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I’m looking at a photograph of my family and friends visiting Cape May in the summer. What could be a nicer memory than the beach with a lot of kids? What’s recorded on the paper is the look of shame on my face, for being caught in a bathing suit, overweight with fat thighs. If there were a thought bubble over my head, it would say, “How did I get caught in this situation?”

I was in those days a pretty good master of deception: I looked thinner than I was. How can you look thinner than you actually are? Any woman my age knows the answers: Stand sideways for the photo. Suck up your gut. Wear heels and point one toe down. Wear black. Wear vertical stripes, not horizontal stripes. Puff your hair out. It works for the photo, and for the rest of your breathing days on earth, as long as you keep these rules front and center of your mind. In that beach photo, I must have slipped up momentarily and thought about something else.

Now that I’m 68 and looking over old photos, I’m surprised how thin I was. My husband always teased me for having a fat brain, and with hindsight I must admit he was right. My brain has lost weight over the years. I am also heartened by today’s broadening standards for female beauty. But I don’t think the broader standards were policy set by the editors of fashion magazines; I think they’ve come about because women of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages have stepped into the limelight. Like Ellie Goldstein, an 18-year-old model for Gucci Beauty who has Down Syndrome. We admire these women. We want to be like them.

In response to a 2015 question about Donald Trump’s shaming of women for how they look, Hillary Clinton said, “We need to laugh at it, we need to refute it, we need to ignore it, and stand up to it…. We’ve got to be as clear as possible: You are more than the way you look…. And let’s be proud of who we are."

Hillary knows of what she speaks. She was eight inches shorter than D. T. and two inches taller than the average American woman, me. I always assumed she was shorter than I am, which goes to prove how unconsciously we size up women, because honestly, I never consciously thought about it before today.

Let’s break down Hillary’s advice. 1) We need to laugh at it. Hillary did just that in the same question response when she pointed out that D. T. found fault with Miss Universe.

2) We need to refute it. Melissa McCarthy, actress with a Hollywood Star of Fame, said, “I have to like me -- I’m the only one I’ve got.”

3) We need to ignore it. Elizabeth Warren, for the entire year of her presidential campaign, wore tailored solid-color clothes, the same short-cut hair, and the same eyeglasses. No one had anything to say about her appearance because there was nothing to say. Her favorite jacket designer Nina McLemore supports non-profits that focus on women, children, education, health and the arts. That speaks louder than words.

4) We need to stand up to it. Seeing a fashion model standing on two prosthetic legs with beautiful c-curve feet shows it can be done.

5) We are more than the way we look. I shall keep the bathing suit photo of myself and be grateful that I’m incredibly healthy and live a good life. In the photo I look plump and unhappy; I am much more than the way I look.