Painful Scrutiny

Speed: 4.5, Incline: 3.5. And she kept increasing it even though her nerve endings fired away urgent messages of pain and fatigue. But she kept running with a determined look on her face as tiny beads of sweat developed on her forehead and arms. Weights, stomach crunches, stairs, treadmill. Again & again. She was sick of not being appreciated-not only for who she was but also for how she looked. Everytime they saw her picture they only comment that came out was “Oh! You’ve put on quite a bit of weight!” And whenever they saw her after a span of time there were no sweet & affectionate welcomes but only the biting remarks of how fat she had become.
People told her all the time that she was extremely cute with a combination of sexiness and had an immense charm of her own. But she seemed not to hear it-she heard it-but did not imbibe it because of the many voices in her head that had boomed in there since she was a child -- “you’re fat you know!”
She had always bought size “L” t-shirts as she wanted to conceal what was beneath them – a grotesque body with an even more disappointing person within. She wasn’t really like that but she knew nothing better of herself. Everytime they saw an “L” size t-shirt lying around they always laughed and handed it over to her saying, “This can only be yours!”
She always remembered those numerous times when they wouldn’t let her eat cheese puffs or more than one slice of pizza because “You’ll become even more bulkier than you already are!”
And over the years she was bullied and criticized thus with words dripping with mockery. She hide within her bedcovers and cried her eyes out everytime this happened and vowed to someday be the ‘perfect’ woman they preferred her to be and tell each one of them off.
It still rings in her ear sometimes. “You’ll never find a husband if you keep being so adamant & not doing all the work in the house!” They keep preaching it to her. Day after day.
I have never till this day understood why women are put through such torture of always having to prove themselves – in their appearance and typically all spheres of life- from homemaking to careers to childbearing. It is a raging epidemic of ‘being-perfect’ for a woman that has become exceedingly so pervasive. And in the end it hasn’t brought on productive results for the woman but rather it has greatly damaged a woman’s being, her confidence, her independence, and her willpower. Because not only does she not know her own self but infact is jabbed & pushed repeatedly to a woman she is ‘expected’ to be.
- I know what it did to me. The repeated abuse of verbal criticisms and sarcasm left me very hurt, anguished and made me further withdraw in my insecurities and anger. And it took me many a gentle coaxing and impelling to come out from it. And sometimes, I still have relapses.
And rummaging through the remaining shards of my self-identity and confidence was very difficult. But as I grow older and more mature I always remind myself that the girl who was intimidated & scorned at no longer exists because now she knows better—she knows that she has a great deal more to accomplish in life than merely a kitchen, a few pots & pans & a life in drudgery because she firstly wants to form her own self by herself molding who she is & know what she wants & not simply being acknowledged in the future as the overweight Mrs. Somebody- the wife of so-and-so but rather as the very elegant, smart & talented woman who is a successful wife, mother, daughter but also importantly a individual who has contributed to the world and the progress of humanity by strengthening her self-identity & having the courage of standing up for herself.