My Body

Anissa Kermiche Happy (Book) Endings + Emily Ratajkowski My Body

Two weeks have passed since I finished Emily Ratajkowski’s debut book, My Body, and for nearly just as much time, I’ve sat with an empty draft (save the title and image above). So much is on my mind and yet, I’m not sure how to begin or where to conjure up the confidence to articulate those thoughts. I want to be concise. Smart. And most important of all, be careful with my words.

This hesitation (trepidation, even) speaks volumes. Whether these half-baked ideas waiting to cement themselves online are worth documenting, I’m not sure—but what I do know for certain is that this collection of essays is important for women. So here goes: scattered thoughts, bulleted for ease (if you choose to read) and listed simply as a means of managing these stream-of-consciousness-styled notes:

• My Body is symbolic in that Emily Ratajkowski is finally reclaiming her body as her own: that her body, often the subject of unsolicited discourse and uninvited hypersexualization, is—surprise!—not something, but someone with lived experiences, feelings, a mind, a soul. There’s no doubt that it would’ve been easier for her to accept her role in this world as Every Man’s Fantasy and not take control of her narrative, but she chose freedom (and possibly sanity) over the status quo. Of course she knew she’d be criticized, hated, made even more controversial than she already has been (simply for being a woman who (surprise again!) contains multitudes. After all, for any woman to share her story demands bravery, and for a public figure so categorically polarizing and under constant public scrutiny—one who is conventionally attractive and therefore not allowed to challenge the patriarchy from which she has benefited—is worth applauding.

• Most admirable, though, is how she admits that her worldview has shifted since her early twenties—and that her stark stance on feminism then, though in the right place, was one-tracked and immature, even. I think many, myself included, can relate: from the time men started looking at me differently (I was in my early teens), I misunderstood that gaze and desire as power. I, too, believed I was in control, that I was smarter than them and therefore, could play the game better—and I would do so, ruthlessly, to succeed at creating a seat at the table beside them. Like Ratajkowski, it took me years to realize that to play along, however handsomely rewarding, was to be complicit—and at the end of the day, was I really winning a game in which I was forever a pawn, never the game master? The only way up and out is different, not more of the same.

• I tend to avoid book reviews because I know what I like and am confident in knowing what I don’t. I can easily predict the “critique” disguised as feminism—which I refuse to give airtime here—but what I will say is this: the world is complicated. People are complicated. To exist as a woman (today, in the past, in the future) will always be a complex experience so long as our society remains as is. We’re allowed to do what we need to in order to survive, to change, to learn, to do better, to regress, all of it. To be and to grow is to be human.

• I have such gratitude and tenderness towards the moments of vulnerability she shared. Had this been edited differently (or written by someone with less conviction), I think those seemingly insignificant moments (like her inner monologue when choosing her clothes, or when she admires how she looks) are what make this book so special. They’re relatable and mirror our self-talk because even she, someone who looks like Her-with-a-Capital-H, wishes for beauty as desperately as the next girl. We’ve all wished for it at some point (thinness, rounder hips, a flatter waist, juicier lips, doe-like eyes), a realization that we all know—but to see the same thoughts on paper for the masses is both relief and shared heartache. Because even if we’re sheltered from the world and told by the most supportive, loving parents that we could be anything or do anything the boys did, we quickly learned the harsh reality. We all knew too much, too soon, when we should’ve been able to just be girls.

• Read it with gentleness and empathy. You will feel seen and validated. You are not alone.

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xx