Body Image - A Body Unknown
...n year of high school was the worst, so far. I didn’t feel like I could run in P.E. because the wrestlers, whom were all upperclassman would stand at the wall and yell elicit lines to me. Further damaging my self worth, were teachers. I was never directly harassed my teachers but they let other students verbally harass me over and over again. The first week of school, freshman year, a senior, yelled to me from another table that I was his new girlfriend because he “likes them girls with huge jugs.” It might have been different, I might have been protected if I was some meek, shy girl, but I was not. I was class president, an athlete I was well known and apart from my body, widely respected. It appalled the administration that such an active student was so bluntly sexy. They showed me, through looks and stern talks everyday that I shouldn’t wear certain things, the same certain things that every other girl was wearing. I was not trying to make a statement; I was simply, embracing my body. I felt beautiful in my clothes and that’s why I wore them. Even with all the things I had endured I made a pact with myself, I was not going to sulk away and become unnoticed and lacking self-esteem. As the years went by, the harassment continued. As I matured and became more of an adult and less of a child I began to understand what I believed in and that my sexuality was not my problem, it was theirs. Women, even women who are viewed, as sex objects should not have to “cover up” or feel ashamed, it is society that should learn to embrace them. A woman, even a woman with big breasts, or an hourglass figure, should be able to dress, as she wants and not be harassed. I have yet to discover the exact problem, but there is an underlying current ready to destroy our culture, it is something that both men and women have internalized, something that we have been conditioned to think, to feel. Something in our society has given these people the right to destroy a persons self worth because they are sexual. This poison might be the media, it might be the schools, it might even be the in the family dynamics, but people in our communities feel it is their right to comment, to judge and to scrutinize women simply because they have a certain type of body. All the same, these people are scared. They view open sexuality as unknown and dangerous, the feel if they tell a person like me to cover up or down play my body it will protect me, as well as the others who surround me. Protect me from what? Last summer, completely covered I was grabbed by a complete stranger at a restaurant. The moment it happened I felt violated, upset but most of all concerned. What a sad life that little boy would have. Furthermore, this situation goes to show that this is not a personal problem, this is a problem that has began to condemn our world. Only 6 months after this incident a grown man I had just met bluntly told me, “you have really big boobies.” Not even knowing how to respond to such a blatant form of disrespect I began to ask him questions about his comment. He could not understand why I was so upset; he also could not understand why I did not view his comment as a compliment. I told him why, I told him about the last 1,885 days of harassment I had endured, I told him about strangers grabbing me in public and I explained to him that on average, I get unwelcome comments about my breasts 5 times a day. A perfect example of why I was so mad happened only 20 minutes after our conversation. Coming out of a gas station with a friend we found that my car was parked next to a car full of boys. As I was getting into my car they rolled down their windows and said, “Hey, you have really nice tits. Are they real?” Yes, only 20 minutes later I was thrown into another situation of harassment. That is why I was upset. After years and years of constant harassment coming from people of all ages, both male and female, I have come to realize that people just do not understand. They do not understand that a woman that is a sex object can also hold so much more. Media has prod...