up from everyone including strangers without fail, and an over-sized wool cardigan. I also went preppy with old soviets and clean white socks (my school socks never looked better). My waist is something I usually show off as it is the smallest part of my body but I am trying to grow confidence in the rest of my body and I actually prefer to wear the skirt lower, towards my hips.

Photo taken by Refiloe Mokgele – allzuri.blogspot.com

I think it is important to note that neither of us was trying to manipulate our looks and our bodies to fit a certain ideal. We could wear chunky jackets and experiment with our looks because being an individual and partaking in the art of fashion is more important than trying to conform.

To me it was almost as if we had not tried to ‘twin’ it but rather were wearing entirely unique skirts because our styles are so diverse and the way the skirt worked with our bodies was also different.

I must admit, however, that it was difficult for me going through the photos and I was tempted to fall back onto my old habits of believing skinnier-is-better and comparing my form to Fifi’s.

Every time my mind wondered to the path of doubt and misconception I would consciously have to remind myself of my own beauty and disregard the negative thoughts and comparisons.

As a blogger selfconfidence is not always as easy as it may appear. I have to filter through photos of myself all the time and asses the image quality and it is extremely difficult not to get demoralized and I often end up being overwhelmed by my flaws rather than focusing on my attributes. I often have to leave the photos for a bit and try to re-evaluate them later with fresh positive eyes.

I think it is important to remember that as women and in fact as people we are very different. We look, think and act in beautiful and individual ways but that doesn’t mean we have to feel the need to conform and think that we in any way have limitations. Neither Fifi nor I had to stop ourselves from buying that skirt. We liked it so we got it. It wasn’t about how others may judge our body shape in the item it was about us and our taste.

Photo taken by Jemma Richmond (me)

Photo taken by Refiloe Mokgele – allzuri.blogspot.com

Photo taken by Jemma Richmond (me)

Photo taken by Refiloe Mokgele – allzuri.blogspot.com

Photo taken by Jemma Richmond (me)

Photo taken by Refiloe Mokgele – allzuri.blogspot.com

If I can give advice to anybody battling with their self-image it’s that you need to stop worrying about other people and comparing yourself. Trust me I know this is difficult and it is something which has been so normalised that going against it actually requires courage but if you can build confidence in yourself nothing else matters.

Be brave, be confident and tell yourself that you are beautiful every single day.

x J

PS. I still haven’t quite got this right but I am trying…

…Also please note that this super cool location is the old abandoned zoo next to UCT.

Girl Is Not Equivalent To Easy

Short and angry

I am always noting sexism around me, always pointing it out and telling people off for their offensive comments. Usually they are small, sleight of hand if you will, basic stereotypical and deeply entrenched sexist things but it is rare that I hear something blatant enough to enrage me.

Now understand the context of me being tired and overworked but also at the stage in my progression as someone striving for gender equality where I am tired of trying to explain why I feel dismissed in a calm eloquent manner which is more concerned with not offending the perpetrators than standing up for myself. However I am not trying to excuse what I did today. It doesn’t need an excuse as I do believe it was within reason.

Picture an engineering class, bored looks on their faces, sprawled about the room with no idea of order what so ever. We had a project due today and most people are tired or not there. There are about 15 girls and maybe 50 boys present. Now our lecturer asks for a volunteer to do an example on the board. Most of us don’t know what’s going on or really care at this stage, he isn’t a good lecturer, no one particularly likes him and it’s been a long day so as usual no body responds and after trying various people the only person who actually knows what’s going on finally ends his misery and goes to do the example.

She gets it all right, knows exactly what to do and ends up with the successful answer and probably teaches us more in those few minutes then he does in an entire lecture.

As she goes to sit down he pats her on the back and says to the class, “look guys, if this girl can do it, you boys can definitely do it too”….

The class expressed some surprise with most people noting that the sexist comment was well beyond acceptable even for those who do not particularly care. At first I didn’t realise what he had said. I suppose subconsciously I didn’t think I would hear such a comment in a university setting. As the lesson progressed I started to get angry.

To some it may seem that a comment, that an unthoughtful few words is too insignificant to get angry about and although there is much to do with sexism that is far more physically and emotionally harmful than this, this is a fundamental representation for how women are treated in our society… Especially in a degree like engineering.

