What is the point of looking into a full-length mirror? I can think of just a few good reasons:
- to make sure your outfit matches;
- to check that you don’t have your underwear bunched up outside your jeans;
-
to draw a portrait of yourself because you are a fine, fine oil painter;
-
um, there is no #4.
As a teenager, I only ever looked in the full-length mirror to “evaluate” myself. I’d pore over magazines and look at women’s bodies, and compare mine to theirs. Point being, there was no point, except to make me feel bad about myself. Also, unless I want to stand under natural lighting in strategic poses at all times, fashion-model comparison is also an impossible standard to maintain. Luckily, I’ve given it up.
As a woman, I still think about my body from the “mirror’s perspective.” I think it deserves better than that. My body deserves to be experienced and cared-for based upon its needs, not treated based upon what will enhance it in the mirror.
I don’t own a full-length mirror now. I can see my outfits laid out on the bed, and I can trust my friends to tell me if my underwear is showing. I’ve never been a good visual artist. And even if I’m not scrutinizing it each day? My body is still here.
Do you own mirrors? How often do you look in one?

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Good for you. I don’t spend a lot of time with the mirror because if I do I get a little disappointed in what I see. A quick glance is enough to assure me that I don’t have spinach in my teeth and that the part in my hair is straight. For a short while I was watching that extreme makeover show where they did plastic surgery and dentistry and all sorts of things to people. It was like a train wreck, I was both horrified and fascinated and I had trouble pulling myself away. Finally I did, because I found myself to be hyper-critical in the mirror. Things that had never bothered me suddenly seemed like major flaws. It was insane. I’m over that, and I love who I am, so the mirror is just a tool again, not an instrument for judgment.
BB