Human Financial Product

Bodies, property, rape. Everything ugly and full of hate

My baby will be six months at the end of June and I’ve been majorly struggling with body image issues since then and throughout my pregnancy. For a long time, especially when I was younger, it was easy to understand, intellectually, how my body was simply “my private property” and how I alone was (or at least supposed to be) the sole owner of it. It was as if my body were an isolated mechanism set apart, yet still in some minor ways, dependent and adapted to the more significant human and terrestrial system. Ultimately, I was responsible for my body, and if I wanted to improve the world at large, I would have to improve my body. “Be the change you want to see in the world,” as they say… Sometimes, I still catch subtle arguments proposing that a human body is private property, yet through the kaleidoscope of time, I’ve come to understand that the only ways in which we are capable of relating to ourselves, and each other, are entirely driven and shaped by the political economy in which …