Ana’s Comments (group member since Jan 08, 2016)

Ana’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Oh, great news! Even greater than the fact that I actually got to finally read the book today LOL! I plan on doing a read-a-thon tonight, so hoping I can think of some questions, too. :)

I find this topic extremely interesting! The one on fatphobia and thinphobia (is that even a word? LOL) too, indeed, but because I have never really experienced either sides, I feel like I want to tread with caution because otherwise I might either hijack the thread / make others think that I'm driving attention away from their own circumstances.

TBH, body image as a concern of my own did not show up until I hit my late teens / early adulthood (can I still be considered as a young adult at the ripe old age of 26? Hmm? :'( Haha, I certainly feel like one.) When it did hit me, it was because of a few people who, in one way or another, were relatively/rather close to me and struggling with eating disorders / body image issues.

My reaction to their issues? Well...

1) I did not fully understand ED. It took me a lot of time to, and I felt anger and powerlessness. I struggled big time with the fact (is it a fact? I've been told it is) that you never really fully leave behind an ED. You either die from it or recover, but recovering means learning to live with it. I could elaborate more on my feelings back then. Short version is, my own, lifelong struggle has always been to accept that all of us are flawed and that perfection is unattainable. So, funnily enough, the idea of learning to live with a mental illness/flaw was, and I think still is sometimes, hard to swallow for me.
2) Suddenly, as I said above, I was really 'aware' of my own body. All throughout my childhood, I had been so skinny and tall that it was sometimes hard to find clothing for me. So I had always eaten whatever I felt like, as in, we've always had a healthy diet in my family, but I would eat treats, fast food, etc. without never really thinking about it. I never feared 'being fat.' Which is cool, because I've never been overweight, but when I started to think about my image? I was no longer skinny, either. Turns out, I have inherited the family females' thighs, and so I am pear-shaped, like lots of other women. Turns out, if I put on some weight it'll go straight there, and a little bit to my tummy, too. Turns out, 'it'd be cool' if I could drop a couple of kg.

This is not to say that, all of a sudden, I hated what I saw on the mirror. I don't! But there I was, out of my teenage years, and my body had changed 'because you are now a woman.' Suddenly, there were clothes that 'fit you better than others', old clothes that did not fit me anymore, and clothes in the stores that were not doing me any favours. I sure as hell did not like it...and from then on, I've started to be careful with what I eat, and feel a little guilty if I eat too much. I've looked at myself on the mirror and felt big and OMGfat, the horror. I force myself to go to the gym even though I hate it. When the thigh gap trend came, I rolled my eyes hard...but then I secretly wished I, too, had it. I have compared myself to petite girls, and of course I'm the one losing because I will never look like that. I wonder whether it's a little odd that the sudden presence of eating disorders in my close circle made me, uh, concerned about my body image. I guess we all end up like that, when we grow up? On the other hand, witnessing those struggles made me go and educate myself a bit more on ED, which is great and made me reflect on many levels, but it still feels like a bit of a paradox to me.

Body shaming and body image issues, I feel, are at the core of our current society, which sucks. It also sucks that, as the pessimistic person that I am, I think it will take us a few generations to change our sick mindset, if we ever manage to.

One thing that's for sure is that plenty of us are lacking in the self-acceptance and self-esteem departments. I know I do. Maybe because of different reasons, but the results are quite similar nonetheless, and I keep working on figuring out those things that don't work and making progress.

In retrospective, it's so funny that I struggled with the whole concept of people having to live with an illness or mental disorder. We all learn to live with different stuff.

Hiya, Emma! Hmmm, IIRC, yes, that's basically it. :) We were unable to decide on a single proposal, what with so many awesome ones, and so Emma eventually came up with this. So...try your hand at it, share with us, and hopefully it'll be featured sooner or later. :)

Cristina wrote: "Me topé hoy con un pequeño artículo de opinión en El País acerca de las chicas que fueron asesinadas en Ecuador. Se llama Ellas vs. Ellas y es real como la vida misma.

http://elpais.com/elpais/201..."

Muchas gracias por compartir este enlace con nosotros, Cristina.

Es un tema bastante delicado, ¿verdad? Entiendo la polémica desatada con Rivadeneira, cuyas declaraciones a nivel público no justifico de ninguna manera, pero...¿cuántos y cuántas no habremos pensado así? Reconozco que yo misma soy culpable de pensamientos muy similares. En ningún caso desde la perspectiva de "Ah, vaya, de modo que iban así o asá, vestían tal y cual; oh, en tal caso os lo habéis ganado..." No, pero sí ese sentimiento de pena mezclado con reproche que se traduce en "Pero cómo se le ocurrió ir sola / confiar en ese, si ya se sabe que tienes que tener cuidado, que a cierta hora es peligroso andar sola, que..."

