#my body emily ratajkowski

[digitalgirlsthings]

[hushedhippie]

Dazed & in a haze🕯️

[pink-evilette]

I'm planning on reading lots more on my holiday too ♡

[slipsthrufingers]

“I wonder how many women you've disregarded in your life, written off, because you assumed they had nothing to offer beyond the way they looked. How quickly they learned that the stuff in their heads was of less value than the shape of their bodies. I bet they were all smarter than you.” from My Body by Emily Ratajkowski

[cenestpasisa]

emrata in 2021 promoting her book

[somewhereinaburstofglory]

Emily Ratajkowski, My Body

[booksandcha]

My Body by Emily Ratajkowski

[juniperusashei]

My Body by Emily Ratajkowski - 5/5

I picked up Emily Ratajkowski’s memoir My Body almost completely by chance; I had been looking for Julia Fox’s new book but it was too expensive, so I figured Emrata’s would be approximately the same, and was quickly proven wrong when she opened with a John Berger quote:

“You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.”

I didn’t expect how harrowing it ended up being, though the sparse cover design that seems to take cues from a Didion ought to have clued me in. Knowing almost nothing about Ratajkowski (I had only heard of her from the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl), I found myself fascinated by this brief volume that is at once autobiography and second wave-ish treatise. She calls it a book of essays, which I suppose makes more sense than memoirs because it is not linear, but I still finished it over the course of a single plane ride. I was immediately drawn to Ratajkowski’s clear, introspective and occasionally grotesque prose — my sister asked me if I thought she used a ghostwriter, and I said “no, it’s too weird.” Though it was a fast read, Ratajkowski forces the reader to empathize a life that almost certainly has nothing to do with theirs, the life of a supermodel. But in many ways, it contains truths that assuredly every woman can relate to. In particular, she dispels the myth of “pretty privilege” — the idea that being sexually harassed (or worse!) is somehow something to be thankful for. She writes:

“In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was — how limited any woman’s power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.”

In My Body, thinkers like Andrea Dworkin and Naomi Wolf find an unexpected successor in the form of some of the realest, most pointed social critique I have read from any contemporary writer. Against the background radiation of the pop-feminism-industrial-complex, Ratajkowski stands out as a writer & as an individual.

[melodysbookhaven]

I've always been drawn to overexposure. Making myself big gives me a sense of security. Be the loudest in the room, the most opinionated, the one in the most revealing dress. Do the most. Being big also means becoming a target. But by inviting people's gaze and attention and therefore their attacks, I have a sense of more power, less vulnerability, since I'm the one putting myself out there.

Emily Ratajkowski, My Body

[totuteddybooks]

My Body by Emily Ratajkowski - A Review

Vanity by John William Waterhouse

This book is indeed about her body. It's about her discomfort with the way women's bodies are a means of achieving power and status, yes, when they are deemed as sexy and therefore good, but that makes people respect women less as people with brains. the concept isn't a new one, but much of what she talks about is very relatable.

There was actually a part where she talks about this anxiety (the anxiety of knowing your looks are so important for perceived value yet a barrier for being respected) and how one day she posted a photo of herself in a bikini to Instagram. She was at this fancy hotel as part of a promotional thing the hotel were doing, invited so she could take photos of herself there and increase their reach (it worked, the photo got 500k likes in an hour). In this chapter, she actually tells us the caption she put on the photo, and of course I had to see if it was still up. It was, and she looks so good in that photo, so it was cool to see how that very day she had been feeling shit about herself as a model and how people ultimately don't take her seriously. It made me question whether I have the same biases. What do I think about when I see a model looking effortless? For one, I feel jealousy. I think I would also see her as less smart than if it was a photo of a more modestly dressed woman with glasses, for example, which is another thing she brings up in that chapter.

the chapter on her mother always calling her beautiful also resonated with me, because so did mine. the vibe of it being like 'you got that from me' i have also experienced. the key thing here though is that it's in that kind of conditioning that the little girls that hear that stuff experience the birth of a belief that every woman lands at at some point in her life: your looks matter, and they matter more than they do for men. again, nothing ground-breaking, but relatable nonetheless.

the chapter on her mother always calling her beautiful and putting an emphasis on it also resonated with me, because so did mine. i learnt early on that beauty was something i should be grateful for, that it matters for women and definitely more than for men. but this compliment always feels a little like a threat, like not everyone has it therefore it should be guarded in some way. it felt validating to hear someone else describe an experience i had also had.

i also related to the high school chapters. the way she describes wanting to fit in matched my experience to a t, yet she's a model and i am not. it just shows that the insecurities we perceive only ourselves to have are had even by women whose prettiness earns them money.

