Abercrombie and Fitch and the Delusions of Mike Jeffries

To Mike Jeffries:

I know who you are. You are the CEO of one of the most recognizable and desirable clothing retailers in the nation. Your products live in the closets of millions of young people. Your ideals live in their minds and worm their way into their hearts.

You have no idea who I am. You will never meet me. I will remain relatively inconsequential and insignificant in your life. As an individual, you have little impact on my life, and I have little on yours. 

But I am part of a larger group of people, and we are certainly not insignificant or unworthy of recognition. My experience in life is a microcosm of the whole. A snapshot of what many men and women experience when their beautiful, divinely ordained and created lives smash up against the perversions and illusions constructed to shame their bodies, minds and souls. 

You sit at the helm of a multi-million dollar marketing machine, and you are completely aware of the impact that you have on popular culture. You know that your approval of marketing, in-store merchandising and presentation of your brand can impact and define the choices, desires and ultimately, the self-image of an impressionable group of people. You know your power, and you exploit it in the name of exclusivity. You channel it into a falsely constructed reality that propagates the message that image, thinness, sexiness and improperly defined masculinity are the keys to happiness, success, and value in life.

I spent years of my teenage life skulking through your store, the bass beat of dance music reverberating through my body as I picked at piles of paper-thin t-shirts, slim-cut v-neck sweaters and low-rise jeans, searching desperately for my size. I was disappointed every time. I remember wiping hot tears from my eyes as my friends hauled off piles of clothes to the dressing room to try on, and I stood outside, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, staring at highly sexualized pictures of flawless teenage girls and men dripping with washboard abs and deep v-cuts. I purchased one item of clothing from your store in 2003, when I had unhealthily reached a size that your store actually sold. I wore it once before it fell apart in the wash. I have since wandered through your myriad of different stores and labels, and found myself entranced and drawn in to your clever marketing that made me wish I was prettier, thinner, sexier and worth more than the little I felt as I looked around your cleverly constructed universe of image-driven perfection. You made me feel ashamed of everything I am. And you do that to boys, girls, men and women, each day, out of a desire for profit, influence and cultural relevance.

I have known people who have worked for your company. I have seen the way they obsess over fulfilling the company standard for appearance. I have worked for one of your competitors that markets toward a more inclusive market, and felt confident, comfortable and supported in my work environment. But I have not once felt welcome in your stores, even when I could purchase and wear clothes you sold. 

To you, I am not cool. I am not attractive. I am not all-American with a great attitude. I don't have a lot of friends. I don't belong. I am excluded. I am totally vanilla. I am large. I am not thin. I am not beautiful. I am not someone to be targeted in a marketing campaign. I am not worth your money, time or service. I am not a person. I am undesirable  You don't even want me setting foot in your store for fear I will mar the image you have worked to so carefully cultivate. And I am only one of millions that have been classified as such by you.

The thing is, I am a 29 year old woman who knows the difference between truth and deception. I have the skills to dig myself out of feeling like a worthless piece of garbage because of media messaging. But that 15-year old girl you target as a customer for Hollister, or that 19-year old burgeoning man that you seek to draw through the doors of Abercrombie probably do not have those skills. You know that. You know that your definition of cool, sexy and valuable is seeping into their minds and hearts, and that you can potentially win the war for their dollars and ultimately, their self-worth. You know exactly what you are doing. 

What you don't know, and don't care to acknowledge, is that I am a person. A human. I definitely don't fit your standards of beauty and social worth. But I am a wife. I am a friend. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a teacher. I am created in His divine image. I am a woman. I am of infinite value and worth that is completely independent of your marketing campaign. You think you can define me by my height, weight and body shape, and others by their skin colors and nationalities, but you ignore everything that makes me who I truly am. But here is the key-I am also a consumer. And as a believer in the free market and enterprise, I know that a consumer has the power.

I will do everything in my power to not only encourage people to read your comments and personal ideals before they shop at your stores but also help people to reexamine their standards of beauty and social acceptance. When we break this entire mess of your insulting and demeaning comments and insinuations down to the most basic level, it lies in a desperate need to be culturally and socially dominant through shaming. As consumers, we can reject this method of marketing. 

You will likely go on to continue making millions of dollars as people throw dollar after dollar at you while chasing image and perfection. But I and others will go on to make sure that consumers know exactly what they are buying when they buy your products. They are buying misogyny. They are buying body shaming. They are buying unrealistic standards of beauty. They are buying bullying. They are buying a membership into a club of false exclusivity. They are part-owners in the campaign to diminish the worth of those outside of narrowly defined standards of acceptability. 

