Learning Curves

She said it with a half laugh, half snort, her nose buried in paper work as she dismissed my presence with these impertinent words; “I wonder what God was up to when he was creating you… maybe he thought he should make half a person.”  

(Snicker)

The potty-mouthed slur came after she had traced her palm along my waist and over my hips, her mouth upturned into a sneer, as if marveling at the sheer oddity that my waist nearly fit in the expanse of her opened palm.

******

You see, I wasn’t blessed with the typical body type that should have come with my ethnicity, you know, the type with the ass that shakes when feet touch the ground and those magnificent swelling hips that sway like the wind is paying them homage when they walk.

The type of body type that awakens the incontestable urge in men’s groins to pro-create as their eyes stay fixated on those glorious retreating posteriors.

Instead, I arrived into my womanhood not quite right looking: light skinned and wrapped up in a svelte frame with dainty feet, thin lips, tiny fingers, narrow hips and a tiny waist.

Too delicate to possibly endure the thrusts of a man in the throngs of passion (because I’d break in two) or capable of handling the ferocity of child birth (because my body cannot possibly handle my supposed God-given purpose because I wasn’t blessed with the child bearing hips that are famous for the job).

I’m seemingly not worth either trouble.

I stand doll – like, an ostensible human ersatz of a mannequin, displaying this odd existence, to be forever trapped behind the concrete glass of opinions and approvals. In fact, according to narrow minded, insecure statistics; I fit right into the category of “issues”; I must not eat enough because I am mortified of gaining a few extra pounds or I simply have no use for food.

Or both.

Or perhaps, I’m just the snobbish, bitchy type like all the women who look like me are. We walk around, adorned in plastic perfection stealing fellow women’s husbands. Or I am one those women who frowns upon the rest who are “natural beauties”, you know those who’d make good wives in our cultural context because they are not obsessed with their looks.

Or the size of their waists.

Or stretch marks.

Or Lipstick.

Apparently, I am the bane of their existence, Me. The type that is married to be worn on his arm, like a charm, for show. To massage his ego.

Never for support. Or procreation. Or Love. Or Commitment. Or mutual growth.

Nope, I am condemned to be a trophy. As if a woman’s body type is testament to her character, her will, her soul. I can hear those voices echo “Kula, wacha kujinyima.” (Eat. Stop starving yourself). And I’m suddenly craving Burgers. Two. With all that gooey cheese and extra onions. And some Mambo Italia pizza.

And this “odd, intolerable appearance” of mine, being a Kenyan woman, with a very Kenyan name, has formed the basis of my being shamed, because I am not woman enough for not having the tell-tale conspicuous, shapely posterior, well-rounded breasts & those celebrated protuberant child bearing hips.

Apparently, being alive and healthy is not enough; I needed to have been born thicker to have the crucial stamp of approval to exist as an African woman in this cold, hard culture I found myself born into.

It means, that my boyfriend “suffers” me as a consequence of the hype of dating the stereo-typical light skinned girl who ups his street credibility and the poor fellow likely fights to subdue his inner Tarzan who’s secretly aching for the feel of a real woman, because I couldn’t possibly be enough to placate the raging hormones of an African blooded man in his twenties.

What he really needs, what he really wants (but is too discomfited to say) is a real African woman.

Bullshit.

I was once mortified of the fact that my genes carry the appearance of some inexplicable, far off European ancestor that I know nothing about and that my body tells nothing of my African roots. I constantly second guessed my outfits; fitting and re-fitting, afraid of looking at my reflection in the mirror because those voices had crept up inside my confidence, decimating its core, ripping it into tiny pieces of shame such that looking at myself in the mirror meant that I did not see beautiful but their skewed various definitions of me; Bony. Skinny. Not Woman enough. Flat Ass. “Two of your thighs are one just one of mine!”

The voices of those women who have found themselves confronting the Media’s nonsensical definition of perfection: girls who look somewhat like me. And so I came to understand them.

The invasive, unkind and narcissistic comments about my body have come from women who have been taught that they themselves are not beautiful enough.