(Pensando más sobre mis propias palabras, sé que muy poca gente dirá/pensará siquiera abiertamente: "se lo han buscado." Dudo mucho que la propia Rivadeneira así lo pensase, y sé que ya solo en el "si ella no hubiese..." hay una acusación, de una forma u otra, incluso si no lo queremos. Pero en fin, quería aclarar que de ninguna manera pienso en términos de "la culpa es de ellas." No, la culpa es exclusiva de los asesinos, los violadores, los que no saben respetar a otro ser humano.)

Para mí es un círculo vicioso, porque con nuestro miedo y nuestras precauciones forzosas sin duda contribuimos a perpetuar las normas no escritas de la brutalidad, pero por otra parte, ¿quién quiere arriesgarse? Yo, que vivo en una buena ciudad, segura y tranquila, cojo el taxi sin excepción en cuanto me pilla la madrugada en la calle, y pido al taxista que espere hasta que haya entrado al portal. Y no me veo cambiando de conducta. Es lamentable.

I'll have to elaborate my thoughts deeper after dinner, but I would say that body acceptance should definitely be / is part of the feminist cause. It is certainly not exclusive to feminism, because both men and women need to love their body shape and image, and young men and male teenagers can and do suffer from ED as well. However, I guess you could say that there are certain circumstances relating to body image issues in women that are closely linked with those matters that concern feminism the most.

Hey, Yan! I know you were mainly responding to Savannah, but if it helps, I understood pretty much everything that you wrote! :)

There's something that you said that I found rather interesting, 'men and women are more equal in school than in society.' As a foreigner, I am of course not nearly close to your level of understanding of your native culture, but it's something that I can easily picture. Back in China, my female friends were all highly competitive - many of them were brilliant, incredibly hardworking young women who also aimed pretty high! I'm talking the diplomatic field, interpreting studies, business, etc. They were certainly supported by their parents...in fact, they were pressed by their parents to achieve their very best, which had to be equally better than what their peers could achieve. However, as their uni years approached an end, they would also face increasing pressure to find a good, serious boyfriend, preferably Chinese. While I know that my male friends faced their own version of such pressure, I'm sure that the differences in society, as you mentioned, start to feel deeper from that moment onwards.

On Chinese girls and their fashion choices, I saw both of them and all the middle points in between, to be honest. I do remember that many of those who wore tomboyish clothing still did care a lot about their appearance, it's just that they chose a different style.

Hi everybody! How are your Easter hols going? Just wanted to chime in with some good news - Harper, the American publisher of 'How To Be A Woman,' has applied a discount to the book across a bunch of international markets, such as Amazon (.com and .co.uk, sorry for the .es as I do not believe there's any discount!), Barnes & Noble, iBooks and Google Play. We thought some of you might be glad to hear about it and save some dough on our choice for April. :)

That's all for now...only for now. Soon enough we will officially start to read & discuss our new addition to the shelf!! :)

Tim!! Believe it or not, the other day I was thinking, 'Where did he go? Such a bummer if he left!' So it was high time you came back, man. OSS was missing you!

Alsoooooo, this sounds interesting. Letters...or postcards. I love me some snail mail.

Hi everybody! I saw this like half an hour ago and thought I'd make a temporary announcement here so that all of you Kindle users could catch up on the latest news coming from good ole Amazon. Please find more information in English here

Run, kids! The update needs to be completed by the end of TODAY.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

¡Hola a todos! Si sois usuarios de Kindle, por favor, consultad la información en este enlace para confirmar que vuestro Kindle está actualizado, ANTES de que concluya el día de hoy. He confirmado con el Servicio Técnico de Amazon que esta noticia es cierta y sería un tremendo engorro restituir el acceso a Internet de vuestros dispositivos si no instaláis la actualización. ¡Pensé que sería información útil para muchos de vosotros, ya que yo misma la vi de casualidad en Facebook! Este hilo estará abierto de forma temporal a modo de aviso. ¡Muchas gracias! :)

Looking forward to reading this one!! I've read quite a few reviews on Caitlin Moran's books, all of them pretty good. A controversial one, too, so I think we'll have a pretty busy month of April. ^^

Delaney wrote: "Oh wow what a nice surprise!! @ Simon and Helen thank you so much!"

Awwww, Delaney! You so deserved it! I loved all of your proposals from the beginning. Congrats!

Katelyn wrote: "Ana is a SUPERSTAR!!!!"

Aw, you're too kind! :') Well, it's my way of saying thank you for this little big project that we all have going on in here. :)

Alright!!! I finished the transcription. Good Lord, 24 pages, hahaha, it was challenging sometimes. Now we just need to do some proof-editing and then it'll be available for translation into whichever language we deem appropriate. :) Spanish being the first one, hehe. :)

Yeah, well, you know, some people just can't do much more better than that. I found it so amusing, like, hey, you will never know but this is why there is such a word as feminism, and it's only one of the less urging reasons, you poor thing.