You are only a part of a much larger problem. There are countless companies and people who have the same vision and end goal as you. But you are so open about your beliefs and desire to be uber-exclusive, that you serve as a wonderful primer for people to learn the power of consumers educating themselves and rejecting a shameful and damaging message. 

I am a person. I am of infinite value of worth. Your success is ultimately fleeting. But the damage you inflict along the way to the top of the crumbling castle of social competition will not be ignored.

We are all capable of so much more than being looked at.

For more on Mike Jeffries and the vision and tactics of Abercrombie and it's subsidiaries:

http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5

http://abcnews.go.com/US/lawsuit-outlines-abercrombie-fitchs-ceo-michael-jeffries-rules/story?id=17519006#.UYqQ8LU4t8E

http://www.salon.com/2006/01/24/jeffries/

It's Not About the Thigh Gap

It's not about the thigh gap. 

How many of you have seen pictures like these on Pinterest lately? Yeah, they make me want to punch someone. I thought about blowing these images up throughout my entire workout today. I hate this obsession with the thigh gap.

Today marked day one of being back in the gym on a regular basis. Let me be completely honest, I wish I did not have to go. But Operation Baby is at least partially contingent on improving my overall health, which includes and necessitates regular workouts. But it's not about the thigh gap. I don't want that, nor will I ever have it. I have the legs of an Italian grape stomping woman. It's who I am. But apparently, by today's standards, I am not enough, because I don't have a thigh gap. Screw the thigh gap. I want to be healthy, and for me that picture looks nothing like the pictures I see of women all around me. Needless to say, my workout today was a little emotionally charged.

I have a love-hate relationship with the gym. The love part comes from the fact that when I am working out regularly, I feel fabulous, both mentally and physically. I am healthier, in a holistic sense. It has been a wonderful aspect of my life in the past. The hate part comes from a variety of experiences, and that fabulous mental script of inadequacy that runs through my mind the entire time I am there. Let me clarify.

When I lived in Colorado, I worked out at 24-hour Fitness for a few months before I moved. Every time I went there, I saw them. Those people who come to the gym as part of the gym-rat culture. You know they are there multiple hours per day. They always look like they have been lubed up with baby oil. Their workout clothes cost more than the equipment they are working out with. Women in full make-up and jewelry with rhinestone blinged "sexy" scrawled across their velour-clad butts. Listen, I am all for people being healthy and working out. But I seriously have a hard time handling it when people come into the gym, give me a look like, "hey chunkers, you don't belong here," and then sashay away to lift 5 pound weights while they stick their chest out for the Arnold Schwarzenegger wanna-be across the room. I know some of this is mental, but there is a lot of judging that happens at the gym. I am trying really hard to live by the mantra of, "you are here to get healthy, and nobody else matters."  

The mental script of inadequacy is the other part of the gym that I really hate. Egged on by the very real judgmental looks that can be thrown my way by spandex-clad women as I huff and puff on the treadmill or the elliptical (yeah, I may be going at a snail's pace, but I'm going!)  in my oversize basketball shorts and t-shirt, I begin hearing those annoying little thoughts (Brene Brown calls them Gremlins) that love to kill my motivation. "You're wasting your time." "Go home, chubby." Or my favorite, "You're not thin enough to show your face here." Gotta love that one. I'm working on beating those down in my brain like a whack-a-mole game with my aforementioned mantra.

The gym that I go to now is our local Rec Center. And it's great. It caters to a wide cross-section of people, so in the mornings when I go, I encounter a lot of cute mamas trying to lose the baby weight and older gentleman that have a penchant for working out in jeans and flannel shirts. It's like a gym full of Al Borland's. I feel minimally judged there, and that is really nice. Plus, with our insurance discount, it is incredibly affordable, and they offer a ton of classes at no extra charge. 

So this is what happened today. I went to the gym at 7:30, did an hour of cardio, lifted for 25 minutes, felt really great, and came home to make my giant green drink for breakfast. I sat down at the computer, made the mistake of going to Pinterest, and was whacked in the face with my least-favorite internet craze, Fitspiration. I seriously hate things like this.

I know some people find these motivating, but I believe their end goal (even if not the original intent) is shaming women into hating the body they have. It's not about health, it's about appearance. Let's take a woman, chop off her head and anything that makes her a person, and show only the parts of her body that we as a culture focus on to decide whether or not she is attractive. 

