I thought I was a fairly secure, progressively-minded, liberated woman. As a child, I woke up every morning to a "Girls Can Do Anything!" plaque hanging on the wall beside my bed. My favorite record was Free to Be, You and Me which taught me that girls could be astronauts or firefighters and that husbands should help their wives with the housework. I scoffed at the Ally McBeal women, who constantly allowed themselves to be disappointed by the male population and who strutted around the courtroom in mini skirts - "Look at me. I'm a career woman!" Most of the women who appeared as regulars on the show weighed less than ninety pounds and looked like emaciated string beans. By the time I was in college, this vessel of insecurity was the image of the liberated woman.
But I thought I was beyond all of that. I was certain that the subliminal "anorexia is cool" messages emanating from Hollywood had somehow escaped me . . . Until I became involved in theater.
Picture doing the mambo next to flat-chested sixteen-year-olds in West Side Story, or having measurements yelled across the rehearsal hall, "She's a 36 - 29 - 38," or hearing the women's dressing room conversations, "I was a size four last year, but thank goodness I'm a size two now," while you're trying to squeeze into a vintage size - ahem - we won't even go there since vintage sizes are obsolete.
About a month ago, I started to prepare for a role in Anything Goes by using Crest Whitening Strips, running eighteen miles a week, and rubbing firming lotion on my stomach. Yes, it's supposed to be for the cellulite on the backs of your legs, but I have stomach cellulite. No matter how many sit-ups I do, I can't get rid of these crazy looking wrinkles on my stomach. In fact, I wasn't even that worried about leg cellulite because, in this moment of high self-esteem, I will confess that my legs look pretty fabulous.
Within the first week of using the lotion, I ended up with red, itchy bumps all over my stomach. I decided that firm tummy skin wasn't worth that much cortisone ointment.
A few days ago, I told a fellow cast member that I loved her tight six-pack. She later confided in me that she hates her stomach, that it looks like her mother's stomach. I thought, "Society has really trained women to be so insecure." Then she said to me, "Why can't I just be happy that I have a body, that I'm healthy and alive?"
"Why can't I?" I thought. "I have food, shelter, and a healthy body. Not everyone in this world can make those same claims." And then I realized the idiocy of the quest to rid myself of stomach cellulite.
