Beauty standards are insane.
Before we started keeping up with the Kardashians, Brazilian Butt Lift was not so popularised. I remember trying to do everything in my power to grow my butt. Like, I was busy doing squats and I can’t forget the day I almost fell in a banking hall because my thighs were shaking from all the squats I had been doing in a bid to grow my butt.
Now, there is nothing wrong in enhancing your body using exercise or surgery. I cannot begin to analyse another woman’s need to have a big butt. However, I can speak for myself. I needed to have it so people can stop saying I have masculine structure…. They kept defeminizing me. I desperately wanted to be seen as a woman and it seemed that everyone had decided that I had to have wide hips and a tiny waist to be considered feminine.
Yours truly obviously could not afford the BBL at 19 and a university aspirant, I still can’t afford BBL at 27 but that’s not the point. The point is how I moved from that desperate conformist at 19 to this slender looking confident woman at 27.
I did not accept my body because there is an 8 year gap between 19 and 27. I began the journey to accepting my body at 23. I kept asking myself why I was obsessed with compliments that my squats were paying off and there was a ray of hope that someday, even if I don’t become Kim Kardashian, the world will know I tried.
During the lockdown, a lot of people went to the gym as a way of coping with boredom and this was the era I thought about my body goals… Why did I want this? The answer was obvious so nobody will defeminize me. They would not say I look manly because I had no wide hips and big butts. I gave myself a pep talk and began the journey of loving myself just the way I was.
I also decided if I ever wanted to look a certain way, then it had to be something I am doing for me and that was the turning point.
For almost 4 years now, I exercise to keep fit and everything I do boosts my self esteem and I have consciously ignored what the society demands from my body and I am proud of myself.
It is easy to sit and hush women who are still conforming and blame them for their reactions. Yes, they are merely reacting to society. However, if you analyse it critically, you will understand why society should drop these mindless beauty standards and literally let women breathe.
This is me who wears what I am comfortable with and suits my personality… This is me, happily being me.
Written by EZINNE.
