Feminism

Vulnerable Places; Transformations

Today I am going to reach for the hardest place - or rather, a vulnerable one.

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I’m fortified by other students and scientists who talk about their mental health struggles openly. I’m inspired by their boldness - and see the important ways they help me overcome my own demons. I’m sharing bits of my story in hopes of adding to the ocean of help and changing cultural tides.

So this is my body, with all its imperfections and glowy bits and jigglies. Someday I’ll unpack the anxiety I have sharing a 👙 photo because of patriarchal bullsh*t and fear of not-being-taken-seriously - but today is for something else entirely.

Today is for acknowledging the dangers of perfectionism - and the pain it generates when it clashes with beauty culture and anxiety.

This is my body (mostly) happy. This is my body well-fed. Five years ago, my body was thin beyond recognition. I weighed myself (and my food) multiple times a day, counted every freaking calorie, and obsessed constantly about hunger, lack thereof, my body, my next meal. I weighed 70. pounds. less. than I weigh now. 7 - 0.

It’s hard to explain an eating disorder, and recovery, to those who have a healthy relationship with food and themselves. And I’m not aiming to do that today. I do, however, want to dispel the myth that eating disorders only effect those caught up in how they look.

My ED emerged when I lost the illusion of control; of my academic life, of my schedule, of my direction. It emerged as a powerful outlet for my otherwise inexhaustible anxiety. It emerged as a means to answer the self-hate-filled voice in my head. It resulted in exhaustion, loss of friendships and experiences and my body’s means to thermoregulate. It is and was heavy in so many other ways.

I rolled slowly out of it like a coming-back-to-life when I moved to a new place and new University and adopted a pup and fell back in love with the world and myself.

It is still hard some days. But my lesson to share (for me too) is this: this world needs you at your most whole - your most cared for. You cannot hate yourself into perfection or oblivion. Live your life. Nurture yourself. Use that good energy to help the rest.

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All of Ourselves

It’s 2019 and let’s start with some big vulnerability…

 I am a Conservation Scientist.

 I am also a woman. And a settler-American-living-in-Canada. I’m a love-all-the-animals-dog-foster-mom and a marathoner and an eating-disorder survivor and a caver and a climber and a feminist and a worrier and a warrior. I’m acquainted with anxiety and depression, success and sexism, and wow impostor syndrome just wins sometimes.

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 I like getting glammed-up as much as I like being 3 days into a backpacking trip without a hair brush. I get highlights once annually and don’t always get enough sleep. I watch Netflix and work sometimes too much and sometimes too little.


Despite all these internal diversities that enrich my life and my work and my experiences, I am constantly fighting the pressure to streamline my messaging. I feel this continuous anxiety that I shouldn’t bring my personality to my #scicomm – that I should leave my feminism and femininity, my advocacy and emotion, my outside-of-science joys out of my work in order to be qualified to *belong* in the institution of science.

 But in 2018, I was surrounded and immensely inspired by women bringing ALL of themselves to their work. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Biologist Imogene , @caimarison , @livesinadream , Science.Sam , @andreajanereid , ALN , @alieward , and so(!) many more are doing something powerful and important — they are peeling back the layers of protection that women have had to utilize for so long to be taken seriously, and powerfully representing who they are and what they stand for.

 So in 2019, I’m committed to bringing my whole self to my work. I’m bringing my intelligence and emotion, my joys, mental-hurdles, and hard days. I will bring my selfies and my backcountry adventures, my optimism and my bikini beach days. I will do so in recognition that I, that we, belong in the halls of academia, science, and government just as we are – right now. And we have the chance (each of us) to empower others as I feel I’ve been empowered this year. 💕💪🌎

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(For more on Octavio-Cortez see @alexakissinger ‘s incredible 2018 Vox article: https://www.vox.com/…/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-congress-fir… )