People often say body decisions are completely personal but we’re consistently surrounded by expectations about what bodies should look like. Society has placed an intangible wall to separate what we claim as a “normal” body. This constantly makes those that society deems as “fat” wonder where personal desire ends and social pressure begins to set in and the complexities that are involved within. The almost paradoxical and complex structure of this topic was very enticing to me while reading Roxane Gay’s pieces of literature: “My Body Is a Cage of My Own Making,” and “What Fullness is.” Gay very articulately and creatively demonstrates her message of acceptance vs discomfort and how the body can change from a source of protection and acceptance, to a limitation, and the overall complexity. Gay understands that she shouldn’t have to necessarily change herself in order to satisfy society, but the contradiction is that she doesn’t always feel comfortable living in her own body. What she knows vs what she feels is extremely important. Someone can recognize the unrealistic and normalized standards of today’s society but still feel somewhat pressured by it. The phenomenology within this concept is clear to recognize when we acknowledge if we are able to separate how we feel about ourselves from how other people see us. Gay uses common examples where society is quite literally built around the “normal” body and how it’s hard to ignore one’s own limitations. Airplanes, chairs, stages, and clothing were all used within her piece and developed into the idea that even though she is aware she should intellectually “not have to change my body for society,” she believes that “living in this body can still be difficult.”
Gay eventually chooses weight loss surgery but presents the decision as not completely separated and independent from society. She realizes that “I could change my fat body faster than this culture will change.” Even though she chose to go through with the surgery on her own terms she spent years of being told directly and indirectly that her body is the problem. The cultural connections she makes to strengthen her argument involve heavily around social media and beauty standards, medical systems and assumptions about weight, and the overall expectations placed on women’s bodies. It posed a question within me to recognize if our body preferences are entirely our own.
Even though Gay got the surgery, she described the before and after shift and the experience that came with it. Surgery changes her body but doesn’t necessarily fix everything, she explains that “everything has changed, but everything is exactly the same.” She is still the same person even after surgery with the same insecurities, desires, fears, and trauma. She explained the struggle after surgery how food wasn’t simply food anymore. Before she used food as a coping mechanism-for sadness, comfort, happiness, loneliness, etc. However, surgery removed a huge coping mechanism for her but not the feelings that created the need for that mechanism.
Gay’s individual experience provided a lens for a larger cultural problem. Her writing complicates yet brings to light the contradictions regarding the personal choice of changing our bodies because of the way we understand and experience our bodies is constantly shaped by social norms, physical spaces, institutions and other peoples expectations.
