They insisted that she didn’t eat enough and taught her that women are “made round like the Earth herself, for the Earth holds so much.”Įstes has been telling stories for years. It helped that when she traveled to the isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico and met some of her relatives, Estes discovered “a tribe with giant women who were strong, flirtatious and commanding in their size.” I was told that my body shape and size were the signs of being inferior and having no self-control,” she tells her readers. “I am built close to the ground and of extravagant body. And too often added to that is an attribution of moral goodness or badness according to whether a woman’s size, height, gait and shape conform to a singular or exclusionary ideal.Įstes’ own body is a long way from today’s “ideal.” Like wolves, women are sometimes discussed as though only a certain temperament, only a certain restrained appetite, is acceptable. Yet, despite their beauty and ability to stay strong, wolves are sometimes talked about in this way: ‘Ah, you are too hungry, your teeth are too sharp. They live and play according to what and who and how they are. Many women, for instance, routinely scorn their own bodies, and Estes addresses this in a chapter called “Joyous Body: The Wild Flesh.” She writes of watching wolves-skinny, fat, long-legged, lop-tailed, floppy-eared, three-legged-romping in the wilderness:
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