Taking Up Space with Joy

I’m an occasional soccer fan, but like most people, I followed the US Women’s National Team during their run and ultimate win of the Women’s World Cup earlier this month. A hero to me quickly emerged in the form of Megan Rapinoe and her purple-haired brashness. Seeing someone be the best at what they do is intoxicating, and Rapinoe is arguably the best of the best in her sport. Best of all, she made lots and lots of people who think that she’s “too much” or “arrogant” really, really angry. I enjoyed watching their apoplexy as she just destroyed them over and over.

One of the things that made people so angry was her celebratory pose. I wondered what about this stance was creating this reaction, and then I read this article by Alison Reiheld in the International Journal of Feminist Approach to Bioethics blog that talks about how women, maybe especially women athletes, are affected by the social norms of being constrained and encouraged to remain small. To not get too big. To not take up too much space. In this pose, Rapinoe makes herself big, standing up and opening her arms wide, welcoming the absolutely deserved adoration of the crowd. It’s not what a woman is “supposed” to do, and people stuck in antiquated social norms get angry about it.

As a person just trying to exist in a fat body, let alone a woman in said fat body, I am all too familiar with the pathology of not wanting to take up too much space. I try not to make contact with people as I slide past them in a restaurant (despite the fact that the tables are too close together for anyone to realistically achieve that goal). I hold my legs, knees, and elbows in on public transportation or an airplane lest someone complain about all of my fat getting into their personal space.

I went on a family vacation recently, and the one thing I wanted to do more than anything was get in the outdoor pool. I love to be in the water and I haven’t had regular access to a pool for a few years. I’m not sure I even realized how much I missed it until my wife took a picture of me in the water and I saw the unrestrained joy on my face. That is a joy that comes from being able to move my body exactly the way I wanted to, from being able to take up space in the water. Even there, though, I was driven out of my joy by too many people near me and not feeling comfortable in what felt like their space.

I don’t want to let my fear of taking up space rob me from joyful movement anymore. Reiheld says in her post that in Rapinoe’s victory pose she also sees women like fat yoga teacher and body positivity advocate Jessamyn Stanley, among others. Reiheld says, “They are all taking up space and claiming the right to exist without being made small.” Rapinoe is my hero for her refusal to be made small, among so, so many other things. I found a pool not too far from me that has hours that will fit my life, and I intend to go find my joy again, to take up space.

“But joy in one’s own body and what this actual body can do in this actual world? That’s well-being. That’s flourishing,” Reiheld says. And I intend to flourish.