What the hell is a thigh gap?

It started with a blue flower bikini. Patches of material too thin to cover the curves I now had to offer; strings that dug into my skin a little too tight.  I hated it.  I hated that I now had to like bikinis.  It was no longer acceptable to wear frills or one pieces.  I hated that I had to accept that I had developed breasts and, according to all my classmates, that meant they were to be on display.  I was now to be on display.  I used to panic at gymnastics when I forgot to bring my shorts to wear over my leotard and here I was standing in a bathing suit that revealed more than my underwear.  Soon my mother walked by as I grumpily gazed at myself in the mirror and said the first words to ever haunt me, “you’re not fat”.

What is a woman? Is it a she, a her, a gender, a race, maybe some alien being we have not figured out yet?  Is she a body or just a persona?  Perhaps she is a threat; a weapon used for mass destruction of masculinity.  Or maybe she is not a thing at all.  Maybe she has no being; a man with simply the wrong body parts.

Every day women see an average of 500 advertisements about beauty and our bodies. In a lifetime, women will have twice as many diets as sex partners. By the age of 45, women will have tried an average of 61 diet plans and excess exercise regimens.

It is because of this that we continually reject the bodies we live in. These shells that are our homes see no acceptance or respect. We are taught to hate the very thing that hosts the amazing people that we are. Society dictates what is appropriate attire and the way our bodies should be shaped. 

I remember when the dress code became stricter. I was in the 7^th grade and girls were banned from wearing spaghetti straps and our shorts had to go the knee. It was said that our outfits were too distracting and taking away from the curriculum. As I entered high school I remember being asked to put on my P.E. shorts because the shorts I was wearing were an inch above my knee and were not long enough. The message I was being sent was that because I am a woman, I should be covered up to keep from distracting others. Society, once again, reminded me that I was an object and that someone would be looking at me.

As a young woman, I have been careful to dress modestly, working hard to keep from showing any cleavage, even though I am extremely busty. I have sewed in extra material to dresses and worn jackets, but a cardigan will not cover up who I am and make me innocent. I have stood in shorts too short, being judged for the way my thighs rub together. I deserve the right to walk down the street without a man screaming at me, telling me he’d like to get me pregnant. I deserve to walk through the Walmart parking lot, without a man chasing me down after screaming “Damn honey, gimme some”. I should be allowed to wear a shirt that reveals a little cleavage without constantly having to tell people to look me in the eye. I deserve to be treated the same as my skinny friends, without being judged for being curvy. 

I deserve the right to deny a man asking me out, without being called a "bitch". I deserve the right to be sitting at a stoplight in my car without a car full of guys saying, "Hey there sweet heart, wanna come to my place?" I deserve the right to go to a bar to listen to a band with my friends without a man grabbing me by the arm to tell me he'd like to "fuck" me. I deserve the right to go places by myself at night without having to carry pepper spray in my hand for fear of being attacked. I deserve the right to not choose outfits, by what would be harder to rape me in.

Society plants this idea in our heads that we are not good enough. We are to strive for perfection. We need perfect hair, perfect teeth, tan skin, makeup, and we need to be thin. The problem with perfection is that it irritates as well as it attracts. No one wants to date someone perfect, nor is perfection ever achievable. 

Thanks to the media, we have taught young girls to hide their bodies and to be ashamed of them, while allowing boys to objectify them. In my P.E. class in 7^th grade we were required to get on a scale in front of the class while our teacher calculated our BMI to determine if any of us were overweight. After our sex education class in 5^th grade, the boys made crude comments about my breasts and were grossed out by girls having periods. In high school when a girl started her period in class and bleed through her jeans, the entire class erupted in laughter and the boys taunted her and humiliated her for being disgusting. 

To this day I have been taught that periods are something not to be mentioned. My father was very grossed out by the topic and felt it was inappropriate, to the point that I was ashamed of myself. Why are we allowing boys and men to treat us this way? Men want beauty and grace. They want perfection. Women are to be innocent and dainty. We are not to sweat or fart or have bowel movements or do anything that would make us human. We cannot even be human. This is what desire has created. It has made us look so far for perfection that we have nearly destroyed our own gender

      The truth is, it is dangerous to be a woman. Society will have us believe that feminism is moving forward. That there is equality in the workplace and that men are not all terrible. We don't hate men. I don't hate men. But the reality of it is, society does not allow women to collect any power, without first fitting into the realm of beauty.

We try so hard to contort ourselves into the media’s perception of what is “beautiful”, and even being the most beautiful women in the world, our insecurities will still run bone deep. They become carved into us like initials in a tree and sometimes I fear we will all have to be cremated to hide the blemishes we are covered in….