The stand for self-love | Amy Pence-Brown | TEDxBoise

Amy Pence-Brown is a fat feminist mother who believes in opening her mouth and her heart. From both of these places she tells a powerful story of vulnerability, courage, and body positivity and the importance of taking a stand for something you believe in. As a body image activist, Pence-Brown became famous in 2015 for her radical stand for self-love in a black bikini and a blindfold in Boise, Idaho, which was documented in a blog post, photographs and a video viewed over 130 million times.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

A few months ago I became famous,

for stripping down half nude,

as a fat 40-year-old mom
at a farmer's market downtown Boise.

(Cheers) (Applause)

A video of the event quickly went viral,

showing me in a black bikini,

blind-folded,

with a handful of washable markers
from my daughter's art kit,

and a chalk board sign
at my feet that read:

"If you've ever struggled
with a self-esteem issue like me,

and believe all bodies are valuable,
draw a heart on my body."

It was a feminist art performance piece,

Just one in a series I've done
over the past seven years,

as a body-positive activist,

calling for radical self-acceptance.

I wrote a blog post about it
after that hour in the market,

titled: "A stand for self-love."

And hence forth,

media, celebrities,
and writers around the world

glommed on to those words like I did,

referring to my acts that day
as "The stand for self-love,"

or,

as I affectionately refer to it now,

the shortened version,

"The Stand."

This of course wasn't the first time
I stood up for myself or for something,

I've stood up a lot of times in my life.

The theologian Mary Daly says,
"Courage requires couraging,"

much like learning to ski requires,
well, skiing a lot,

and piano playing requires practice.

And just as many times,
like I'm sure you can all relate to,

I've gotten shoved back into my seat,
knocked down flat on the floor,

crawled, and slowly pulled myself
to standing again.

Each time, a bit taller,

wiser,

louder,

braver.

We all have a story
that can lead to a stand,

and I'm going to share bits of mine.

How I've stood up several times
over the course of my life

paving the way to "The Stand" for me.

Like that time as a young teenager,
when I wrote a letter to the editor

of my local newspaper,

because there was an outcry

to abolish the only chapter
on sex education

from our health class curriculum,

and I got called a slut.

I curled up in my bedroom and cried.

But crawled back to school,

wiser.

And in my 20s,

when a boyfriend turned to me one day
and screamed in my face,

"I'm so tired of hearing
about your feminist garbage,

will you just shut up?!"

And I broke up with him, that same day.

Louder!

(Whistles) (Applause)

And in my 30s, when I landed
the dream job of my career,

only to fight for fair treatment,
equal pay, appropriate family leave,

and time to breastfeed my baby,

and I'm deemed "difficult to work with."

Self-righteous.

I lost that job,

and it knocked me flat on my back.

But I slowly pulled myself
to standing again.

Braver.

I forged my own
new career path as a writer,

and continued questioning
archaic ideals of the past,

and began making my own rules.

Seven years ago,

I literally googled the words:
"Why am I fat and happy?"

Because, I personally knew no one else

who was not buying
into our consumerist culture's crap,

and thought one, "Am I crazy?"

Or two,

"If not, there's got to be
someone else out there

that feels this way too, right?"

And after scrolling
through pages and pages of ads

for the diet industry complex,

and news articles telling me
I was unhappy because I was fat,

I finally found what I was looking for.

Two blogs that forever changed my life
and catapulted me into ideas,

about health at every size,
and body positivity,

and fat acceptance.

I read every book, and news article,
and scientific study.

I followed Fat Fierce Feminist
on Facebook and Twitter.

For three years, I immersed myself
in the education,

and it started showing up,
more and more,

in my art,

in my writing,

on my Facebook wall,

and coming out of my mouth.

Four years ago, I did my first
public performance piece

on how to be fat, fit,
and fabulous, here in Boise

and earned my place as a radical feminist,

with ideas about all bodies
being good bodies,

and that there is in fact
no wrong way to have a body.

It went pretty well.

But my second performance

did not.

At an event to an audience
similar to this,

I proposed a public art
social activism project

for International No Diet Day.

And for the first time in my life,

earned myself a vile internet troll.

A man who was anonymously
writing hateful things

about me and my body on Twitter,
while I was on stage.

