Our Shared Shelf discussion

A very interesting TED talk on embracing the female body
https://youtu.be/Lrdn4lazVBc

So important!

Somewhere I came across this fantastic slogan:

"START A REVOLUTION
STOP HATING YOUR BODY"

I don't really understand why male's body is somehow "better" than female's one. The only thing I would see as a disadvantage as a woman is the period, I think I would find it annoying. It happens too frequently in our species. And maybe the fact that men's musculature is more developed, that makes some stuff more funny to do for us men, but it makes it more complicated to achieve, too.

But apart from that, female's body is more beautiful. And pregnancy is a nice thing, it's worth the pain. And their sexuality is more complex, men's sexuality is pretty basic, it can become boring hahaha. Maybe that's why men try to opress women's sexuality, because if women found out how basic men are, they would start to see that we're not the base of the species, but in fact more complementary than women are. Patriarchy is "necessary" just in an underdeveloped society. In an advanced one, women are better adapted to it than men. We are too unstable, generally speaking.

So if I was a woman I would start to reconsider all these neanderthal stereotypes ;).

By the way, someone said that the perfect woman is a higher type of human than the perfect man, and also something much more rare. I agree.

Lol I'm perfect. Just the way I am.
That sounds ridiculous to say out loud...

But seriously, life is too short to walk around hating oneself. The body is what it is, if we aren't happy then go for a walk or run, or lift some weights to sculpt what god gave us. Same with the mind. I've experienced hard times but refuse to give up, it is all in the mindset and also in recalling what specifically we can be grateful for. The body is just a transportation vehicle for the soul after all (if you believe we have a soul that is).

Because you're worth it. Bahaha. Seriously though.

The holy soul... Now that you bring that up... How can we transport it? I mean, how does it get tied to the body? It has to be in some physical way. I think no scientist has ever tried to unravel the body-soul biology... Cowards! They just analyze what they can find! Shame on you scientists.

I don't want to take anything from those who find that sort of thing empowering but personally I don't want to be seen as some kind of mystical feminine wonderbeing who is the source of all light and love and creativity and who needs to be sheltered and worshiped like a tender flower. Any more than I want to be seen as an evil temptress who is the source of all corruption and has to be controlled.

No thanks, really. I just want to be a person like the other people in this world trying my best to get along and share some fellow feeling and a helping hand while we're all in this together. Frankly I don't want to be up on a pedestal, there isn't enough room up there to move. But like I say, more power to those who find this sort of thing encouraging, because encouragement is a good thing, I think.

We unfortunately live in a society where everyone is encouraged to be obsessed with image. We are told how to look, what to wear, to be thin, all in the name of floating our economy on the sales of expensive items we simply don't need.

If you want to be respected in Western Europe and America, you either have to conform, be such an exceptional person - that people see through the fact that you don't bear the trimmings of our absurdly commercially orientated culture.

deleted user wrote: "The holy soul... Now that you bring that up... How can we transport it? I mean, how does it get tied to the body? It has to be in some physical way. I think no scientist has ever tried to unravel t..."

Oh, it has been done, all right, albeit not very successfully:
"Debunked: Soul Leaving Body Photo (Russian scientist Konstantin Korotkov)"
https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-sou...

Bunny, you are the source of all light and love in one sense, but every other person has the potential to be the same. If we are talking mysticism, it's strange beyond words that Homo sapiens is aware of itself, but that isn't on women only, but the whole race. In regards to pedestal, I don't want that either.

Martyn, have you heard "strong is the new skinny"? It's a countermovement to promote physical strength and capability in all, and there's quite a bit of bulk shaming going on (gym bunnies want the cardio stuff instead of becoming "bulky", which isn't possible unless you do extensive bulking with all that it includes). I know quite a few women who do weight lifting in a serious manner, and some even have free weights in their garages or basements. It's cool and something I'd like to dip my toes in eventually, because I personally can't find the catwalk illnessy-level attractive (we shouldn't starve to death for fashion, unless we are naturally that slim). Some musculature is my personal preference, and all the stuff that a body can do, it's beautiful. Lots of people wax lyrical about such a healthy existence, not everyone prays at the altar of the thigh gap.

Wow, this ted talk was brilliant. It brought into focus the acute problem of women being imprisoned and enslaved in a body that was born free. Every major culture, every woman that I have come across knows that her body limits her for reasons she will never completely understand because sometimes she is imprisoned for a suspected thing, for vague notions of promiscuity and her being is attacked and shamed for being what it is. It is so easy to lock up women in a cloudy haze of judgement and morality than to fix what is inherently the problem of all of society which includes, more than anything, men. When we teach women to be ashamed of the way she is, we are teaching her she isn't good enough, that she needs to improve from the get-go. I can't even begin to imagine how damaging it is to all of us. Its surreal, disgraceful and really shameful.