2.23.03 – j.cruel

from the index page of a j.crew catalogue:

men’s: 22 items in big & tall sizes!

women’s: 63 items in petite sizes!

look what this reinforces about body size: that it’s okay for guys to be “big and tall”, but women still need to be petite. when i was in college i went through a phrase where i desperately wished to be a petite woman. i didn’t just want to be skinny; i wanted to be short, small-framed, fragile-looking. this might have had something to do with the fact that i was dating a man who had always dated petite asian women before me (and after me, incidentally), and because we did a lot of swing dancing. the smaller dancers could be flipped and tossed in the air, while my 130-lb boyfriend could only swing my 5’8″ frame around so far.

sometimes i can split my psyche into two neat halves: the half that wants to be the pop-culture archetypal woman, and the half that is acquainted with (and likes) who i actually am. on one level, i’ve always wanted to be the sort of fragile woman that awakens a desire to protect; in real life, i’m deeply self-sufficient. my desired body type vs. my actual body type reflects this same relationship: i wanted to be small, fragile and feminine; in actuality i’m tall, strong and tom-boyish. it’s like those arms that get smaller just below the shoulder. i know they aren’t normal for my body, but that doesn’t mean that the culturally-conditioned part of my psyche doesn’t still admire/desire them. on the other hand, i know that i’m never going to have arms that do that, so i opt for having biceps instead. which are, ultimately, more useful, and the healthy part of my psyche appreciates them for their own functional beauty.

it’s funny how we idolize things that we wouldn’t actually want for ourselves.