Member-only story
Your Body Does Not Belong to You
Response to a prompt from Elle Beau on “What does the World tell you…”
My life is not my own
The world has always told me it’s shameful to be female. Calling a person “girl”, (or pussy, prissy, sissy, etc.) was the ultimate insult when I was a child.
When I was in kindergarten (KINDERGARTEN!) I was walking down the hall at my school on an errand for my teacher. The principal, an older, white man, stopped me. He made me kneel down on the tiles, while he drew out a wooden ruler. He bent down with his huge, cold, white hand holding my leg, and measured the number of inches between the back of my knee and the hem of my dress. Too short!
Until that humiliating day, that knit navy dress was my favorite. I threw it in the give away box.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t buy that dress myself at Victoria’s Secret. Mom was a Sears shopper. But the shame was all mine.
Be Invisible
At the same school, at age ten, we went to Seattle for the Science Center and Pike Place Market. I was very small for my age, skinny, red hair, glasses, freckles — a dorky mess compared to the pretty girls. Because of this I had become extremely shy and very, very modest in dress. Now, my red hair was cut short. I tried hard to be invisible.