How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong

by Elizabeth Day

I know men struggle with body confidence too, but I do also believe that centuries of conditioning society to assess women according to their looks or sex appeal and to objectify them in order to sell products or be artists’ muses or to dance provocatively at a pool party in a music video or to be silent, pretty bit-part players on a stage where all the speaking parts are taken by men, means that women are especially prone to giving themselves a hard time over their appearance. For us, it never is purely superficial. We fear that how we look is going to be judged by those in power and be found wanting. We fall into the trap of competing with other women, comparing our bra sizes and our waist measurements and whether or not we have a thigh gap, without realising that the seeds of this entirely pointless division have been sown by years and years of institutionalised misogyny. In that context, the most revolutionary act is actually to be happy with yourself.