Dare To Fly Free

I am currently preparing a piece for Women’s Body Image Anthology. I am very excited about voicing my thoughts my opinion and my past about something so important to me.

This is a bit of what it is about.

Phat Girls in Search of a Pretty World: Hot Lil’ Fat Chicks Speakin’ Out!

Phat Girls will explore plus size women’s private and public journeys with weight. In this original collection, we will express our diverse experiences and memories of how our weight and self/body image have shaped us as women—from childhood to adulthood.

Phat Girls will illuminate the successes achieved and the challenges met by women negotiating a desire for self-love and acceptance of our selves/bodies within an often “thin obsessed” and “thin accessible” society.

We all have diverse paths and histories, cultures, relationships and ambitions, but one thing most of us do in the morning is look at ourselves in the mirror! Phat Girls is interested in your story—what YOU see, think, hear or imagine when YOU look at your fabulous you. Who do you see looking back and what message(s) does she give you about how to live your life? Who to live your life with or for?

What message(s) does your self-image give you on how to navigate through your community as a female, student, professional, an occupant of public spaces for instance on the public transit, at a restaurant, a social or at a movie theatre? The spaces and roles we occupy in our lives are endless! What messages do we get from society (or from those negative nagging voices in our own minds) about how we should look and about how to achieve ‘real’ success? How do all of these factor into our perceptions of our bodies?