THE SLOUCH

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Michael measured the Cabbage the other day and she is 4’9. She will be ten in September and she is just a little over a foot shorter than I am tall. Michael started talking about how the Cabbage is going to be a tall girl and I responded with “that means she’s going to slouch.” Michael gave me an inquisitive look, so I went on to explain how tall girls generally slouch in order to fit in with their peers. That’s where it starts. Then the slouching happens as a way to hide their bodies. Michael said something about knowing what it’s like to be a big tall guy so he gets it, but I’m not sure he really did get it. Sure he makes an impact when he enters a room but more often than not that impact is a resounding positive “wow! you’re so tall!”. The tone of that statement shifts when a big tall girl enters a room. I have rarely heard someone tell me that I look thin without using a tone of negativity and then adding an inquiry about my health. “You look thin! Are you okay?” is not a compliment. There must be something wrong with you at all times. You are either too thin or too fat. Too tall or too short. Really it doesn’t matter to you if you are either too this or too that. All you want is to be noticed for your abilities to think up cool things and do interesting stuff while having a healthy body.

Men are praised for being tall. Boys got Paul Bunyan and girls got Thumbelina.

We slouch because we learn at an early age that more value is placed on the shape of our bodies than the words we have to say. Slouching is way of saying “please don’t notice my height. please don’t notice that my boobs are big or not big enough. please just listen to the smart ideas I have running through my brain.” Sometimes the slouching never goes away because we have discovered that it hides so many insecurities. We’ve discovered a way to fold ourselves around those insecurities as a means of protection. We only discover years later that our spines were not designed for all of that protecting and that in order to relieve the stress on our spines, we must expose our insecurities. And it is hard. It is like having a cast taken off your arm and then having to straighten that arm after it has been fixed in position for months, but worse because the spine has been bent over for years.

I slouch when I’m tired and recently it seems that I am always tired. Michael asked the other day “don’t you just sit around and think about things some times?” I started to answer, but then he kept on talking, never giving me a chance to answer his question. I lacked the energy to straighten my spine and speak up. Instead , I just vaguely listened as he rattled on about his plans for changing the Supreme Court while thinking about my answer to his question. I spend my day thinking up solutions to problems. My job is a scientific puzzle. The spare thoughts I have are on things that I have control over, changes I can make, projects I can work on. I think about stories I can write. I think about how telling him all of this will make no difference. My words will fly in one of his ears and then immediately out the other. Answering his question will not change the things I think about. It dawns on me that it doesn’t really matter to me to have my voice heard. It is not a lack of confidence. It is just , I don’t know, a security in myself that doesn’t need that validation or at least I don’t need his validation. I stand up straighter as I realize this.

“Sing out, Louise!” Well… Louise did learn to sing out, while artfully taking off her clothes. To be fair, it was only a glove at first and if you notice, Louise is standing tall and proud, if not a little bit shaky while she peels that glove from her arm. I am not advocating that you become a burlesque act in order to straighten your spine and drop some insecurities, but if you think about it, it couldn’t hurt. Peeling that glove from her arm is a metaphor for peeling away insecurities. You do not have to literally remove your clothing. For years you listened to people tell you that you’d be so much prettier if you didn’t slouch. They never once said to you that your voice would be stronger, louder and heard if you didn’t slouch. But the song I sing out is meant to be read.

So I sit up straighter as I type.

ME TOO

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Oct 16, 2017 at 1:51pm UTC

4 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram

There was a man at my church, who whenever he saw me would want to pick me up and carry me around. He'd ask me to kiss his cheek. I was maybe five or six. I remember being small and feeling his large hand tight around my upper thigh, just under the skirt of my church dress. The first time he did this, it made me laugh. Every little kid wants to be picked up and carried around. I was just at that age were I was too big to be carried around by my Dad. So being picked up was a treat. But then this man did this every time he saw me, picking me up and squeezing me tight. He was always begging for kisses even though I pushed away. I didn't want to be picked up. I didn't want to feel his hands on my body. I didn't want to kiss his cheek. But I played along because I didn't want to hurt his feelings and when I couldn't take another encounter with him, I started hiding, ducking behind a bookshelf or into a stairwell. 

