“For a long time, there was me and my body. Me was composed of stories, of cravings, of strivings, of desires of the future.” –Eve Ensler
In Eve Ensler’s Ted Talk, she uses self as the main focus of her speech. She uses self as directly by describing self responsibilities, her body, and mind. “I began to see my body like a thing, a thing that could move fast, like a thing that could accomplish other things, many things, all at once.” She gives self analyses about herself by describing her body and how it works and how it sometimes takes over her. When I think of the term self, what comes to my mind is protection. You always want to protect yourself and never get hurt. Taking care of my body, having my own opinion, expressing myself, and living my life the way I want, in my opinion, all fall into this broad term self.
Ensler’s speech is a perfect connection to the broad term self because throughout her speech she is talking about her body and how she uses her body to tell her stories. Writing “The Vagina Monologues” was a way for her to connect with other women and ask them about their bodies, in particular their vaginas because Ensler thought vaginas were kind of important. Many people have a different opinion about self in general, but I agree with Ensler in a way how she uses the term self and how she explains and expresses it. For example, just like Ensler, I think vaginas are important. They are what make us stand out from men. Females care about their body and we always want to take care of it.
In Ensler’s speech, she begins to say at the age of 40 she began to hate her body, in particular, her stomach. She even said, “It was proof that I had not measured up, that I was old and not fabulous and not perfect or able to fit into the predetermined corporate image in shape.” I have had the same experience. My body started changing, I was beginning to gain weight and it sucked. I hated it. I felt as if no guy would want to look at me or talk to me because I had this big gut hanging over my jeans. As a female, when we start noticing that our bodies are changing, we get upset and like Ensler said we don’t feel fabulous. That’s when this whole concept of protection comes in because as females we want to protect this “image” where we feel beautiful, where we are happy and feel good in our own skin. We want to be noticed, especially in today’s society where we see all these beautiful celebrities and models on TV; we want to look like them and feel like them which is beautiful.
“No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.” – Barbara De Angelis
Overall, self is a powerful word. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I want readers to think outside of the box when describing “self.” I want them to define self something other than what the actual definition of self means, which according to dictionary.com means, a person’s nature or character. Truly look at the word, close your eyes and write down the first word that comes to mind when thinking of self. Ensler used self as describing her body and the stories it would tell. When I close my eyes and picture the word self, I define it as protection.
