Also, let the hairline of the bikini
Be fringed with indecency
Let 'unwanted body hair' straggle free
-Who Was It? by Grace Nichols
My choice is lean.
That was what struck me in the class discussions on Monday. I understood every bit of it - the fat black woman, in all three ways banished to the lowest of society's gaze; the subaltern's refusal of a subject(ed) gaze; the post-colonialist tensions. I admired the fat black woman - her boldness was beauty in itself.
And yet I knew that while I admired her, I was not with her. I admired her boldness, but not her in herself. I could not see it as beauty; I felt deep within me that still, slimness, 'lean'-ness, with all 'the tight contortions of the Barbie figure' (Narain), was beauty.
Yes, it is deplorable that I am, ashamably, a product of the materialist age, conditioned by the mass media, by the svelte figures of Miss World. As Simone de Beauvoir put it, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." So it is with me. I am unable to shake off the ingrained beliefs inscribed in me. I can celebrate with her, the fat black woman; I love her, I embrace her, I will champion her beliefs - and yet, I know the ardour and fervour I bear is divided.
How should I reconcile it all? This ambivalence is strange - appreciating the fat black woman for all her beauty and confidence; yet, at the same time, pursuing and perpetuating the beliefs of her 'oppressors'. Perhaps there is no need to obliterate the ambivalence? Surely, life itself is abound with ambivalence. As humans there is nothing in us which is absolute. The poems, though, moved me to see this ambivalence, and the imprints of social inscription in my mind and body.
For now, my choice remains. Razors in delicate places. The lean and the beautiful.
posted by sarah @ 5:51 PM
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