and of course, the blurred lines chapter. i think that chapter summarised really well what happens when we think that we can be empowered - truly empowered, shameless in our bodies - only for that to be shattered by one 'small' thing, reminding us that we do in fact live in a man's world. in intentionally women's only spaces, however, this sense of power can exist, but in an internal way - the power to nourish your body in the senses, not from the level of appeal you provide for outside eyes. this reminds me of that lake in london which is strictly women only, where you can sunbathe without any peeping toms. or those women only raves. we have to carve out those spaces though, they don't already exist naturally.

i realise i have not been reviewing the chapters in order, but from here on I will begin to cover what i haven't already. the chapter about how her nude images were sold as 80,000 dollar art and printed into not one but THREE books made my blood boil. what i love about the way emily reflects on experiences is that there is a lot of shit in her life, a lot of feeling not good enough and dissatisfied with herself, which is extremely relatable *sigh*. but then when she rounds up the chapter and shares her final thoughts on the topic, they're not fake positive. they're matter of fact, like 'this is what it is' and 'i'll try my best to control what i can, even if there's loads i can't control'.

if i was to summarise this book in a painting, it is the one that sits above this review. 'Vanity' is a 1910 painting depicting a woman looking at herself in a mirror, and John Waterhouse, the painter, seems to think she is vain for doing so. But they are both looking at her, yet her act of looking is demonised. She might be thinking 'oh how pretty I look' but that is vanity coming from her, while from him it's acceptable. this is what this book gives: emily is a woman whose looks have gotten her far, but there are so many instances in her life where men have taken her images, made more money off of them (without permission!!!), and then demeaned her in public. that's why the endings of her chapters aren't like 'but now im happy and love myself! hooray!' they aren't that because the situations she has found herself in are dire, no two ways about it, and her peace has come only because she chose to find it.

the final chapter actually made me tear up. through all the self-doubt and self-criticism she has subjected herself to throughout her life, emily experiences a moment in which she is deeply proud of her body even thought she red, puffy, swollen and unkempt-looking. this is during her childbirth. it's a really lovely ending because, again, she doesn't paint the picture that ~all is okay now <3~ because she is a mother. but the tenderness with which she describes that moment of seeing how her body - the one that has given her so much grief her whole life - can do an incredible thing by pure instinct, made me so happy for her.

in this chapter she also talks about a rage throwing session set up by her therapist after they she shares that she doesn't let herself get angry. in the session, she has to throw a jar against a wall. she says 'i imagine someone looking out their window to see a skinny woman throwing an object at a brick wall. Pathetic, I repeat in my head'. when she gets out of her head, however, she is shocked to see how hard she hit the wall. this bit was so relatable i could have written it. i too have trouble expressing anger, and it is also that foreign to me that i would think others looking on would think 'wth is that skinny girl trying to do there, ooh so scary with those skinny little arms'. then she shares a scene of her, her friend and her husband going out for a bike ride. halfway through she starts to get red and sweaty because they take a shortcut through a forest where the terrain is uneven. when her friends make it to the asphalt bit eventually, they wait for her, greeting her with warm smiles. she realises no matter how red and sweaty she gets, her people don't care. 'my eyes welled with tears. I wanted to cry out "Thank you!" What a joy life can be in this body.' this moment was also really cute for me, because i too have had moments like that when i realise that all the worrying i'd done about my appearance on a certain day didn't matter because i got to share moments with people i loved, regardless of how much i'd judged myself earlier.

all in all, this book is very relatable and i can't wait to reread parts of it whenever i decide to pick up again. it captures the female experience really well, or at least it did for me. i doubt any of the men who have treated her badly will read this book and, if they do, i doubt they will get it. but that's the point: peace, with our bodies and ourselves, our control and our power, is found within ourselves. society will catch up when it does.

[loveu2ufool]

This part is so real and comforting, we’re all human.

My Body | Emily Ratajkowski ღ

[alley-cat777]

Book Review: My Body by: Emily Ratajkowski

In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was—how limited any woman’s power is when she…

[an-easy-escape]

I read once that women are more likely than men to cry when they are angry. I know that women cry out of shame. We are afraid of our anger, embarrassed by the way that it transforms us. We cry to quell what we feel, even when it’s trying to tell us something, even when it has every right to exist.

My Body

[pink-evilette]

my body ~ emily ratajkowski

[eleven-fiftynine]

Men never notice the overcalculating that women do. They think things happen “for some weird reason” while women sing songs and do backbends and dance elaborate moves to make those things happen.

My Body by Emily Ratajkowski

[flaxseeed]

i read this. and had to take a couple of hours to recover.