Response to My Body by Emila Ratajkowski

Dear Readers, 

I want to start this off with a quote from the book. 

“I woke up with Owen on top of me. I was in a small bed in a blue room. I tried to use my arms to push against his chest, to force him off and away, but I was too weak and too drunk. My vision flickered with ghostly white shapes and blue light. My mouth felt like cotton and I could taste the smell of his skin. I wanted it to be over but I didn’t know what to do, so I shut my eyes tightly and made small noises, the noises I thought women were supposed to make during sex. 

Why did fifteen-year-old me not scream at the top of her lungs? Why did I whimper and moan softly instead? Who had taught me not to scream? 

I hated myself.” (Ratajkowski, 54). 

And one more. 

“I did eventually tell a girlfriend about Owen. We were high, and I was lying on her soft mattress and gazing at the string of lights she’d woven into her bed frame. I told her about him and his red truck and the black lines on my arm. My friend was sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed. She had a lip piercing, and I remember watching her bite it while she stared at me, listening, “That sounds like rape, Emily.” My head snapped over to her. 

“What? No,” I said quickly. I blinked and turned back to the ceiling feeling dizzy. I knew she was right.” (Ratajkowski, 57). 

The thing I love about this book is that it gives such an accurate representation of what being a woman in the modern world is like. We are expected to be beautiful, demure, sweet, sexy, a respected whore for whatever man came along. We are shamed for using our bodies to our advantage and while being paraded around like trophies by men. We are expected to be beautiful and sexually active, while still keeping our body count low and dressing modestly. 

As women we’re constantly silenced to keep a man happy, so much so that we begin to silence ourselves. We forget we’re able to speak and yell and be loud and angry. Ratajkowski goes into detail about her confusing relationship with her body, with how she views it and uses it, but also how she feels in it. She explains the craze in her life that followed staring in the music video “Blurred Lines” and the various ways she was viewed. As an antifeminist, a sex symbol, a slut, and so much more. 

Ratajkowski also brings attention to where our complicated relationships with our bodies come from, and for women it often stems from our mothers and fathers. How do our parents view us? What do they say about the clothes we wear? Do they comment on our developing bodies? Or do they make noises of discomfort when you wear a crop top or push up bra? 

This was a well written collection that gave an unfiltered view of the life of one of the biggest sex symbols of our time. It talks about the hardships of being a woman in today’s world of filters and surgeries. It really puts to words the complex feeling of being a woman. 

-Grace Sofia