Some time ago, I attended a workshop on feminism and self confidence as part of a bachelorette party. The instructor gave some expected talking points about how women need to stand together and stop tearing each other down, how a variety of body types have been idealized throughout history, etc.
Skip ahead a few minutes and we begin discussing self confidence. The speaker discussed how we all have our insecurities (O.K.) then proceeded to inform us “And any woman that tells you she is completely confident in her body is either A) a psychopath or B) a liar.” Woah! What? A confident woman is either a psychopath or a liar?
I thought confidence was what we were trying to aim for, so why degrade that goal by belittling those who have attained it? The subtext ends up being that unless we want to be labeled as either psychotic or a liar, we had better not get too confident about our bodies. Of course, the final bit of irony is that we had just finished talking about not tearing other women down simply to feel better about ourselves.
Many people have insecurities about their bodies, and they shouldn’t feel abnormal or alone. I realize the type of rhetoric that assumes this is the case for everyone is well intentioned. However, at best this strategy can only get us so far; at worst it can be counterproductive. If the goal is to have women who are absolutely confident about their bodies, let’s start normalizing the idea of a woman completely at ease with her body-image.
{If this workshop had not been so widely lauded by feminists and mainstream media, I would not have felt the need to write this essay. You can see these thoughts smashed into a three panel comic here.}
6 Comments
Hmmm… I dunno… I get your point, about not vilifying confident women…
On the other hand, I also know that ‘Completely’ is a very, very, VERY potent word. To be ‘Completely confident’ is to be so confident that you never doubt. Ever. Not when you’ve had a long, tiring, stressful day, might have had multiple people yelling at you, and been harassed or hit on by complete strangers, not when you’re sick, not when you’re facing a deadline and it’s quickly, quickly approaching and you’re only halfway finished with your work… ‘Completely’ means one-hundred percent, totally, and you are never allowed to have even a millisecond when you might doubt or lose confidence, ever.
Now, does this ONLY apply to women? …No. Same thing goes for men, too.
Thanks for your input Jacqueline. Perhaps I sacrificed too much clarity in this essay in the name of brevity. The discussion is framed focusing on normalizing confidence in women because they are who the public at large assumes to have body-image confidence issues. To address your main point, this is not an argument stating that some have “complete confidence” in every aspect of their self, but that for many women body-image is an area that they seldom think of, much less begin to distress over if they are having a bad day. By ignoring these types of people and pretending they don’t exist, we enforce society’s image of women as insecure about their bodies and discourage those with that confidence from joining the feminist community.
I’d say Jacqueline has a point that there’s probably not a completely confident human being on the planet-even clinical Narcissism is fueled by insecurity. But that’s ok since I don’t consider this woman’s use of “psychopath” accurate either.
I wonder though what her take would be on a woman who felt ok with her body though, but had insecurities about other things about herself or her abilities?
P.S. I like your journal comic.
I’m glad you posted this Giorgia. Often I’ve felt that being close with women is to put yourself down and encourage this circle of self-hate so that no one feels bad because everyone feels bad. Plenty of times I’ve said I hated something about myself when the truth is I do like my body and for all the struggles I’ve had trying to dress it I like the way I look naked. Is that a crime? I just wanted everyone else to feel comfortable. But we would all feel more comfortable if we accepted how we look. And even now there is this need I have to apologize for my confidence, and say I’m not delusional like Samantha Brick…(I’m not.)
I’m with Bethany on this one – I really do have alot of confidence in my body and can’t relate very well to the many many articles and posts and comments we all hear everyday about body insecurity.
Having said that I’ve MANY TIMES pretended to have body image issues around other women for a) fear they would hate me if they thought I didn’t, b) to fit in and be part of this “circle of where everyone feels bad so that maybe no one will feel bad”.
I’m with the OP on this one – there’s plenty of women who feel good about their bodies and to try and say that no one is completely confident in it is really just a way of the speaker telling you that she isn’t confident in herself and doesn’t want to think anyone else is or she’ll feel even worse. So to make herself feel better she’s making others feel worse. Not cool.