Not Just Skin Deep

The Emotional Truths Behind How Women Talk About Their Bodies

There’s a moment, often unnoticed, that happens between women. It might unfold over coffee or in the softness of a late-night conversation. One woman sighs, her voice dropping into the familiar cadence of self-critique: "I’ve gained weight," she says, with a sadness and desperation that doesn’t quite match the sentiment of her statement. "I feel awful." The other woman, perhaps unconsciously, responds with her own confession: “Me too. My stomach has gotten so soft and round. I need to get back to the gym.”

These moments of self-recrimination pass between women like a form of currency, each of us offering up our bodies as proof that we, too, have failed to meet the impossible standards placed upon us. But if we listen closely, we might notice that these conversations rarely stay on the surface. Beneath the talk of weight, shape, and size is something deeper.

A hurt that is older and far more profound than the body itself.

My time as a therapist and as a woman allows me to know that when a woman criticizes her body, she is rarely just talking about her body. In those moments, we hear an unconscious expression of dissatisfaction that reaches far beyond her flesh and bone. In my years as a psychotherapist, I’ve come to understand that body shame is often the language women use to communicate the disconnection, unmet needs, and deep emotional wounds they struggle to articulate. We have been handed a script—crafted by culture and reinforced by the systems around us—that teaches us to critique our bodies instead of acknowledging the deeper truths of pain that female bodies often carry.