The lowest weight I have ever been since puberty is 135 pounds. I was a size 4-6, was working out insane amounts each day, weighing myself every morning and evening, and not eating well or nearly enough to truly sustain health, all to be what I thought I needed to be for someone else. I felt like crap. The best I have ever felt was closer to 150, working out because I loved how I felt by alternating the gym with walking, hiking and enjoying the outdoors. I ate a well-balanced diet chock-full of fresh foods, and felt amazing. I was comfortable with me, I was comfortable in my size 8 jeans, and I was the healthiest I have ever been. But my stomach never looked like that. I never saw my hipbones. I never had a "thigh gap" (apparently enough of a rage with young women that Rush Limbaugh brought up his concern about it on his show the other week). Seriously, look thigh-gap up on Pinterest and see what you get. Oh, and I am only 5 feet tall. To the world, popular culture, and media-driven standards, I was still fat. In reality, I was muscular, toned, fit, healthy and loving life. The standards and images we perpetuate as women (particularly online and at the gym) are not about health in many cases-they are about image. For those who want to learn some more about this, Beauty Redefined has some fascinating research on the subject.

I am going to keep working out every day and making awesome choices about what I choose to fuel my body with, because my health, my fertility and my future children are worth it. I will learn to deal with the occasional judge-y attitudes of people at the gym, and I will self-filter these unattainable and unhealthy body standards that are all around me. The only thing that matters is how I feel, and how I improve my own personal health. To anyone who is struggling with the same thing-whether you feel underweight, overweight, or you simply dislike where you are right now, know that you are not alone, and that it is about being healthy-not if you have a thigh gap in your skinny jeans. Here's to health.

Answers and Elephants

Yesterday, my afternoon ended with a phone call to my best friend. At some point during the call, I busted this gem out:

"I have this fear that the doctor is going to tell me my uterus is eating itself from the inside."

After appropriate laughter and snorting from best friend, I felt better. See, yesterday was D-Day. Doctor Day. It was also job interview day. Which was probably a bad scheduling move on my part. I am pretty sure that when I told the interviewers that the one piece of information I wanted them to know about me, and I said "I'm a really awesome teacher. I am excellent at my job, and I need to be teaching again. I need to be in your classrooms, and I want to spend my time and talents here" I had tears in my eyes and was .5 seconds away from hyperventilating. They scribbled on their interview sheets and for the love of all that is good and holy, I pray that they didn't write down that I was a basket case. The thing is, I totally was. Sigh.

Yesterday was my first appointment with my new OBGYN. I hate the gynecologist. I mean, going to get a pelvic is outranked on my list only by getting a root canal without anesthesia. Or having bamboo shoved under my fingernails. After 18 months of trying to have a baby with no success, my rational brain kicked in and I made the appointment and canceled my hotel room at the Hanoi Hilton.

I actually really liked the Avenues Women's Center. The people were very helpful and kind. The office setup was sort of strange, but the overall experience was really positive. I especially liked the Nurse Practitioner, Hillary, that I saw for my first appointment to get me established as a patient. She was an older woman with a really gentle tone and approach, and talked to me with a lot of compassion and empathy. As a mom of adopted children, I think she has been in my shoes before.

We talked for a long time about everything I filled out on my patient history. Hillary had read all of it before the appointment, which really put me at ease. We discussed all of the trials of the past year and a half, the necessary tests needed for my husband, and the possibility of PCOS being a factor. She wrote a referral, and ordered a round of blood-work and tests to check for some signs and markers. We discussed prenatal vitamins, genetic testing, two months of temperature charting, and all sorts of things that I can't remember anymore. After the inevitable awkwardness and discomfort of the usual happenings of an exam, we hit the big, rotund elephant in the room. Weight.

I have struggled with my weight since puberty. It went something like this. Hormones flooded my petite body, and all of a sudden, I wasn't a flat-as-a-board girl anymore. Between 5th and 6th grade, things developed and I shot up in sizes, reasonably at first, and then at a rate that I am sure raised parental and doctoral eyebrows. And it stayed that way through high school. Never on the really bad side of things, but enough to be a concern. Then, I went to college, lost a bunch of weight because of lifestyle changes, and I worked really hard to keep it off. Too hard. To the point of not eating nearly enough and killing myself in the gym to satisfy the image my then-boyfriend desired. Since then, I have fluctuated up and down. A few years ago, I lost a lot of weight again, to once again satisfy the image of a guy I was seriously dating. When that relationship blew up in my face, I realized how fabulous and healthy I felt, because for once I had lost weight the right way-an awesome, balance diet and consistent, healthy exercise.