The social media bigotry continued
onto my Facebook wall,

this time by both men and women
I actually knew in real life,

and coupled with the fact,

that unbeknownst to all of them,

I was also suffering
from my first miscarriage.

At home,

alone,

I shut down.

Both physically and literally I shut down.

Closing all my social media
accounts for the summer,

taking a much needed break
to heal my mind,

my heart,

and my body at home.

I had felt so strong, so brave
in my body positivity,

and it had all failed me.

Both the body
I had worked so hard to love,

and the activism
I had felt so strongly about.

I rose up though.

Taller.

And rejoined social media and started
"The Boise Rad Fat Collective."

A private Facebook group,

that began with a few like-minded
friends and acquaintances

who wanted a safe space

to share body-positive links
and news articles,

in both a kind and scholarly way.

It was in this group,

where I first posted the video of Jae West
and The Liberators International,

a group of Australians
who stage public social experiments

geared around
participatory acts of kindness.

The video featured Jae,

in her bra and undies
in Piccadilly Circus in London,

with a sign, blindfold, and markers.

It was heart-warming.

And I thought about it hard
with all my body positive feminist theory,

and socially acceptable
standards of beauty,

and questioned,

"How might this experiment
be perceived differently

if the woman was say,
twice Jae's size,

like around 226 pounds?

And twice her age,

like say 40 and a mom,

and in a much more
conservative place like Boise, Idaho?

(Laughter)

Well,

I decided to find out,

and asked photographer Melanie Folwell
to document the stand

and picked a date about two weeks out

at the busiest
pedestrian spot in the city,

the capital city public market at noon.

To say I was terrified
would be an understatement.

I woke up that morning and puked.

I kept the whole thing "hush hush,"

as I didn't want to stuff the crowd
with friends and body-positive people,

but wanted to let it organically evolve.

Even if that meant people
yelled mean things at me,

the police asked me to leave or worse,
no one shared in my message of self-love.

Psyching myself up right before

stepping into the crowd
and taking off my dress,

I suddenly felt the need to set
parameters for success.

My goal that day was,

if five people stop
and draw a heart on me,

if I get five people to dig deep
and think hard about their bodies,

and loving them and hating them

then it's a success.

Just five.

Well,

as you may know by now,

I touched a lot more
than five people that day.

In fact,

our video has been viewed
over 130 million times.

(Cheers) (Applause)

And the messages in my in-box
were in the thousands,

and from all corners of the world,

saying, "Thank you for standing
for me, and with courage."

I wasn't wearing much that day,

but what I was wearing,
is important to note.

I decided on a bikini,

instead of a bra and panties,

as I thought that might be more palatable
to a conservative city like Boise.

By stripping off my clothes,

I was stripping away
negative body image, and saying,

"I'm at peace with my body
and I have been for many years,

and I think you should be too."

Plus,

logistically, it gave the participants
more skin to write on.

(Laughter)

I wore the blindfold for many reasons.

To make myself more anonymous,

so the viewer could look at me,
and see in my body their body,

and every body.

It made me vulnerable, obviously.

And it represented years of mistreatment
of the fat body and media,

as people who were often depicted
with a black bar across their faces,

or their heads entirely cut off,
in news articles and magazine stories,

as if they are nothing more
than a body to be reviled.

In addition to what I was wearing,
or not wearing,

you can see other things in the photos
and the video from that day.

Like sweat, pouring down
my rolls of back-fat,

cellulite, stretchmarks,

sagging breasts,
that have nursed three babies,

and a wonky halter top.

But I know you can see more than that too.

You can see the humanity,

the kindness,

the acceptance.

Immediately upon stepping into that crowd,
people began swarming around me,

and feeling that first marker slip
from my hands was such a relief,

such a rush of emotion,
so intense, that I began crying.

But to my surprise,
so did that first woman,

who not only drew a heart on my body,

but I could also feel wrote a word,

and she spoke to me.

She said, "This is so brave,
you are so powerful, thank you."

And this continued, over and over,
by men and women

this whispering of stories
of pain and joy, love and suffering.

And they told me what the crowd
around me was doing.

"You can't see any of this," they said,

"but you are touching people
in ways unimaginable.

Even if they are stopping to glare at you,

they are reading your sign and
taking to heart their own self-loathing."

