I was sitting in a restaurant with my aunt, wishing to have some actual bonding time with her. After six months, I could finally talk about how amazing the school was, the friends I made. SoI finally sat down and had a chance to talk to her face to face, but the word coming from her mouth was just like a heavy blow, struck my head:‘ Plastic Surgery.’
My aunt was encouraging me to do plastic surgery because my face didn’ t fit in with the Asian mainstream. That my nose was not perfect, and my chin was not long enough.
Still, two years ago, I was sitting in my car with my aunt and my mom. It was after dinner, and we were driving back home. I was so sleepy, so I closed my eyes, but I didn’ t fully fall in asleep. So I overheard my mother and my aunt’ s conversation, about me. My mom was complaining about how bad I was doing at school, about how I didn’ t get the perfect grades, and then that word slapped on my face----‘ ugly.’
My mom was talking about how ugly I was, about how to transform me:“ Why did she become uglier after she has grown up? Why couldn’ t she be prettier? How could she find a boyfriend in the future?” My heart pounded, my thoughts mixed, my stomach twisted. I cried loudly and silently at the same time, with thousands of teardrops rolling down to my heart. I wanted to wake up and shout to my mom, the women I loved so much, that you shouldn’ t describe me like this, that you shouldn’ t put me down with society’ s ridiculous beauty standards.
At the age of fifteen, I still didn’ t fully form the concept of stereotypes and feminism, so I embraced these criticisms tacitly. Confronting a lot of fixed stereotypes and traditional perspectives from my home country, I have constantly been told that women and girls need to be pretty enough to be defined as a success in their lives; women should be slender and flawless; women should focus on their beauty more than their wisdom, and a woman needs to fulfill her life by finding a husband.
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One year ago, I asked my mom about the reason why she used‘ ugly,’ such simple but powerful adjective to describe me. She said she was just joking, and she didn’ t really mean it. But jokes like that hurt. They etched in my heart, making me doubt myself and letting me to ask the same question over and over again‘ Am I pretty and skinny enough? Will people like how I look?” I felt jealous of others, embarrassed of myself, ashamed of critical comments, and I even got to the point of feeling like a complete loser.
Now I look around, and I find comments like that are around every corner. In jokes and gossip, or a simple comment on social media, people try to label and put down each other based on appearances. And it’ s not always only about the criticism that men put on women’ s appearances; it also matters on the comments between women themselves. Whether it’ s a whisper by ear, a talk behind someone’ s back or a malicious comment on people’ s face, applying beauty and body standards to anyone is not a comedy or joke. It’ s a way of conscious hurting and bullying.
Till now, the comments that I was afraid of fighting back when I was fifteen, those that seemed so painful, are still haunting me. It is a memory I will never forget, a memory that I now recall whenever I witness girls who experience similar criticisms. From the experiences in Putney, I gradually learned that the way people perceive me shouldn’ t be the way I perceive myself, and no one should judge me in terms of my body and appearance. But, sometimes, I still try my best to keep myself on a diet, to skip meals, to contour my nose simply because I still want to stand out in crowds, to look like the girls on social media, but the most thing I’ m eager to get, after all, is my aunt and mom’ s approval.