Model for a Day

Emily: I have had my fair share of body image issues.  Like my mom, I struggled with anorexia for a few years as a teenager, and for years after that I hated the way I looked.  I just wasn’t good enough.  I realized later, during my recovery, that it must be even harder for women who are no longer in their twenties.  Our vision of the perfect body not only depends on nearly impossible or extremely rare proportions, but also on a very young physique.

Geraldine (Emily's mom):  Doing this photo shoot was fun but difficult. I try hard to stay in shape because I like the way it feels to be strong and able to do the things I want. Vanity’s part of it too. Where does vanity cross the line between being a positive motivator and a negative thing? I had a brief struggle with anorexia as a teenager. Oddly enough, I think joining the Army cured me. I learned to love being strong and being able to do things, to think of my body as powerfully mine. 

Emily: Doing this photo shoot with my mom felt natural, though.  Neither of us felt weird, and I realized how great it was to feel comfortable and proud of our bodies.  I’ve included my mom’s sentiments about each pose and the photograph we were mimicking.

Geraldine: I’ve tried really, really hard, as the mother of two daughters, to be body positive, not to criticize the way I or others look. It sounds easy, but sometimes it’s very difficult.The fact that my daughter and I could laugh and joke and feel comfortable together as we set up these pictures makes me feel  happy, like I’ve succeeded at something that really matters.  The main thing I learned from posing for these pictures was that media typically portray women as very weak. Each of these poses required me to twist and shrink and slouch. They HURT. Why can’t we show women standing square and strong, laughing or fierce or DOING things?

Vagina Warrior

A friend of mine invited me to audition for the Vagina Monologues. I’ve acted in some student films and done a little rabble rousing here and there, so I thought, why not? Could be a little scary in a fun way. So Sunday after my long run and a shower, I hobbled over to the community room at the women’s shelter where auditions were being held.

Inside, I wasn’t quite sure if I was in the right place. There were cookies and fruit and sparkly party favors everywhere. But a very friendly women directed me first to the restroom (I’d hydrated really well after my run) and then to the sign-in sheet. I picked up a couple of pages from the script to peruse and found a chair. Scattered on the table in front of me were construction paper, glue sticks, glitter, and fun vagina facts printed in pink ink. So of course, while we waited, we made construction paper vaginas and read the fun facts out loud and laughed and talked about our motivations and said the word ‘vagina’ loudly and often.

I was reminded, as I usually am when I’m around a bunch of activists, that I although I am extremely unconventional in the corporate circles where I spend most of my time, I’m strangely normal-looking-and-sounding around the confident, creative women who make activism a way of life. I am neither a slam poet nor a trapeze artist nor a pierced and tattooed goth nor a woman of color with a deep thrilling voice and braids. I’m just a rather slight, middle-aged blond with a soft voice and faded jeans. In spite of this, I am probably one of the more radical people in any such gathering. You gotta watch out for the quiet ones.

After a few minutes I was called back to read. I sat at a table decorated with lace, with four excerpts from the script laid out in front of me. I have only once before auditioned for anything, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect or how to play it. They asked me to read two different excerpts, which I did, without a lot of drama, just thinking of the things I had in common with the stories I read, how that old lady could have been my grandmother, or how that dominatrix had once been as corporate as I. It felt good, reading these things aloud, even though they weren’t my stories, because it was an acknowledgement of some else’s experience and pain, an homage to our common sisterhood.

When I left, I called my husband who had given me a ride, to let him know I was done. He was down at the river skipping stones with our daughter. As I waited outside for him to arrive, I noticed that the recent rains had brought out the dandelions. One of them was blooming. I reached down and plucked several tender green leaves and stood by the road nibbling their bitter greenness while I waited.

So now I’m a ‘vagina warrior’ and making time on my schedule for rehearsals. I’m thinking of how to work this new skill into my Linkedin profile. I’m wondering if my boss will freak out when I invite all my work colleagues, which will require a mass email with the word ‘vagina’ in it. And I’m also thinking about stories, my own and those I’ve heard. Could be that’s the most important part of it.