Hello everybody, and happy International Women's Day! To be honest, each and every day should be a valid one to defend our beliefs, as I'm sure many of you are thinking on this particular day. However, it is a special day in the calendar after all, and this will be the first year that I actually do celebrate it intently. There's a rally in my hometown and I think I'm gonna try and go, might take some pics and post them here later, if it's appropriate, of course. :)

Oh, and I'm also celebrating by shaking my head with some of the comments that I'm reading on Facebook for this article in The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/...

There's this lovely man who gave me some unsolicited advice to do something about my hair in my profile pic, because apparently I'm looking frumpy. He also called me luv. LOL, alrighty, man. Because we have reached equality already, of course.

Iamshadow wrote: "I actively disliked this book, for several reasons. I'm not going to dump my whole review here, because it's full of spoilers, but yeah. I gave it a go, I read it to the end, but in my honest opini..."

I know this can be challenging for some people, but no one should throw you shade for not liking a book! :D We each have different expectations and tastes, amirite? :) I think there is a thread for those who finished it already? If there is, go there and share your review with us!

That being said, a lot of people seem to have gone rather fast through the book. Is it that easy to read, are you reading beasts or is it just that I've lost my own, pretty-impressive-in-the-past, reading powers? (Maybe a mix of the second and third options, haha!)

Ahhh, thanks Ashwin! Sanskrit, wow, that must be so cool. I saw Sanskrit here and there while I lived in China, mainly because of the Buddhist temples. I love languages that do not use the Western alphabet, they just seem that much more mysterious to me. <3 German is not easy, I have heard! The closest thing to it that I've studied is Dutch, which I think isn't that difficult but still challenging if you've never had any experience with that language family.

Anyway, I'm digressing! Oh, so you are kind of in touch with the Satyamev Jayate team, or maybe just like a fan of the TV series? I understand, it'll be lovely if you could help! As I said, I'm interested myself and know of a few people who would be as well. It's a nice break from Western-centered perspectives, you know. :) Too much Western world and we have the obnoxious habit of forgetting about other societies. ;)

Just to share a bit of the transcription while I keep working on it:

In fact, the means are the ends, the means create the ends that we’re gonna get, so if we want humour and love and good food and dancing at the end, not that this is an end but you know what I mean, then we want humor and food and good dancing along the way, otherwise we won’t have it there, and we’ll burn out in the way, so I mean, I’m not gonna say I’m a model of doing this but I do think that the process, the friendship, the craziness, the ahas, you know, when you suddenly realise something, the sense that you’re doing what you love, you forget what time it is when you’re doing it, you love it so much, that you just keep going, it’s the most moving to me, and when I see people at the end of their lives or the end of their rope and they pick themselves up and they go on, it just makes me cry, you know, it is so miraculous, and it’s so much what we need to do, it does make me cry

Perhaps it's just me and my hormones having a roller coaster kind of day, but I was there myself and this part already had me, and now I'm listening to it again and I'm not too ashamed to say, I teared up a little. Yes. I'm Emma's age, so not even close to Gloria's wisdom and poise, but the older I grow the more this resonates with me. The friendships, the craziness, the ahas, the good memories. We need them. Sob. :')

Jason wrote: "She had me until she started trying to convince me to abandon my individuality and dreams to lead a communal life. That hippie BS really turned me off. I don't think the circle is useful to society..."

Not that I have started reading the book yet, which I'll try to change ASAP, but in the words of our January author, 'we are in a hierarchy, hierarchy is based on patriarchy, patriarchy doesn’t work anywhere anymore.' ;)

I would not be up to leave everything and go live in a hippie commune, mind you. Well, no need to word that in the conditional tense...I am not up for it, present tense, period. ;) Competitiveness is one of my traits, I am afraid, although I have yet to find out its source. All I'm saying is, hierarchy, regardless of its origins, may make you want to be better, but it does not necessarily allow you to do so. Because of hierarchy, some us can aspire to some stuff while others can't, and I'm not even talking feminism right now. So when you know that you want and actually would be able to progress, but you end up crashing against the tall, sometimes insurmountable wall of hierarchy...there is a mighty chance that you will feel bitterness, resentment or despair. Unhappiness, in a word. That's where I would see the point of those who defend leading a communal life, and even though as I said before I would not be up for it entirely, I do believe that maybe just incorporating a bit of the mindset does us good indeed.

I am pessimistic enough to believe that we will never get rid of hierarchy. However, I would hope that we will still be able to keep fighting it and conquering at least a few points within the system, if we all make a continuous, conscious effort. :)

Hehe, I sort of remembered Satya-something and then the Jayate bit, sort of, so I googled it a bit and got it! :) Thanks, it's mostly cause I'm a huge languages nerd, LOL. BTW, I thought you could watch them all with English subtitles but many of them in the official website do not have subtitles? It's a pity, I wanted to watch them and I've also got a friend who is very interested in India and social issues worldwide, so I'd have liked to share the links with him. Boo. :(