I have told people that I’m jealous. I’ve always been the girl that actually feels resentful when  I see another female that my mind deems prettier than me. But what many don’t know is why I am the way I am. I was conditioned, from before I understood that I was even female, to compare myself to others. My mother and other females in my family constantly obssessed over their weight. They bought magazines with slender, sexy women on them and in them and moaned about being fat. They went on diets all the time. They complained about how much weight they had picked up at family dinners. Everybody got super excited when someone had lost weight. They wore clothes to try and hide their fat tummies, big bums, or thunder thighs.

I was constantly compared to my cousin. This bubbled over into my school years when my cousin was more popular than me: Girls wanted to be like her and boys wanted to be with her. I was just the chubby sidekick who people called  “ironing board”* and “shwapha”*. I was the quiet one where as she was like a beautiful storm.

I had small breasts (of different sizes) and a small bum and a chubby tummy. She had big breasts and a wide ass and a flat tummy.I did my first diet in grade 6, at the age of 11. In retrospect,  there is something fundamentally wrong with that. At that age, I already understood how I had to look to “be beautiful”, I understood that being fat was not a part of that ideal.

My mother always told me I was beautiful. She used to say “You are so beautiful, but if you could just lose a bit of weight…” or “You’re so pretty, you just need to be a bit smaller” or “Remember how pretty you were when you lost all that weight”. How do I blame her? She grew up in a society that dictated that ideal of beauty to her too. She didn’t understand the dramatic effect that those double-sided compliments would have on my self esteem.

A close friend once pointed out that I look in the mirror way more than most people. I have never seen myself as vain, so this comment disturbed me a bit. After thinking about if for a few days I realised why I do it: when I look in the mirror, I am constantly complimenting myself, not because I think I’m the best thing since sliced bread but because I’m trying to fake it till I make it. I have to convince myself that I am beautiful, size 9 feet and size 40 waist, acne, flabby arms, different sized breasts and all. The best thing has started to happen, I am starting to believe myself.  For the first time in my life, I can look in the mirror and genuinely like and appreciate what I see. This doesn’t happen all the time but it never used to happen at all so I know I’ve made progress.

I still put my body down and I still compare myself to other women every day of my life but I like to think I’m getting better. I read this status on Facebook “you don’t have to be pretty like her, you can be pretty like you”and I swear it was my saving grace. I say that to myself every time I catch myself comparing myself to other women and that’s one more battle that I’ve won against my mind.

I also make a great effort to avoid putting my body down infront of my son because I don’t want him to learn to be that way. I always tell him he is beautiful and that I’m proud of him because fuckit he will not grow up hating what he see’s in the mirror. I don’t allow anyone to talk shit to him about what he chooses to wear or play with or eat. I am careful about the nick names I allow people to call him, and I try my best to refrain from making him feel like certain clothing or shoes or accessories make him look better. I want him to know that he is the most lovely when he is just him. If I have anything to do with it, society will not impose it’s unrealistic, cruel ideals on him.

I see that I needed my son, so I could have someone to love myself for, besides myself.And I’m learning and I’m growing and I’m hopeful.

*Ironing board: a term used to refer to people who are seen as having no curves, small breasts and a small bum.

*Shwapha (isiShwapha): an isiZulu word used to refer to a person with no bum.