While sitting at the Starbucks bar top counter one day studying for homework, I was greeted by a friendly face. A beautiful, tall brunette woman sat next to me and jokingly laughed, stating “Sorry, don’t mean to crowd you it’s just busy in here!” I of course assured her she was not bothering me, and because of our short interaction, we continued to talk. She asked me where I was going to school, and we quickly discovered we were both Rams, her now an alum, but still sharing that common bond. I found out her name was Molly, she was 25 and worked as a business consultant. 

She asked me what I was working on and explained my relentless advocacy for body positivity I have been doing since I was in high school, which I am now creating a project on. Her eyes lit up- “I love that kinda thing” she explained. I quickly decided she would be a perfect subject to interview. A complete stranger, but another woman, burned by the same societal standards placed on us from a young age. 

I quickly sparked a conversation about it with her, asking first if she could be my subject, which she then cheerfully agreed. I started by asking her about her journey to become more body positive, which she then confessed she hadn’t started until recently.

I began by asking her, “What would you say a healthy attitude about your body would look like or what are you trying to achieve?” Her answer was vulnerable, but interesting to hear, stating “I think it’s probably if I were to think about what a healthy attitude is, I would say taking care of my body and thanking it, but in reality I feel negative towards my body… most of the time I dislike it. I would choose beauty over health, and I don’t like that that impacts how i feel so much. I was recently talking to my boyfriend and he was saying that he eats to ‘feel good’ and I reflected on how that looks for me and realized I eat to ‘look good.’” Hearing her comment about most of the time disliking her body, how could such a beautiful women dislike her body so much?

Listening to her speak, I also thought it was so interesting she brought up the differences between the way she sees her body and the way her boyfriend does, the gender differences in how society teaches girls versus boys how to view food and their bodies from a young age is so vastly different. With women being told to be small and dainty and men being encouraged to take up as much room as possible and be strong. 

The idea of being smaller, and trying to minimize yourself was another Molly discussed when I asked her what her biggest insecurity is. She explained, “honestly, I am always afraid of being bigger than others in the room, I never want someone to think of me as being ‘too big’”. This was shocking to hear her say as when she initially sat next to me, I thought she was perfectly proportioned and her being “too big” would have never crossed my mind. But now her apologizing for “crowding me” added up- she’s worried about taking up too much space.

“I started to notice I felt negative about my body around 7-8 years old. I remember comparing my body to other girls and thinking ‘they’re so much smaller and more feminine than me’ even though we were little kids, I mean how feminine can you really be at that age?” 

This was an interesting comment, the way we view femininity as being young, small, etc. was something I began to think about after she said this, why do we think this way? Why do we want women to appear like children? Be small, be dainty, submissive, as if we’re just children, reducing our self worth so much. All of these years of learning, maturing, growing, just to want to be like a child again? 

Aspiring to this child-like ideal of femininity is extremely harmful, and inevitably, unachievable. Having this ideology can continue to ruin the self esteem of women. These ideals need to be modified, as a society we need to start embracing women, women of all shapes, all sizes, and women like Molly, beautiful, smart, well-spoken, but unable to see it because she remains broken down by the unachievable standards of beauty and femininity.