And then, I got married. And everything in my life changed. I left a job I loved. I moved. I remained unemployed. I had very few friends or social supports. I became pretty discouraged and depressed. My husband worked his tail off and was so stressed trying to support us on one income that I think his stress entered my body as weight and kept packing on. For a variety of reasons, I haven't made the healthiest choices over the past year or so, and now, I am confronted with their consequence: They may be impacting my fertility.

So in the kindest, gentlest way possible (and only after she told me I had to take off the awful open in the back robe and put my regular clothes back on because being almost naked while discussing weight was a bad idea), Hillary told me that to maximize my chances of getting pregnant, losing weight is important and is a factor. That really, really sucked. And it's not like I didn't know already. And I am grateful that she was so gentle and honest in her communication. And she is right. But that doesn't make it hurt any less. As hard as I have tried to move past this connection, weight and worth have always been tied together for me.

Last night I just cried myself to sleep. I am going to make the changes I need to, because not only is a baby worth it, my health and quality of life is worth it. But that doesn't mean that this experience didn't rip every bandage, split every stitch and burst open every scar connected to how I feel about myself and my weight.

So while we remain in a holding pattern for two months, wait for test results, make more appointments and I take my temperature each morning to chart my cycles, I am holding onto this self-talk I had in the car yesterday as I drove to my interview: You do not need to be ashamed of yourself. You are not bad. You have made choices that have not been the best. All you can do now is make better choices. If you do your part, the doctors will do their part, and Heavenly Father will do His.

I feel all twisty and jumbled inside right now, but I feel pretty good about that self-talk. If my appointment gave me anything, beyond the answers I will get from my tests and the help from medical professionals, it was the gift of honesty and reality. I can deal with that versus the unknown, especially with the help of my Heavenly Father and my Savior.

So here's to early morning gym workouts, green smoothies, mindful eating, and living a truly healthy life. Here's to prenatal vitamins. Here's to temperature-taking. And being teary and overly honest in job interviews. And being able to call your best friend to tell her you are pretty sure the doctor is going to tell you  that your uterus is going to try eating itself from the inside.

The Unholy Alliance of Fear and Shame

I was, and in a lot of ways, still am, afraid to blog about the things closest to my heart. Will I be able to authentically portray my feelings without masking them for public consumption? Even if nobody reads it, will it he helpful and therapeutic for me as a processing tool? All valid concerns. This last worry is the kicker, and at the root of my anxiety: Is my struggle difficult enough to warrant telling other people? Somewhere along the path of my life, I put up some thick defenses and walls. Often, I believe that if I can just get through everything on my own, then I won't need to depend on anyone else, and I will never have to open up about "weak" things, like those uncomfortable emotions I tend to cover up with sarcasm and wit.  Fear of not being "damaged" enough or "sad" enough, or truly "challenged" enough kept me from opening up to others for support as I have struggled with fertility. As a sort of experiment in the power of vulnerability, I am putting it out there, whatever the outcome. But it is seriously hard, because on some level, I still feel like I am admitting failure, and I am ashamed of that.

I have always considered myself to be a strong person. A woman who knew what she wanted, went ahead and got it, and still felt all womanly and empowered while doing so. I wanted to go to college, get a first-rate education, be a leader on my campus and in my community. I did that. For a while, I wanted to work as a savvy political staffer (that's me at my college graduation), impacting the country by helping to shape policy and steering the national dialogue. So I did that, and then changed my mind about that particular career path. Then, I wanted to be a teacher, and I got my master's degree and became a really good educator. I wanted to get married, and it took a little longer than I thought it would, but eventually, I got that too. For a long time, I really felt like I could have everything. So when I didn't get pregnant the first month that we tried, I felt like the floor dropped out from under me. I had failed.

I have failed before. More times than I would like to admit. But those failures have been things I have been able to overcome by just pulling myself up by my bootstraps and soldiering on. I studied more. I put in more hours. I invested my heart in whatever needed to be done. As much as I would like to think that the attitude of, "I will just work harder and the fruits of my labor will be rewarded," will yield me a result and a gold star, I cannot will a baby into existence. I fundamentally believe that God can work miracles, and that I could have a miracle happen in my life, but that is in His hands and on His time. I can't control that. And as someone with major control issues, not being able to create a baby out of sheer will and determination sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. Times a million. So much that I just want to scream.

