Own It

Posted by Rachael Wright at 18:24 on 29 Oct 2009

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I've spent the last 10 years, or so, believing I'm 5'9.  A friend measured me the other day and it appears I've been selling myself short.  Literally.  I'm actually closer to 5'10.  Most of the time, I like my height - it's a great trompe l'oeil when I fill out (a Christmas tradition of mine), and I like it when old ladies ask me to reach for things on the top shelves in supermarkets (I consider it ‘doing my bit').  But if I'm out with shorter people or wearing heels, I tend to have a bit of a tranny complex.  Maybe it's a reserved Britishness thing, but I hate knowingly standing out.  And being taller than most women (and some men) not only makes me feel like I'm standing out, it also makes me feel like an ungainly, unfeminine oaf.

Since moving to New York, I've been extremely lucky to meet some fabulous people who I hope to have in my life forever (or I will hunt them down and force them to be in my life forever), including three tall, kick-ass women who couldn't give two hoots about standing out, or what other people think of them.  Amanda is 5'11 and I told her I loved hanging out with her, Betsy and Lily because I didn't feel like a giraffe in their company.  I expected her to make noises suggesting she felt the same way (as the tall girls I know in the UK do), but instead she said something I think we could all take on-board - ‘I think you just have to own it.'  It was a very subtle eureka moment... and the best advice I've ever been given by another woman.

Us girls spend so much time and energy disliking and fighting against who we are and what we look like.  We try futile diets, fantasise about what we'd have ‘done' if we could afford it, and injecting botulism into our faces has become so normal, it's like buying a pint of milk.  Wouldn't it be great if we could accept ourselves just as we are, and not shrink to fit what we think we are, or what we believe other people think we are?

‘I personally battled with my own body image for years,' Drew Barrymore told Marie Claire's US edition last month.  ‘I used to tell myself, ‘You can't wear anything sleeveless or strapless'.  And all of a sudden I was like, what if I didn't send such negative messages to my brain and said, ‘Wear it and enjoy it'?  And now I'm more comfortable in clothes than ever.'

A couple of years ago, a friend was having trouble at work.  Gita was (and is) beautiful and a very talented musician.  This didn't go down too well with a female colleague, who took it upon herself to make Gita's life hell in the office.  So, I emailed her part of Nelson Mandela's inauguration speech as a reminder that this woman's insecurities weren't her problem:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

And that's exactly how I feel in New York.   Since I've been living in this bloody marvellous city, I haven't once felt self-conscious or inadequate - I can just be myself.  And that's not only ok, it's emphatically encouraged. I went to see Gossip for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  I'd never really ‘got' all the hoo-ha surrounding Beth Ditto...until I saw her perform.  Maaaan, does she own it.  What a woman.

Perhaps we could all learn a lesson from our American cousins by trying to own it a little more, not caring so much about what others think about us and learning to accept - and maybe even be happy with - what we have and who we are; right here, right now.

DRINK
The Blackbird Parlour
The best little hang-out in Williamsburg.
197 Bedford Avenue (at N 6th St)

EAT
Shake Shack
An outdoor burger stand in the park opposite the Flat Iron Building.  It's fast food, but it's good food.  The beef for the burgers is freshly ground on-site everyday.
South-East corner of Madison Square Park :: shakeshack.com

WATCH
Gossip Girl
You're only a few episodes behind the States this season.  Will they jump the shark like Dawson's Creek did when it was time to go to college?  Well, Serena is suddenly a hotshot celebrity publicist, so I think that's a yes.  Thank God for Chuck and Blair - the rest of them are more unbearable than before.  With added Hilary Duff.

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