What Men See

Every man I’ve ever known has had something to say about my body. I’m still waiting for the one who asks what it’s been through.

My uncle said I was filling out. I was eleven.

A boy at school said I was flat. I was thirteen.

The musician said I was fit. I was eighteen. He meant it as a compliment. I wore it like a crown. Because when your value has been set by other people’s eyes since before you had a say, a compliment feels like currency and you spend it before you realise it’s counterfeit.

His friend said I could do with losing a few. At a party. In front of people. While the musician laughed. Twenty years old. Two vodkas deep. Wearing a dress I never wore again.

The husband said I wasn’t attractive any more. After the second baby. Over toast. Nine words that landed on top of every other word that every other man had ever said about my body until the pile was so high I couldn’t see over it.

My body has been public property since before I understood what property was. It has been discussed at dinner tables and in bedrooms and in car parks and in group chats I wasn’t part of. It has been rated and ranked and compared and found wanting by men who couldn’t run a mile but had firm opinions about my thighs.

I have starved this body. Punished it. Hidden it. Displayed it. Weaponised it. Used it as currency and then hated myself for the exchange rate.

This body grew two humans. Survived abuse. Carried me through the worst years of my life. Got up every morning. Made lunches. Drove cars. Built businesses. Held children while they cried and didn’t break even though it was breaking.

And still. Still. The loudest thing in my head when I look in the mirror is not what I think. It’s what they said. A chorus of men stretching back thirty years, all with something to say about something that was never theirs.

I’m reclaiming it. Slowly. In the way you reclaim anything that’s been occupied for a long time. Room by room. Inch by inch. Some days I take back my waist. Some days I lose my thighs again. Some days the whole territory is mine and some days it’s his and some days I just don’t look.

But the fact that I’m fighting for it at all. That I’m standing in front of a mirror at nearly forty and saying this is mine, this is mine, this is mine.

That’s new.

That’s the beginning of something.