Lessons from the beach

My host mom tugs at my conga, telling me for the third time since we got there to take it off. “People are going to know you are a foreigner if you don’t,” she warned. Instead, I pull it tighter around my body, trying to use every last piece of the vibrantly colored, multi-purpose fabric to cover as much exposed skin as possible. Although I had been warned long ago that I should leave my conservative “American” bikini back at home, I was not expecting what was all around me. The beach is packed with women of all ages, shapes and sizes in very small Brazilian bikinis and men in equally small bottoms. They proudly flaunt their bodies with all the confidence in the world and without fear of judgment. While my strong feminist side was saying, “you go girl, rock that bathing suit, you are amazing,” my female 20-something-year-old self raised in a body conscious, body-shaming society was taken back by this outward display of confidence. Despite my best efforts, I too had fallen into the trap.

I vividly remember this first trip to the beach in Salvador. I, along, with the majority of the city, headed to one of the city’s beaches to spend another Sunday soaking up the sun and occasionally dipping into the freezing ocean to cool off. But this trip to the beach provided the much-needed culture shock—the realization that the way our society views the “ideal body” and what people feel they can and cannot do when their body does not fit into this category is not the universal world-view. It might seem obvious since we can all probably see it on Duke’s own campus, but it has become so naturalized that its hard to step back and see it as a problem worth changing. This notion of an “ideal,” perpetuated by media, affects our sense of self and, perhaps unconsciously, our critique of others.

As I write this, I am ashamed at how shocked I was during that initial trip to the beach. Nonetheless, after living in Brazil for nearly four months, I came to recognize a thing or two about Brazilian women that I think American women could stand to learn. The beach in Bahia exposed me to the Brazilian culture and way of life, while allowing me to be in a position to view the U.S. culture with an outside perspective.

We know the staggering and all-too-familiar facts about the way in which body image affects college women. According to dosomething.org, in the U.S. approximately 91 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape. Only 5 percent of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media. 58 percent of college-aged girls feel pressured to be a certain weight. This is not to say that Brazilian women do not face challenges of adhering to a different ideal of beauty—plastic surgery is rampant there—but it does mean that there is something different about the freedom given and felt by society to be comfortable in your one’s own skin without fear of judgment.

Brazilians don’t grow up trying to hide their bodies; they are taught to embrace them. Though ideals of beauty are still very much a thing on Brazilian culture, the convention of beauty being a “perfect,” slim body simply does not exist. This is why 70-year-old women who have given birth to five children can stand next to a 20-year-old soccer player in the same bikini without hesitation. The expectations of what women should and should not wear depending on their body type and the judgment that stems from that when women do not meet those standards is just not something prominent in their culture.

I would often sit and watch TV with the eight-year-old girl who lived next door to me in Salvador. One of the first times we watched TV together, High School Musical came on. I remember how her face changed to a puzzled, almost sad look as she turned to me and asked why women in American movies are all so small and “straight.” What she meant by this was why does our media predominantly portray images of thin, slender women, painting them as the “ideal” or “normal?” Even as an eight-year old growing up in Brazil, Bruna is keenly aware of the portrayal of women in American media. It is easy to see the impact it could have on her if she were surrounded by these messages 24/7 as we see its effects throughout American society and potentially world-wide.

I wish I could say that I can transplant these values back into my life at Duke and be confident in my own skin regardless of what I am wearing or were I am, but it is hard to change values so engrained, so normalized within our culture and even more pronounced in a place like Duke. However, I can make small changes. I can choose to focus on feeling strong while being aware of how judgment—both in giving and receiving—impacts the way in which we view ourselves. I can choose not only to be proud of my body but also to treat other women who are proud of their bodies as leaders instead of anomalies. And I can continue to be open to learning from new cultures because, as my classes in cultural anthropology have taught me, our way is not the way.

Sofia Stafford is a Trinity junior. Her column runs on alternate Wednesdays.