It didn't start out this way. I had been married for about two months, when I had a sudden surge of panic. I felt the bile rise in my throat. I frantically ran to the calendar and counted backwards. I was late. By a week. I called my best friend and my mom. I freaked out. I wasn't ready for a baby! We were newlyweds. I wanted time to enjoy each other and go on trips and stay up late and enjoy all the general benefits of marriage that come after a chaste courtship (very Downton Abbey-ish, all lingering gazes and passionate hand-holding). I obsessed over things for a few days, and decided that when my best friend arrived for a visit at the end of the week, I would buck up, buy a pregnancy test, and seal my fate. Just my luck, I would know for sure that I was baking a little bun in my overachieving oven by the time the weekend rolled around. Friday arrived. I bought the test. I figured out how to use it. It was negative. And I was surprisingly heartbroken.

BJ came home from work and I immediately greeted him with this announcement: "I peed on the stick and it was negative." Best friend and husband knew me well enough to know that the casual sarcasm meant that I was devastated. So, we started trying.

We have approached this in countless ways. Try with vigor! Try with nonchalance. Try with hopeful enthusiasm. Count days. Track cycles. Take temperatures. Check physical signs for ovulation. Alternate days. Spend money on ovulation kits to discover that I am not having an LH surge. Eventually end up resenting the amazing gift of marital intimacy. Every month when my period doesn't come when I think it should come, run to the store and buy more tests. Throw them away and cry for days when there is only one pink line. Decide that the test was wrong, it was too early, and take another. Cry some more. I usually feel this major surge of relief when my period does come, so that I get a few blessed days of peace before the cycle begins all over again.

I lash out at people who I feel don't want children as much as I do, even if I love them with all of my heart. I strike out at my husband as he is infinitely patient with me, because my baby-deprived brain screams at me that there is no possible way he could ever want a baby as much as I do. And I fall deeper and deeper into the pit of despair created by the unholy alliance of fear and shame.

Fear and shame are downright evil. Ugh. I hate them so much I wish I could blow them up with some sort of large C4-laced explosive. I haven't figured all of this out yet, but I know these things for sure: I feel ashamed that I haven't been able to get pregnant, because I believe it is what I should be able to do as a woman. I fear that I will never be a mother because I  am terrified at the prospect of never being able to have a deep, maternal, chemically, genetically and emotionally bonded relationship with a divinely created soul that has been prepared just for my husband and I to raise, love and nurture. This shame and fear is paralyzing at times.

I am not as studied in the work of Brene Brown (all-around amazing researcher, doctor, and social worker) as I would like to be, but something that I love that she has developed is a definition of shame. She wrote in her book, I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't), and made it the focus of her new book, Daring Greatly. "Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. Women often experience shame when they are entangled in a web of layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations. Shame creates feelings of fear, blame and disconnection." I love this definition. It helps me to process and break down how I am feeling, and to dissect some of my behaviors and emotions that feel so irrational.

I don't understand everything about my challenge-not by a long shot, but I do know this (at least with my head, if not yet with my heart): Difficulty conceiving is not failure. It may never happen for me, but it is not failure. There is no shame in my challenge. It is not shameful for me to feel sad, discouraged, disappointed, or even, at times, like a failure. My fear comes from a place of love and a desire for the most deep, meaningful and important form of connection possible-that of a parent and child. What matters is what I do with the fear. Some days, I might let it beat me back into a corner and spend my time crying. Other days, I might learn a lot of new information about effective diets for fertility, or research treatments, or talk to a good friend, or pray for strength. If I can recognize that I feel it, embrace that it comes from a real place, and decide what I want to do with these feelings on any given day, I am one step closer to true learning and growth. I don't have to be a warrior who never reveals the chink in her armor. I don't have to shove my misguided feelings of fear and shame away. I can process these emotions, discover their roots, open myself to feeling and learning from the pain, and as the brilliant Brene Brown says, "lean into the discomfort."

So I'm learning to lean in. Sometimes on chocolate. Or Cherry Coke. Or Netflix. On my husband. On friends. Always on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And I will learn to lean into the discomfort with whatever measure of grace I can muster, and for now, that is enough. Sometimes, even on days where it hurts so much I can't breathe, I feel like I catch a glimpse of the person I am becoming, and that helps the hard days to pass a little more easily. I am still a college graduate, a teacher, a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a wife. I can find joy in where I am now, even if there is a whole lot of discomfort and pain. And even if it takes me a long time to work through it, and even if I never have a baby, I don't have to let the unholy alliance of fear and shame rule my life. Hallelujah.