It's ok to look | Kristen Vermilyea | TEDxZurich

does anyone here have any idea what all of these images have in common I think you're getting it already anyone any brave souls oh you're good you're good you're good yes those images each one of them weighs the same amount as both my breasts it's true approximately that's a lot of weight to be carrying around and so now you're probably all looking at my breasts if you weren't before and I will say to you it's okay to look here's the front view here's the left side my good side of my show cannot aside as we say in your sights and the right side I'm here to talk to you today about breasts now did you know that breasts are not just something for you to look at they actually serve a purpose and those scientists cannot seem to figure out and to agree why exactly that female Homo sapiens developed breasts one thing is for certain they feed babies they do how exciting is that they feed babies mine actually fed a tiny person for 11 months which is really cool now some of you may be looking at my breasts slightly differently now it might be comforting but it might be a little uncomfortable because just a moment ago they may have been objects of sexual desire for some of you so complex and fraud and confusing and I've only just begun and while only women can breastfeed men to have breasts but we tend not to objectify them quite in the same way hello mr. Brezhnev regardless of your thoughts about them it is true that regardless of the size breasts represent many things to many people motherhood sexuality fertility womanhood femininity and maturity and more I like to call my breasts blessing and curse but most of the time when I think about my breasts I think that they're funny they're funny when I go running and there are enough bras in my drawer to keep them from bouncing up and down when I go running and it's not just women with big breasts who have this problem I'm sure you've seen it before they're really funny when I'm lying on my back and they fall into my armpits I find that very amusing it's not so pretty but the time I find them the most funny is when I'm doing yoga and as you can see I'm not a master practitioner of yoga I do try my form leaves something to be desired but what happens is when I try this position which is called the plough position and you put your legs up over your head and your toes are supposed to touch behind my breasts fall into my face and they will at least cover my mouth if not my mouth in my nose and I could suffocate myself I mean I find this really funny and so of course when I'm in the back row with a yoga class every time we do this I start laughing hysterically I get lots of dirty looks and of course I'm not gonna suffocate because I could just unfold myself but still I find this very very amusing most yoga teachers are pretty ok with it but I did get kicked out of a class once for laughing when I was in this position because yoga is serious people they're also really heavy so heavy that I'm in physical therapy every week for the weight in my back pain I've herniated discs in my neck I have a constant headache and I've got permanent divots in my shoulders seven pounds 3.2 kilos or seven hammers worth of weight I'm carrying around to every day and that's a lot is there any brave soul here in the front row who'd be willing to feel the weight of the breasts oh you brave brave man Raven his hand went up really quickly yeah so this is a pair of prosthetic breasts that I made for an art exhibit in Toronto last year made out of simply pantyhose beans and rice and we were joking that we could have a meal later just put it in some water and boil it up and so how does that feel yeah it looks really nice it's very sexy anyways it is really heavy to be carrying around so it's no wonder when people like to come up to me and say well your boobs are really big I get a little grumpy Thank You genius I hadn't noticed I didn't always have this rack I was an average teenager average height average weight average bust you can see how lovely I looked when I was 15 then they're right there I had an extraordinary amount of confidence more confidence than probably any other teenager you could imagine I wore business suits to school every day as you can see or very put together outfits right up through college where people thought I was a professor everyone else was running around in sweat pants and I was a very dressed I didn't drink I didn't smoke I didn't kiss boys I matched my shoes to my handbags different hairstyle every day never late for curfew designated driver and I loved every minute of it but something happened and I lost that confidence and for the past 30 years I've been searching for it and wondering where this confidence went and it wasn't until I was in grad school a few years ago where I started to read and sink and talk and write about feminism and body image that it occurred to me you see when I was 22 I had a little growth spurt and I grew an inch and my breasts went from being a C cup to a Triple D within what seemed like weeks and suddenly the male gaze was upon me and the female gaze was upon me and my now very large breasts defined who I was as a person the confident teenager was gone forever the world now looked at me as a sexual object and I did too the stereotypes piled on if you have big breasts you're more feminine than women without large breasts if you have big breasts you're more fertile you can easily breastfeed you're not very smart