If you are a woman who has obsessed over her food, body, and weight, there is one tiny blessing that has come out of this American presidential election. And it is the deep, irrefutable knowledge about men simply do not give a fuck about you.
In this current patriarchal system, so many of us turned to dieting and other forms of disordered eating because we wanted the safety and cachet of thinness. We wanted to secure the social capital that goes along with having an ideal body. We wanted others to like and admire us, and we wanted the fellas to love and fuck us. So job #1 along the way was manipulating the body to be as socially acceptable as possible.
But what this election shows us is that men’s opinion of us could not be any lower.
So why would we continue to try to manipulate our bodies to please them, when they have so much contempt for our bodies in the first place?
Men do not care about your health, your access to health care, your bodily autonomy, or your ability to control when and whether or not you get pregnant. They do not care about your ability to leave your husband (and I do mean husband). They do not care about your ability to access affordable childcare. They do not care if you or your partner or your children or your loved ones are trans. They do not care about you at all.
So why would you continue to centre their opinions of you and your body?
Sure, sure, #NotAllMen and all that. And certainly not specific, individual men who genuinely pull their weight in the household, practice emotional intelligence, buy their partners tampons and chocolate once a month, and other green flags.
But truly: how much can the male gaze continue to matter to you when your body means so little to the men who feed the objectifying powers of the male gaze?
It’s time to unlearn that bullshit.