Some time ago, I started a memoir called “The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Woman.” I re-read parts of it last week, revisited the excruciating pain of my years there, acknowledging yet once again that I could stay h
ere only at the expense of my soul, my actual self.
I would be acceptable only if I forced myself into that size 0 world, squeezing the very breath out of myself with constricted garments mimicking the constricted theology.
I got free, but it cost a lot.
When will we stop this?
When will we quit equating thinness and smallness with female goodness?
When will we recognize that the female body so often derided is the very one that makes sure the world continues? We give birth. Only women can do that.
When will we finally say, “Woman are fully human?”
When will we learn to appreciate the varieties of the human shape?
When will we stop sexualizing the prepubescent female body?
When will we grow up?
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