Please don't resolve to start another diet

Happy New Year's Eve!

If you're anything like me, you're waking up from the past few days feeling a little groggy, a little bloated, and with a little anxiety about the holidays being over. Maybe you're feeling a little guilty for eating too much, drinking too much, or spending too much. If not, you're prepared to have your last hurrah tonight. ; )

The way many of us rationalize our way out of the holiday guilt is anticipating the penance of January 1. This means that everybody and their brother will likely resolve to lose 30 pounds, stop eating wheat, or hit the gym hard 6 days a week.

This year I am calling for an end to this paradigm. 

Why? 

1. Diets don't work.

Studies have shown that 95% diets don't work. That means even if you lose 25 pounds, you're likely to gain more back. In fact, weight gain is "significantly related" to dieting. This means independent of genetics, dieting has been shown to actually CAUSE weight gain. Here's a great video with lots more juicy info on this topic. 

2. We have more important things to do! 

Like watch this video!

This AWESOME video from Melissa A. Fabello, writer for Everyday Feminism, is one of my inspirations for this particular call to action.

In this video, Fabello notes that women spend 21 minutes a day body shaming and thinking about dieting. That's two hours a week! 

I encourage you to invest your time and money this year in causes and goals that really matter, like existentially matter. 

3. Participating in the diet industrial complex solidifies structural inequality. 

Fabello talks about this in her video, too. Obsessing about food and spending money on our bodies is one way in which females experience inequality. Make-up is expensive and so are diet pills. Women spend a lot of time and money on their "body projects" as Fabello calls them. That's time and money that could be spent closing the pay gap. 

Also, what lies behind our desire to be thinner? Who are the beautiful people? Many times beautiful people are white and upper middle class. In learning to love all bodies, we can learn to love a more pluralistic society. 

So, unless you'd like to gain weight,waste your time, and contribute to the patriarchy, please don't resolve to lose weight.      

 

Halloween

Halloween is a weird holiday, right?

People dress up as people they’re not and go gallivanting around town.

Wait.

 Isn’t that what we do every day?

Pretend that we’re something that we’re not and run around the city acting like a crazy person? Halloween caricatures our daily lives in this totally awesome way. For one day, people recognize that they want to be something else.

This is a jack o' lantern I made last year. It has nothing to do with this blog post except for it's relationship to Halloween

I am always trying to be a better or stronger version of myself on Halloween.

Last year, I dressed up as Rosie the Riveter because I wanted to be an iconic figure for women to be fierce and feel like they can do anything. This year, I was thinking about being Mrs. Officer from Lil Wayne’s song because whenever I listen to that song, it makes me feel really strong and powerful. I think it’s so cool that Lil Wayne is really into this authoritative and independent woman.

Women are changing the way they approach their image.

 Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In made a big splash this past year. While admittedly, I didn’t read it, I feel its reverberations in the way women come into the workplace. We’re experimenting with being bossy, with pantsuits, with emoticons in emails, and with new businesses.

It makes me think about the whole concept of body image and who we think we are versus who we want to be and why we want to be those things.

What if we could just be what we want to be? What if we were already enough? How can we be who we want to be today, every day and this year, on Halloween?

Be honest. What’s really holding you back?

 Use this Halloween to explore the person that you’ve held back on being even if it’s just the girl who wears bright red lipstick, short shorts, and the sign that says sexy banana stand***

Happy Halloween!

***That’s right. You can be a sexy pop culture reference to Arrested Development. Because, then, you’ll have it. ; )***

Why I'm happy for wrinkles.

I kind of have a few wrinkles in this picture.

I'll say it. I'm grateful for my wrinkles. 

At a towering 5'1, with baby face cheeks, and a high-pitched feminine voice, people often confuse me for being younger than I am. 

One time, someone came up to me while I was working at a grocery store concerned that said grocery store was breaking child labor laws. They weren't. I was 23. 

A lot of women think this a compliment. 

I don't. 

The problem with this whole way of thinking is that women are valued as objects.

So, why do people say, "You look young. No. It's a good thing."

Why would it be a good thing? I already have a relationship with a significant other who I love and adore. Why do I need to attract anyone else? Why is my youth so important? Why bring it up? 

Look, if you accidentally get my age wrong, I'm not going to be really mad at you but if you start making assumptions about what I know because I look young, I'm going to be pissed. 

Even worse, if you think that I'm not as capable. 

The truth is that I love my body. I'm grateful for it but pretty regularly, people perceive me to be less capable because of my height and my appearance. These things are beyond my control. 

If you make assumptions about me because of my appearance, well, that's discrimination. 

And while I wish the world could recognize short baby-faced women as being capable, I also am grateful to have another year on me. 

Happy Birthday to me!