S3-Day 22: Body Shaming: A Dirty Reflection

When I was a little girl people used to call me names, though it was for fun, I always wondered why am I called by those dirty names? Every time I looked into the mirror I was not happy with my appearance, it grew in anger, rage and hatred towards myself and began feeling. These comments were not only passed by strangers, but by loved ones, relatives and my friends. Commenting on someone’s body, race, size or structure are treated as normal in our society today. This in turn serves as a platform perpetuating violence in church and society. 

Our surrounding is bound by fashion magazines, shows, bill boards, advertisements and movies that portray and demand unattainable thinness and beauty standards for the women, especially the young girls in our society. Thus, forcing them to do anything to achieve the ideal body shape to escape body shaming. In this modern era, beauty is represented cosmetically, and body-parts modifications have become common. We can not deny the fact that these are required to adapt to the femininity construction by the society to be able to fit into the so called ‘beauty-standard.’ 

During the sixteenth century B.C., young Chinese girls’ feet were bound. The act of foot binding included adding layers of bandages non-stop, which slowly putrefied their toes-crushing them under their soles-causing their heels to meet their toes. A perfectly bound foot was three inches long and one and a half inches wide. An unbound foot brought shame, humiliation, dishonour, and societal rejection to the child and family. Likewise, in India it is the beauty creams to get fairer skin tone and dark-skinned people are seen dirty. That is the issue we are addressing. We are not addressing the issue when one chooses to wear make-up but talking about how exactly honour and shame is understood in a given context just by their appearance and beauty standards. This ultimately led to the suicide of many women and girls. 

When we talk about the issue on body shaming we must find the root cause of this issue, which is the toxic behaviour and attitude of Masculinity that demands beauty standards for the women. Our call today is to affirm that we are created beautifully and wonderfully in the image of God. God loves everyone equally no matter what one size, colour, body we are into. As the believers of faith We must follow the commandment by Christ, ‘Love your neighbour Just as yourself’ all our words and deed we must proclaim the love for our neighbour. We should avoid unwanted comments on their body and colour and we must affirm the fullness of life for everyone gifted by God and affirm the dignity and worth of women just as they are created. There are two choices, either shame other like the way you want them to shame you down or love others the way you want to be loved. The choice is yours. 

Prayer 

Creator of the bodies in different shapes, colours, and sizes, help us to comprehend your idea of diversity and stand up against all kinds of body-shaming. Heal those who have been wounded by harsh words and dirty comments. We pray in the name of the one who was shamed, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Author: Femila Livingston 

About the Author: Femila completed her Bachelor of Divinity from Bishop’s College, Kolkata and later did her Master of Theology in the Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, Madurai. She has worked with NCCI-ESHA and later with CSI-SEVA, CSI Synod, Chennai. She is currently working as a faculty in the department of theology in the Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, Madurai.