One father knelt down near me
with his two young sons,

read them my sign,

and said, "This is what
a beautiful woman looks like."

And I know he was talking about more
than my physical appearance alone.

This overwhelming sense
that I was, in fact,

a voice of a revolution
they'd all been waiting for,

continued for the next hour
I stood in that market.

I only finally decided
to take off my blindfold,

when people began telling me there was
no more available skin to write on

and my markers had run out of ink.

Everyone there that day knew
something extraordinary was happening.

And once I saw Melanie's photographs,
I knew that was a fact.

People of all ages, sizes, genders,
nationalities, abilities, religions,

had participated in my project that day,

and I couldn't wait to share the news
with the rest of Boise.

Because I thought
they would be pretty excited too.

Two days later,
I wrote a heartfelt blog-post

accompanied by some
of Melanie's amazing photographs.

She and I got together one night,

and sat up until about 2 AM,
with some wine and the IMovie app,

and made a video.

The photos and video
feature unretouched images,

keeping true to the spirit
of the project and my body,

and all its imperfections.

We dropped it all out
into the Internet universe on a Thursday,

and immediately my message
spread like wildfire.

All our Facebook friends
were sharing my blog post,

accompanied with
more personal status updates

about their own struggles
with self-esteem, and body image.

Within 24 hours, the local media
had picked up the story.

And within 48 hours,
I got my first phone call from USA Today.

And from there it was a whirlwind
of international press.

From NPR Radio to appearing live on CNN,

from People Magazine to Cosmopolitan.

From being featured on both
the homepages of Yahoo and MSN,

to Kevin Bacon and Alanis Morissette

both tweeting to me
and about me on Twitter.

I set up a Google alert on myself
and it couldn't even keep up

with the stories that were being written
aboutmy stand for self-love,

all over the world in languages
I didn't even recognize.

Spiraling so quickly
into international fame

for something so beautiful and raw,

was staggering,
in the best possible way.

I've been overwhelmed
with the tears and support

that have been shared with me.

I don't think I have stopped crying
for months now.

But that's the thing
about vulnerability, right?

When you open up,

and you start to live
with your full heart,

there is no going back.

My stand for self-love

hasn't come without its difficult
and dark moments, however.

The internet is a place where people
feel free to spew unkind untruths.

I have been accused of being lazy, ugly,

stupid, uneducated,
a bad mother, and a Californian.

(Laughter)

Apparently an insult
some people like to throw around.

(Laughter)

I have thick skin,

and I know that ignorant
and mean comments

almost always have more to do
with the writer's personal problems,

than the person they are directed at.

There have been times though,

when I've wanted to shove
my heart back safely under wraps

where it used to belong,
because it's scary out here,

this "wholehearted living,"
as Brene Brown calls it.

But while I may trip up a bit,
I don't fall much anymore.

And I leave my heart right out here.

It's age old wisdom,

summoning the bravery to stand
back up after falling down,

from that old cowboy saying,

"Always get back on the horse
that threw you,"

to the contemporary work of Brene Brown.

I took a stand in August for self-love,

and I can't think of anything

more important
to stand up for than myself.

Boise proved that day it was ready
for a body positive revolution,

and hundreds of thousands
around the world followed suit.

"We've been waiting for you,"

I heard, "but we need
some help standing up".

Well, I'm honored to stand by your side.

Take my hand if you need
and I'll pull you up.

In a society that profits
from your self doubt,

liking yourself is a rebellious act.

The artist and wordsmith
Caroline Caldwell says,

and I couldn't agree more,

"We can't truly love one another
until we love ourselves."

The personal revolution is the first step.

When a handful of us
or a few hundred of us,

or a few millions of us love ourselves,

that's when the real revolution begins.

We are often our own biggest bully.

Our biggest obstacle is our self.

Life is much too short
to go on hating yourself

or your body
one minute longer.

But you have to do the hard work.

You have to dig deep, and learn,
and flail, and educate yourself,

and fall down and get back up.

It's not easy, but it's so worth it.

My story shows that people are good,

and kind, and ready,
and willing to engage in new ideas.

What is your story?

What do you stand for?

Write that letter.

Leave that toxic job.

Quit that unhealthy relationship,
strip off that self-doubt.

Be rebellious and take a risk.

Stand up.

Thank you.

(Cheers) (Applause)