She
Essays, Featured — By Sarah Thebarge on September 23, 2009 at 12:00 am
A few years ago, I got sick and lost some weight, and I never managed to put it back on.
So my clothes, while they’re in good shape, hang on my frame and make me look like one of the Papua New Guinea natives who retrieve ill-fitting clothes dropped in bundles from missionaries in airplanes. At least this is what my friend tells me.
So tomorrow morning, she’s taking me shopping for a new wardrobe.
There’s nothing like clothes shopping to make a girl feel insecure about her body. It seems all females have at least one physical flaw that keeps them feeling vulnerable, like Achilles’ heel. Either her chest is too big or too flat, her butt is too big or too small, her hips are too narrow or too wide. Nothing ever fits quite right.
A few years ago, I was trying on jeans in the fitting room of a department store. They were a little snug, and I thought about asking the fitting room attendant for the next size up.
But then I imagined her gloating as she strutted to the rack for a bigger pair. “I told her she wasn’t a size two,” she’d mutter under her breath. “Those hips are at least a size six.”
It was such a humiliating prospect, I bought the small jeans and took them home, confident if I ate nothing but air for the next six weeks, they might eventually fit.
After years of similar experiences, I’m a little nervous about tomorrow. You’d think after a while, the insecurity and angst would fade. But this is one job that doesn’t get easier with experience.
In spite of all years I’ve spent being a girl, I’m still not very good at it.
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When my mom was in junior high, she started her period on the school bus one afternoon. No one had prepared her for this eventuality, and she was terrified. When she got home, she locked herself in her bedroom.
One of her brothers knocked on her door and asked her if she wanted to play.
“Go away,” she sobbed into her pillow. “Can’t you see I’m dying here?” She was convinced she’d contracted a terminal disease on the way home from school and would be dead by morning.
To spare me a similar experience, she made sure to prepare me for this event. It happened just like she said it would, and I came home from school and told her I’d started my period.
I had always expected this moment would be confidential, a special secret known by only me and my mom. But she proceeded to make a public announcement to my siblings and my grandparents.
Then she called my dad at work to tell him, and to ask him to stop at the drug store on the way home from work to pick up the necessary supplies.
When he got home, he handed me the bag, pinched my cheek, and said, “My little princess is a little woman!”
I was angry, humiliated, offended and annoyed, all at the same time. I always thought turning into a woman would be a sophisticated, refined transformation. It didn’t feel like that at all.
As the newly-minted hormones surged through my system, it occurred to me this little princess was turning into a little bitch.
15 Comments
Sarah, this was wonderful. I absolutley loved it, and completley identified with it, thank you.
I really like that Gloria Steinem quote about the fish and bicycle, but yet, everytime I use it someone accuses me of being a lesbian. As if your only options are needing a man to define you or a woman to define you. Some people just don’t understand that independence is a virtue I guess.
Sarah, thanks very much for this. It’s stunning. Every man who is, or plans to be, a father to a daughter, or a husband to a wife, or a friend to a female, or a brother to a sister, needs to read this. And since I am already in all 4 categories, I am saving it to read repeatedly.
Wow. Thank you. I think we are soulmates.
I have never heard anyone describe my experiences as a women so well.
Thank you.
That was wonderful. I am very much going through the same process of having Gloria and Cinderalla duking it out in my head. Its so nice to know that others feel the same, and that there are no easy answers for feeling whole as a woman.
Thank you.
Oh, Sarah, you put so much of what I’ve thought into words. I feel like we get pushed and pulled in so many directions. I’ve *never* been good at domestic arts, and didn’t even know how to do my own laundry until I was 19 (a boy scout at the backpacking camp I was working at had to show me). And I was happy with being independent and not knowing how to cook, even after marriage, right up until I joined a church where all the women stayed home with their children and homeschooled. And I wanted that for myself, too; and then I found out that I would have fertility problems
It was heartbreaking, and so I spent a lot of time being angry at this life I couldn’t have. After a few years, we miraculously got pregnant, and in the course of that situation, I realized that I really was happier at work, contributing to my family’s finances, and it’s true- I suck at domesticity. So we hired a nanny … who yesterday proceeded to tell us that the house was too dirty 
You just can’t win (especially with parquet floors!) … I’m so glad you wrote this- its timing was perfect for me. Thank you!
Yeah, in agreement with the previous comments, this was a fantastically written piece. Thanks for your insights into womanhood/personhood. Loved depictions of the tension you’ve felt and the unanswered questions you have that all seem to be under-girded with a balance and trust.
Sarah~
I love it. You’re such a beautiful writer and an even more beautiful person. Never stop exploring your life and yourself!
Sarah, I think you’ve articulated how many (if not most) women feel. Thank you for being vulnerable in this essay, and for showing the rest of us that we aren’t alone.
Wonderful piece. I think most North American women can probably relate to this article. What I appreciated most was how well you articulated the feeling that “The ideals competing for women’s attention seem mutually exclusive.” I, too, feel like I have to choose between being an academic and being a mother — it doesn’t seem viable to be both. Thanks for your honesty.
I really loved this. It’s what I needed to organize my thoughts for a research project I’m doing on feminism. Sadly though, I still have no effing clue how to be a woman (that sounds so sappy). Thanks so much for telling us your story.
….Our brilliant Sarah … more to come, folks, more to come!
rock on!
Thank you so much for sharing this essay. I felt like you were reading my mail! I believe the struggle between the two is very real, very common yet very overlooked and under talked about! Thank you again for sharing!
This was great, Sarah. Really. Thank you for sharing this.
Well, no, Excellently, said! i certainly couldn’t've said it better myself.