With a few words he dismissed everything she had done, her work, her effort, and her brain were swept to worthless because of her gender. THIS IS WRONG.

I am taking steps in the direction of no longer keeping quiet and so after the lecture I went to him and expressed that what he had said was dismissive and offensive and that I thought it was unfair. I tried to explain that we already in the minority and we are already treated in a derogatory fashion and it does not help for someone of authority to add to this and teach our peers that this behaviour is okay.

I did succeed in making him uncomfortable and he did admit the error in his ways however did not apologise and it took most of the day for me to calm down in fact I think I am still shaking.

Some of my peers do think that I shouldn’t have said something. They think that it may jeopardise my academic success if I don’t keep quiet. My response to this is: Firstly, there are people who risk their lives for gender rights, I genuinely think this is the least I can do. Secondly if this does affect my academic relationship there are more than enough routes for me to protect myself and I stayed well within my rights. And thirdly, let us not get too melodramatic, I do believe his head is a little too big for me too affect him to such an extent.

What I do not understand is why I was the only person who said something? Why weren’t my peers similarly reeling in anger?

This treatment is NOT okay.

Being a girl means you have a specific body part. It does not mean that something must be easy if you can understand it. It does not mean we have to conform to specific roles or characteristics. It does not mean we can be silenced and dismissed with a few words.

We are supposed to be equals. We should be allowed the opportunity to prove ourselves as anything that we want to, whether it be an anthropologist, a financial accountant or even an engineer.

And NOBODY no matter what position you are in should be allowed to dismiss us.

The University Cape Town and specifically for me the Engineering department is not doing enough to prevent gender discrimination and exclusion.

This is not fair, and it is not right and it needs to change.

Doing something as a girl should not be synonymous with something being easy.

An Idealistic Women’s Month Rant

I have never wished to be a boy and I like who I am and what I am but I do find that I get treated differently and I don’t get treated at the standard that I would like to be which is increasingly frustrating.

Women’s Day (9 August) in South Africa exists to commemorate an event in our history where women stood together despite differences like race or religion and displayed strength and bravery. We are supposed to look back and learn, appreciate and try and utilise the characteristics that those women stood for. Sadly I don’t believe that this is really achieved at all. Women’s day for me was about a failing ANC Women’s league and a distasteful and rude stationary advert which symbolised the lack of forward progress towards equality.

#HappyWomensDay compliments of Bic Pens

To start with the latter… This was an advertisement by the company Bic, a blue pen staple, who, on Women’s Day, decided to put out a special message just for us. It read: “Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man and work like a boss”

Um hello? I would like to know who was the idiot in charge who authorised it? There is no way to view this where it is not insensitive, infuriating and rude. I am not surprised that somebody came up with this what I am surprised at is that they thought it would be okay to publish this and that the appropriate moment was Women’s day.

I am angry. I am furious in fact and I am battling to come up with an eloquent way to call them sexist pigs.

This proved to me that we haven’t made much progress. Every day I fight to have words like “cunt” and “pussy” taken out of people’s vocabularies as an adequate way to degrade someone. Calling someone a vagina to make them feel insignificant is not appropriate. And because adolescent teenage boys are so self-absorbed that they couldn’t care less about how there selfish use of language could be adding to a socially accepted way to entrench the dismissal of women, I am constantly hitting a brick wall. Despite this I had faith that the more grown up version of society at least kept their ill-use of words to themselves but Bic showed to the entire world that this is not true and left much of equality-aware society reeling with shock.

The other issues is that of the ANC Women’s League. Now much like the Youth League they rarely come into much focus despite the desperate need for them and the very many problems surrounding their specific group of people.

This organisation is a subcategory to the current leadership of our land and is intended to represent the issues specific to women and try and draw attention to gender equality within the decisions made by our government. Now on a whole this group doesn’t really do much. Occasionally they get involved but it is rare that the general public sees any kind of representation or results.

It is very difficult to make a comment on this because of the complex political association and for the most part this isn’t really comment about the ANC. Women are one of the groups of society which are not yet at a level of equality to their counterparts and so in decisions made by whatever group in any part of society their needs to be a consideration of the effect this will have on gender rights now the ANC women’s league is supposed to be representing us in government.