I thought for a long time that this is just the way things are. A woman's body is never just her own. In everything I had seen on TV, covers of magazines and the romance novels that piled up next to my mother's bedside table, a woman was always being manhandled. We were told this was normal and that this is what we should want. We should want a man to touch our bodies. We should be flattered by it. We should even use it to our advantage. As a young girl and teen, those moments when a boy tried to touch me were so rare, that when it did happen, I almost felt grateful. I had zero confidence in my body or how I looked and those rare encounters made me believe for a moment that maybe I was attractive. Maybe I wasn't just a chubby pimply faced awkward girl. We were taught that our self worth was measured by how much a man wanted to touch your body, even if his touch makes you feel like throwing up. 

It wasn't until college when I found my voice. I'd hang out with my roommate in the guys dorms. She had a thing for one of the basketball players and we'd sit in his room while they smoked pot and listened to R Kelly. One of the other basketball players was always trying 'get with me'. Those where his words. He was never forceful, just persistent. His persistence made me feel uncomfortable, like there was something wrong with me for not wanting to be with this guy, for not wanting him to touch me. Maybe I was 'frigid'. I had yet to lose my virginity. Was it because I wouldn't just give in, even when I felt nothing for this guy other than annoyance? It seemed like punishment for having standards, for wanting a partner who was my equal. Punishment for wanting a partner who treated my body less like an object and more like a temple. One day, for no reason other than I had finally had enough, I told that guy "NO". I told him that his advances made me feel uncomfortable. It made me not want to be around him. So I wasn't. I walked away and stayed away. 

Then there was Chris, who was that equal partner. He treated my inexperience carefully and gently. He did not persist. He let me make my first skittish moves. He let my body be my own. This in itself made me feel more attractive than any of those previous encounters. Chris was a protective barrier to a point, but Chris's presence didn't stop other men from the occasional touch. There's always that guy who thinks it's just fine to pat you on the ass. After Chris, when I was alone, I found myself in more and more situations where a guy would find excuses to touch me. I would recoil, step back, jump away. Even though there were times I craved human touch, I did not welcome this encroachment on my personal space. I did not encourage it. I was never asking for it. A couple of years ago, I went to get a massage. It was at a spa I'd been to before, with a massage therapist I had been with once before. Near the end he asked me if he could massage my chest. I was just recovering from a chest cold and the muscles in the upper part of my chest were tight. I consented thinking that the massage therapist was going to work on that area, which he did. Then his hands were on my breasts. I remember thinking even then 'this is okay, there's muscles there too that need to be released', reassuring myself. Then his hands moved to my nipples and alarm bells rang in my head. This was not okay. But I laid there and let it happen, too ashamed to say a word. 

So many people wonder why it has taken so long for all of these women to come forward with their confessions of sexual harassment. Those people must be fortunate enough to never have experienced the shame and humiliation that comes from being sexually harassed. I have never told the story about the massage therapist to any one, until today. At the time it was happening, I was too shocked to believe it was really happening. Then, I was ashamed of myself and embarrassed. I had given him permission to massage my chest and when he crossed a line, I did nothing to stop it. I had asked for it, right? Except it does not make his actions right. What about that man from church? I never told him "no". I never asked him verbally to stop. I was six. Just because I didn't say no, does not make his actions right either. Admitting that you were vulnerable and trusted another human to not take advantage of your vulnerability is not an easy thing to do. 

It takes a lot of courage. 

Every woman who steps forward, even if it has been years since the incident, gives another woman courage to speak. It sends the message to every man that we will not stay silent and we will not let you behave this way. Fathers who thought this could never happen to their daughters or brothers who believed they could protect their little sisters from predators, are now aware that, yes this can happen. Because I am positive that there are fathers out there who truly believe that this is not going to happen to his little girl. My own brother is probably going to be completely surprised by my own stories of sexual harassment. For far too long we've let society put the blame on the victim and it has silenced us. It stops now. I'd like to believe that the Cabbage is never going to have to tell a story about being sexually harassed. Though, I am not that naive. I don't want her to feel ashamed. I don't want her to be scared to speak up, to scream "NO!". I want her to know that she owns her own body, and nobody else does. 

That's why I am telling my story.