It’s not my body they love to hate but the idea that Society seems to have created; that Beautiful belongs to a reserve few. That we, all of us, as women, cannot collectively and jointly be Beautiful. Apparently the definition of Beauty in this messed up world can only belong to one of us at a time, that Beauty cannot possibly be ALL of us with our skin and bones and bumps and curves and asses and thickness and skinniness and flatness and narrowness.

We have been cajoled by the media that we need to conform to a skewed definition of Beauty: African beauty belongs to curve and edges and the rest of you bone on flesh girlies are struggling to belong in a world that is reserved for the few who get trousers unzipped with ease, as if any woman’s worth should be validated by the number of men who are fervent to burrow themselves in between their thighs.

*****

Western Beauty is tall and skinny and flawless.

There is no room for curves or bump or junk in the trunk. If you’ve got it, you are border-line obese or are actually obese and you need to do something about it, fix that because how you are created, how you were born is disgusting. No man can possibly want all that flesh wrapped around him, suffocating his manhood and obliterating it under those endless folds of skin.

*****

African Beauty is miles and miles of curves.

You are a real woman if your spine has a particular curvature because that means you are genetically wired to be the most attractive to men. There is no room for skinny, petite, small- framed. No. You’re a small thing and of no significance to the world of African men.

Why are you walking around calling yourself a woman when you only look like a little girl?

*****

Diet.

Waist Train.

Do not dare eat red meat.

Get a silicone Booty.

Get a boob job.

As you are, as you were naturally created; honey, that is not enough!

So please live your life self-hating and self-judging and wrap yourself up in tight clothes of regret and self-pity and then allow yourself to drown in the demon infested waters of body shaming and no sense of self worth.

*****

I’ll be honest, I am slightly obsessed with adding a little extra weight; I’d like to wear dress pants without having to look for my ass with a magnifying glass or looking like cross between a little boy and a little girl.

I’d like to feel skirts hugging my hips and not struggling to hold on to my waist, the waistbands barely making it to stay afloat.

I’d like to fill a seat.

I’d like a guy to turn his head and whistle.

No. Wait a minute.

I’d like to just look in the mirror and smile.

Like I did this morning;

loving the smoothness of my skin. Adoring the narrowness of my waist, grateful that I can wear literally anything I want. Admiring the naughty flicker in my eyes and how the curve of my legs. I have beautiful legs and my ass is just right, made sweetly to compliment the narrowness of my waist.

I fight everyday to accept this body, as it is.

To love it.

To embrace it.

To flaunt it.

To stop living in this body as if I will be given another.

As if it were temporary.

As if it is my responsibility to live my life trying to define the unsullied definition of Beauty.

….because I am BEAUTIFUL as I AM and I do not need anyone’s approval to be as such.

There are days that I slip after hearing a comment or two; but those days are not as recurrent and those comments are no longer as wounding.

Instead of holding onto the negative… I have found a way to thank the heavens that I can wear almost anything I want to & look good in it.

Ain’t that a blessing!

****

Perhaps we need to raise stronger daughters. Daughters who will teach their daughters not to look at themselves through Society’s eyes. Daughters who will bring forth a generation where women are celebrated even with their lopsided smiles and flabby waists. Daughters who live in their bodies with no regret because beauty cannot be weighed. Daughters who do not bend, conform or split themselves apart with harsh judgment. Daughters who cradle their femininity in their arms, gently nurturing and growing it. Daughters who make men out of boys.

As Aleya said:

“I imagine having a conversation about beauty with my unborn daughter. Perhaps I will write her a letter, from me at my 33 year old self. Dear daughter, I will write.

They brought booty back. Well, it started with Jennifer Lopez, then Beyoncé seconded it and Kim Kardashian confirmed it with her attempt to break the internet with butt. And if you have my genes, dear daughter, your booty will be one thing. Flat. You see, in 2014 it was all about that bass, and I was all treble. And tremble.

I will tell her that they keep changing the goalposts, and you can never keep up. So ignore the rules and create your own instead. Refuse to be judged by your beauty. Refuse to be judged at all. I wonder which door I would have walked through. Beautiful or average? I think I would have kicked a hole in that wall instead and entered the space on my own terms, who the F**K says I have to be one or the other?”

XoXo