On Women’s Day for the first time in months the general public were exposed to the organisation and this was in celebration of women and the only thing that really come out of it was the idea that maybe South Africa could have a female president for the next round. I felt like I couldn’t really celebrate anything because in the last year, in fact the last couple of years we still haven’t made much progress in gender equality in this country (hence Bic’s ability to publish such an incredible failure of an advertisement) and so I felt the celebrations were sort of self-congratulatory and unreasonable and put a damper on the day for me because it simply emphasised the lack of achievements we’ve made recently in the struggle to uplift our gender. Although without looking at the general politics of it, it is about time that South Africa got a female president from whatever party.

On a more personal level women’s day did allow me to appreciate the strength that some women manage to show despite adversaries and a lack of encouragement but it also made me sad that even in my own degree there still is such a low inspiration for young women in this arena that we still only manage to make up a quarter of our classes.

I want to not acknowledge myself as a woman but as a person and I don’t want the fact that I am female to define the choices people make in viewing me or dealing with me. However this is an idealistic view and I cannot live in this society and expect it to come true on its own without dealing with it.

And so I will claim my gender (or sex depending on how you define the words) and I will claim my right to being treated equally to my counterparts.

But why would I place such an issue alongside a fashion post? The connection may not be an obvious one but to me it is crucial. Fashion has for many years been a fundamental part of the so called female-culture and it is linked to much of the dismissal and issues associated with our struggle. Religious control is maintained by female dress code, media created body image is entrenched by clothing, even rape is excused based on women’s outfits. And yes I will not deny that male stereotypes are effected by outer dress as well but I do not believe it is executed to the same degree.

Fashion has formed a part of ever leap of empowerment that women have made. With freedom came pants, short skirts and bikini bottoms and today they may seem trivial in some cultures although in others with more entrenched gender inequality we still note women whose freedoms are even dictated in there dress sense.

For me clothing has never acted as a way to fit in with the commercialized norm but has rather been a tool for me to fight stereotype and express myself physically.

Fashion, like most art forms, can be utilized on the path to revolution. At the moment fashion is being abused as a way for women to be shoved into stereotypical roles and their supposed freedoms abused. Whereas I’d like to inspire a generation (of men and women) who use their clothing to express rather than conform and to break gender defined roles.

When I cut my hair I got questioned, dismissed, and left out. My decision was not accepted or liked and most girls and guys did not appreciate what I was doing. To my peers it was strange and required bravery and stupidity but why is this so? My male friends are going through stages of growing their hair which they now have the freedom to take control of (something I believe they should have had in school too). But, if they one day decide they are bored and cut it off to what is considered the standard, no body bats an eye or cares. It’s there decision and their haircut doesn’t seem to have the magically Rapunzel like properties that ours does (this might be because princess stories -also deeply sexist- weren’t a major focus of their childhoods).

Girls should be allowed to make decisions about their looks without being judged. Currently we tend to make fashion choices based on the dictation of society, a male run society, but I yearn for the day when we can choose to wear whatever we want and it not be questioned. Where you can wear a short skirt because you feel good in it and not have your motives interrogated or your body judged.

In this particular look I am wearing an old trench coat, new MRP Shoes (which have been declared to me as guys styled shoes but I don’t think any style should belong to a specific gender), my favourite pair of TopShop Mom jeans and my usual sweater-and-collar look.

I probably drink to much coffee on a regular basis

Now many aspects of this look could be described as boy-ish or masculine which I have two issues with. This first is that I genuinely believe that a choice in clothing should not have to be defined by gender. What do your sexual organs have to do with your clothing? And secondly the description of something as being that of a gender which is not your own is often intended to be off-putting and derogatory. Boys tend to not like be called feminine and girls tend to not like being called masculine. I wish for a society in which we do not fear being associate with another gender. Gender should not define our thoughts about ourselves or others.

There are plenty of colours in the world other than Pink and Blue.

“All through life there were distinctions – toilets for meb, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women – then, at the end, the graves are identical.” – Leila Aboulela in Minaret

All photos on Middle Campus of The University of Cape Town by Refiloe Mokgele from allzuri.blogspot.com