This one isn’t what you think. I’m not talking about physical body confidence. I’m talking about the confidence a woman specifically has to do what is best for her body. To make choices about what she does to it, how she cares for it, who she allows near it — body as an object women are often taught to use or not use how society tells us.
Women spend a lot of time being told about our bodies. How they should look. Who we should let touch them. What it costs to take care of them. What is shameful about them. The list goes on. And that’s a list we are introduced to from a very young age.
More and more - through social media, through the current political and social climate — women are being shown how we should operate our bodies.
We need to be thin but thick. Sexual but not slutty. Hide your tampons when you go to the restroom. Shave your body hair but have super thick hair on your head.
Really old, really ignorant white men get to sit around and talk about our healthcare rights and the choices we get to make about our own bodies.
Unfortunately a lot of the mentality behind this has everything to do with how we are brought up and what we are exposed to.
We need to start early and often when it comes to educating women on their bodies and making choices for themselves based on what is healthy and makes them happy.
Women are fully capable and should have full decision making abilities when it comes to our own bodies. Full stop. That is a nonnegotiable. If you disagree with that, I disagree with who you are.
I don’t have many memories where I have been told that I should or shouldn’t do anything with my body. As a kid my dad even spoke about periods in a very normalized way. So I grew up thinking (and still do) that having a period is a normal life milestone and anyone who couldn’t act that way is just not a mature human being.
I was never told to wait until marriage to have sex. In fact I remember being told that if I ever became pregnant my parents wanted me to feel safe in coming to them so I could make whatever decision worked for me and I’d have a support system.
I have no memories of being told to dress any certain way. Even when I developed my junior year of high school, if I wore something that revealed a little skin, that wasn’t shameful.
Throughout my life I have been more confident in my choices about my body because I have never been taught not to. I have never been told to do anything because I was taught that I am fully capable of learning the facts and doing what I feel is healthiest and happiest for me.
We need to be teaching little girls this from the start. That nobody is better suited to make choices about your body like you are. You have the tools to make the decisions that will be the best for you.
We also need to be teaching little boys this. We need to teach them that women are fully capable and the foremost experts on decisions regarding their own bodies. That no man should shame, judge or pressure a woman when it comes to her body. That he should sit back and respect that it is her body, her choice.
And before you ask, yes, even when it comes to abortion. If you are not ok with an abortion as a man, do not have sex unless it is with a woman who shares your same views. That is the choice you make. You do not get a choice after the fact. Her body, her choice.
It is well past time we subscribed to this idea that anyone has any right to tell a woman what to do with her body. And it starts with educating everyone at the start to believe this and practice this.
Women are not commodities, our bodies do not belong to the government. They are ours. And we have the right to make any decisions about them.
Teach little girls to have confidence in the choices they make about their bodies. Teach little boys to respect and uplift this message.