Author: cait13

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Should I go on a run today?

I haven’t been feeling great about my body lately.  It’s because I’ve been spending so much time at my desk or hunched over a book (thanks, finals).  But it’s also because I haven’t been able to wear my favorite pair of jeans since I got back from my time abroad (where I ate everything I wanted because cultural experience!).  I’m telling myself not to let a pair of pants make me feel this way about my body, but I’m feeling it. Continue reading →

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Bridget Says It Best

Growing up, I was also told over and over again my worth was tied to doing Great Things. That lesser people lived ordinary lives…So do I own my complete failure, or do I redefine what it means to do Great Things?

Bridget Allen wrote an incredible piece on her blog that I stumbled upon through the Huffington Post – read “My Value: Autism, Feminism and Poverty” on her blog here.

I’m trying to think of what more analysis I can add to this post – but honestly, Bridget says it best. Continue reading →

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The nonpliment – “Oh my gosh, you lost so much weight!”

ImageSitting in my “to-read” list for a bit was this article.  It caught my eye because of what we have been talking about in class for our fat studies unit.  Now that I read it, I am SO glad I did.

During our conversation last week, we talked about the really important idea of keeping the lives of fat people at the center of our analysis.  One of the other points from class that really stuck with me was that it’s not just enough to focus on loving our own bodies and encouraging people to love their bodies, but we also need to respect and love other people’s bodies of all shapes, to accept, to affirm, and to abandon size-judgement. Continue reading →

Body learning: anxiety edition

now-im-a-superheroIn my notes from one of the first days of class, I have written, “embodiment -> we know because of our body; ways of knowing that exceed rationality.” This simple concept – that our bodies are sources of knowledge – is something I’d never consciously thought about, but as this idea about embodied knowledge started to sink in, I realized that my head has been learning a lot from my body recently.

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I started the week with particularly active butterflies in my stomach, for no particular reason. I assumed that they would ebb and flow as usual. But they didn’t; they stayed.

The next couple of days, my body started experiencing anxiety in different ways. My heart would race. I wasn’t digesting my food. I would shake a bit. I cried more than usual. I always felt on edge, like I was just about to have a panic attack but without the relief that can come after one. Continue reading →