Does your body talk? Mine does. It talks, whispers, and sometimes even yells at me.
This strong relationship with my body has not been a recent one. It came out beautifully after a long period of confusion when I accepted my body the way it was.
Do you recall having any angry thoughts against yours? Maybe you didn’t like your extra belly fat or large hips or thighs? Or maybe it was your small breasts, something that I did think about and was made fun off.
I understand breasts can be a touchy topic, but it usually doesn’t stop at that. For instance, for us to have a positive body image, a woman’s body needs to be less objectified, policed and abused. We need positive examples where are enabled not to feel ashamed of our bodies. Similarly in the case of breasts, creating a positive image around it can slow down the sexualisation associated with it.
On the plus side, if we normalise body parts or body functions and remove expectations and stereotypes about perfect bodies, then we automatically begin to respect bodies the way they are and become even comfortable to have honest discussions that are not vulgar, sexist or hurtful in any way to the other person.
This is sure to work in the case of breasts as well because breasts don’t only mean something to be leered upon, stared at or be objectified. They also represent individual body choices and also breastfeeding.
Just imagine the impact if we all had such positive body discussions right from our childhood. Wouldn’t all of us have grown up, thinking differently about our bodies and of other bodies? There would have been a decrease in all our inferiority complexes. If we start challenging years of social conditioning, maybe we could also dig deeper into the problem of sexual harassment.
If we normalised our bodies, maybe, the outrage towards public breastfeeding would have also reduced. Yes, this is in reference to the cover photo of the recent Grihalakshmi magazine published in Malayalam.
Yes, this one didn’t go well with many in Kerala. Coming from the same state where this magazine was published, I can say that I wasn’t much surprised at some of the negative reactions.
To me, it showed that people were standing on a very thin line wherein they say they are open-minded, but at the same time they are not.
However, there were also many who trolled this move because the model was Christian and posing as a Hindu and various other technicalities of she not being a married woman etc. Perhaps, people should have just have appreciated a bold move like this in a Malayalam magazine instead of all the shaming and trolling. Because what good did that do?
Of course, it’s not new that many conservative attitudes exist in Kerala inspire of having a high literacy rate.
However, living in this century, one just can’t just argue about traditions and cultures all day long because this kind of a move helps to prevent sexualising breasts and women’s bodies. At the end of the day, that is the bigger picture here which many of us fail to realise.
I believe one change can lead to other changes and make them sustainable, and it doesn’t matter if we begin with breastfeeding.
