In 1792, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft described this invisible confinement of feeling that we’re defined by our bodies at the expense of our humanity: “Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” When our body images and self-images are defined primarily by how we look, our bodies become our prisons.
