The Soft Resistance: Notes from the Mirror Trench

  I’m not interested in seeing a perfect image. Perfection is not only boring
— it’s a lie.

Deborah Turbeville

In modern zoology, a new endangered species has emerged: the woman who doesn’t speak about her body as if it were an investment portfolio. Here stands one of them. Five feet tall, with no interest in sculpted abs or marine collagen creams. My friends talk about workout routines and Zumba sessions as if they were saving the world. I, on the other hand, just try to hold on to a light but substantial conversation without being interrupted or ignored in favor of gossip about surgical procedures, trendy diets, or the latest fitness craze.

In certain social circles, intellectual deviation is seen as a mild dysfunction. A manageable eccentricity. My friends—efficient, socially functional women—manage their bodies with the precision of a corporate protocol: they count centimeters, increase weights, optimize glutes. I, meanwhile, struggle to remember whether I took my allergy pill this morning, but I can recite Plath with the same conviction they bring to intermittent fasting. In that ecosystem, my presence sparks a mix of tenderness and confusion—like finding a poetry book in the middle of a paddle tennis court.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against beauty. The problem is that it seems to be the only thing that matters. It’s no longer about strict diets or physical suffering—everything now comes wrapped in wellness discourse: self-care, emotional balance, "energetic alignment." The body is now worked from a place of self-love, they say. But it’s still an obsession—just one dressed in pastel colors. They meditate to sculpt their abs. They connect with their inner self while doing squats with resistance bands. Aesthetic discipline has dropped its religious tone to adopt a Zen dogma: softer in speech, just as ruthless underneath.

In the contemporary economy, the female body operates like a startup: it requires constant investment, is measured by unstable metrics (BMI, body fat percentage, follower count), and, above all, must deliver aesthetic returns. The average woman no longer has a body; she has a body project. Conversations orbit around continuous improvement, new performance strategies, and a fanatical devotion to visual results. The market rewards specialization. The woman fluent in the technical language of fitness and cosmetics becomes a kind of desire-technologist. She speaks with authority about peptides, serums, collagen types—as if quoting financial algorithms. Meanwhile, cultural conversation—literature, philosophy, music—has been downgraded to a quaint irrelevance, like collecting stamps or speaking Latin. Interesting, yes. But irrelevant. The new social contract is clear: what can’t be photographed doesn’t exist. And if it does, it irritates.

It’s not easy to maintain self-esteem when the canon whispers, every day, that you are insufficient. I say this not from some moral pedestal, as someone who believes herself superior for reading poetry or having a favorite philosopher. I say it from the trenches—as a woman battling not just the mirror, but the silence of invisibility. I don’t expect to change the algorithm. Sometimes, I just want to read in peace without feeling like a cultural fossil. Or at least, to be reminded that having a restless mind is still desirable, even if I don’t have a toned abdomen.

But of course, all of this becomes irrelevant when, at a gathering, someone casually declares that true happiness is having a gym body. That’s when you retreat, order another glass of wine, and smile silently, calculating how many pages of Clarice Lispector you could’ve read in that time—or feeling a mix of pity and discomfort for forcing yourself to stay somewhere you clearly don’t belong. Culture doesn’t slim you down, tan you, or tone your muscles. It only makes you more aware. Which, in these times, is a serious competitive disadvantage.

A restless mind doesn’t trend. It doesn’t have sponsors or viral tutorials. It’s hard to package, nearly impossible to monetize. Ideas, unlike bodies, don’t show up in mirrors. That’s why they feel suspicious—even threatening. No one likes to feel outpaced by a woman who, on top of not fitting into the right size, reads.

So you adapt. You learn to dose yourself. To ration opinions, dilute difficult topics, blend in with wine bottles, mask your lucidity with irony so you won’t come off as intense. Until, every now and then, someone appears with a look, a comment, a genuine question that reminds you you’re not alone. It changes nothing, of course. But for a moment, the wine tastes a little less like surrender.