Why play a game you cannot win, when you didn't agree to the rules?

There exist a lot of compulsions and "shoulds" with regard to how we maintain and care for our bodies.

I learned every single one as a tween and a young teen. Girls and women shaved their body hair, wore makeup whenever possible (flawlessly), dressed in restrictive clothing to hide "imperfections", were constantly dieting, and worried first and foremost about what boys and men thought of their appearance and performance of all of these ... rules. Adequate performance of the rules equaled sexiness, and sexiness equaled value. Period, end of story.

I went years without even questioning any of the above. No one ever mentioned an alternative. And as someone who didn't care about makeup (and was really bad at using it!), couldn't access the "right" kind of sexy and fashionable clothing (because I had no money and those clothes weren't made in my size), and for whom dieting and exercise made no visible difference whatsoever, that meant that I had no value. I had no value in my own perception, and I assumed I had no value in the eyes of others, either.

And yet, it didn't occur to me that the rules were the problem. Not until much later, when I discovered radical, rebellious mentors whose words shattered everything I knew.

And I know now that the rules are unjust. The rules are oppressive. The rules were created on purpose, the rules are violent, and the rules are a lie. They exist to control, and that is why they are enforced as ubiquitous. They must become unconscious, unquestioned. Those who question must be shunned, mocked, and seen as lesser.

Whenever you see another person as beautiful, just as they are, you are rebelling. When you ask yourself why it is that you seek to change your body, you are fighting. When you catch yourself having negative thoughts about another person's appearance, and you interrupt those thoughts, you win a battle. When you give up living for the consumption of an omniscient Other, you're victorious.

(I want to acknowledge that some of us must play by the rules--in order to keep our jobs/advance our careers, or in some cases, in order to stay alive. Raising both middle fingers to the rules isn't an option for everyone, and we must accept that it isn't our business whether or why someone follows the rules.)