By Alexandra Barbera
Sonya Renee Taylor’s book The Body Is Not an Apology has exceeded my highest expectations. Not only is it informative, but it also offers a powerful sense of self-reflection to any reader. Reading it feels like talking with a friend of mine. You know, that badass, strong-willed, tough love-giving friend? Yeah, that’s this book.
Sonya Renee Taylor captivates you in a way where you find yourself thinking about her conversations throughout your day. Since finishing the book, I find myself utilizing her tips and ‘toolkit’ in all aspects of my life, especially when it comes to policing myself for body shaming others. You may think you are not guilty of this, but this book asks you to think again. Conditioned body oppression is so deeply ingrained within ourselves, it has become a subconscious act.
The Body is Not an Apology offers a platform to delve deeper than just our proclaimed self-esteem, self-confidence or even self-acceptance. So maybe you don’t hate your body and accept yourself. This is great, but Taylor claims there is something more — Radical Self-love. As stated by Taylor, “Radical self-love is about the self because the self is part of the whole. And therefore, Radical self-love is the foundation of radical human love. Our relationships with our own bodies inform our relationships with others.”
The Three Peaces
So why Radical self-love and not just self-acceptance? Taylor makes the important distinction that in order for social reform, seeing body oppression from a radical perspective illuminates the dire change needed within our political and economic systems. Racism, sexism, ablemism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, fatphobia are all constructs upheld when we neglect the three peaces. These three facets offer a life raft to pull us out when we our drowning in our body judgment and shame. The three peaces being: peace with understanding, peace with difference, peace with your body.
Taylor discusses how we first learn to hate, dislike, regret our bodies during childhood. Whether it’s your mom limiting what you eat because she says you’re too fat or the kids in school making fun of your dark skin, we learn from a young age that we are different. Society upholds the binary of good vs. bad differences. What we look like and who we are in the world is not a matter of being, it is a matter of morality and shame.
During our teenage years, we are consumed with media messages. Media that tells you that to be beautiful you need to be white, thin, “healthy” with long hair (preferably blond). But wait — there’s more: we can fix ourselves and be beautiful and happy if we just buy tons of useless expensive products. Taylor analyzes how our body shame has fueled the beauty industry and toxic consumerism.
Body Oppression
Body Oppression is ingrained within our government’s systems of oppression, promoting white nationalism and the endless policing and control of our bodies . When he says “make America great” Trump wants the U.S. to go back to the 1950s. A time when privileged white people dominated our culture with unearned access to economic opportunities. As many know, Trump referred to all Mexicans as “gang members”, and is siphoning off money in the budget to build a wall to keep them out of the U.S. Futhermore the recent state attempts to overturn Roe v.Wade meaning that 25 million women are at risk of losing access to abortion. All over the world our bodies are policed. Case in point: up until 2018, women were banned from driving in Saudia Arabi. Along with the 14 million people in Yemen whom don’t have enough to eat. These are all examples of body terrosim that directly affect our autonomy.
So how does Taylor say we overcome this type of Body Terroism? First, to understand that Body Terroism is our universal language and we all have a lot of unlearning to do. Such as limiting the toxic media we consume. T.V. shows like The Biggest Loser promotes a negative stereotype about fat bodies. Taylor provides a Radical Self-love tool kit in Chapter 5 to aid and guide your Radical self-love journey. As stated by Taylor in Chapter 4, “Systems do not maintain themselves; even our lack of intervention is an act of maintenance.”
This book provides applicable strategies, and tips for you to begin the unlearning process of body shame and growth of self-love. You may be thinking Wait! What does self-love mean? What should it look like? Self-love is posting the selfies you’ve been keeping in your archives. Maybe you haven’t posted it because you think your fat body should not be on display. Self-love is saying fuck what others may think. You are doing this for yourself. Self-love is is standing up to your boss and calling out the pay gap between you and your male coworkers. Because you are worthy of equal pay. Self-love is unapologetically wearing your hijab when you want to and standing up for your beliefs.
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