My 7-year old daughter woke up one morning a few weeks ago and said she had a dream about me dancing. I thought to myself, "oooh, ahhh, how sweet!" Until she described to me that I looked like a sex pot and that men were looking at me and she felt scared.
Hmmm...that was a bit of a downer for the morning.
She said it reminded her of a soda commercial she had seen with Christina Aguilera in it. I felt her confusion as she tried to process what media tells her is beautiful and sexy and also what her mommy does for a living.
So many questions surfaced for me: What do we, as grown women, do with all of these sexualized images of women that we see all day, every day? What do our innocent girls do with them?
How do we as women translate these images into our psyche? Do we try to aspire towards these ideals? Do we fight them? Do we compromise somewhere in between?
How do we as belly dancers transform the images of ourselves into something powerful or meaningful? Do we always want to? Is there not a little sick part of every woman that wants to attain the ideals of beauty that our culture and media shove down our throats?
We all know that large-scale market interests exploit women's insecurities about their looks. We all know that media and capitalism promotes an unattainable goal of physical perfection that is created purely for the sake of profit. We can see how sexuality is objectified and turned into something detached from the heart and soul. We know these things because we are not stupid and because we are bombarded by this reality thousands of times every day of our lives.
Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber says, "Mothers are crucial brokers of cultural norms...A mother's attitude about her own body image influences her daughter." So, I tried to explain to my daughter why I dance and wear the costumes I do. I tried to explain to her little mind that I am trying to create a new vision of femininity that does not separate mind and body and that is a healthy compromise between what I find beautiful and what culture tells me is beautiful. I tried to tell her I am trying to make my own life and be my own person, but that this task is not easy. I tried to tell her that at Moon Belly we are creating a new measuring stick that is more than the sum of our body parts, but that is empowered by a positive sense of our own individual ideas of sexuality. I tried to tell her that making dances and performing them is both utilitarian and aesthetic. Humans need sensory stimulation to thrive as much as we need food and shelter. Art helps us praise, glorify, mourn and celebrate.
I am not sure she comprehended much of what I was trying to say. I don't think I intellectually grasped it very clearly either. But, on an intuitive level I can feel that the interior dimension behind my practice of belly dance is sensitive to culture, socialization, as well as my inner truth.
Maybe one day she will feel it too?
Bless her.