you're easy you like to show them off obviously and you really like sex so in this situation I had two choices I could be in denial which I did for a long time I gained weight I wore big shirts I developed my signature self-deprecating sense of humor or acceptance and I did that too it's really amazing to have the power of seldom having to pay for drinks and getting jobs and television and film because of your rack and unbuttoning a few buttons to get out of a speeding ticket there's power in that it's a rush but sure saving a few bucks and getting a few jobs because of my breasts was great but what had I paid a non-monetary terms by accepting myself as a sexual object so what happens when we sexualized someone oftentimes we fetishize them which means separate into parts we become so focused on this one part that we forget about all the other parts of the body brain what brain and we're so focused on this part that we forget that there's a whole person involved so what happens if the thing that I've been objectified for suddenly changes or is gone what happens if I aged what happens with my breast droop or sag someday what happens if I get that reduction that I'm talking about I'm thinking about what happens if heaven forbid I get cancer and they have to be removed Who am I then if I'm not the woman with the largest breasts in the room Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message and the objectify gaez has been around for a very long time mostly perpetuated by the media in everything from mainstream films and television video games and music videos porn men's magazines women's magazines even art this is one of my favorite pieces I've had it for a long time take a second to read it even the most diligent consumers among us has little clue of how much we're being subtly manipulated every day these images have become so embedded in nuance that we barely even bat an eye at things that should be deemed offensive or inappropriate what a mess so how do we fix this some people have suggested that we place warnings on the advertisements that could be deemed inoffensive I mean rather offensive like we do with alcohol or tobacco in some places which is a pretty good idea there's something to that and other people have suggested that maybe we ban any objectifying media that that objectifies women but I feel like that's a form of censorship and there's got to be a better way so maybe we train ourselves in critical viewing so that we can really understand what it is that we're looking at and pay attention to everything and ask questions I have an answer just stop looking stop looking at my breasts stop looking at my legs just stop well that's not a very feasible situation is it we can't stop looking we're biological creatures it's in our genes now this is an explanation not an excuse I don't have all the answers in fact I have very few and I'm thinking and writing and talking to people constantly about this and I'm gonna leave you with three more questions one what is objectification I think we've kind of covered that but it's one of those concepts that I think most of us know what it means but if you had to explain it to someone else it's a little fraud it's a little confusing sometimes but if we're thinking about it is the first step my definition is seeing or treating a person usually a woman like a thing as if she had had no feelings opinions or rights of her own next should i objectify this woman is she blonde is she redhead is she brunette does she have big boobs does she have small boobs does she have average-sized boobs did she look at you in a flirty way is she wearing high heels does she have red lipstick on is she short is she tall is she fat is she thin if the answer to any of these questions is no then no you can't objectify her if the answer to any of these questions is yes you still can't objectify her if she is or if if it is a robot or a vase or a rock go ahead and objectify these objects so what can I do to be part of the solution first step is to become aware of your surroundings we go through life with blinders on and we don't even notice these things in our everyday life start paying attention question and discuss these things amongst your group of peers and for me the most important thing is talk about this with your children and with kids around you and other people's children it's so important and these kids see these images all day long - and must be really confusing for them it's really important to talk to them about this be an agent for change in your community and stop staring and start talking so I'm gonna give you one last look there's no shame in looking at a body but just know that because I have large breasts does not automatically mean that I am dumb or easy and because a woman has small breasts does not mean that she can't breastfeed or she's less feminine than a woman with larger breasts and if a woman is wearing a tight sweater that does not mean that she's craving attention and if she's wearing a short skirt it doesn't mean that she wants to be catcalled it is only by changing our behavior that we can make all of this a universally held truth thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,144,379

Rating: 4.5106106 out of 5

Keywords: tedx, TEDxTalks, Lifestyle, ted x, Switzerland, Gender, tedx talks, ted talk, ted, Culture, Entertainment, tedx talk, Psychology, ted talks, Social Justice, English

Id: 59sQsGjndKg

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 19 2014