This past summer, I had the privilege of volunteering in a small village in Ghana. When packing for my trip in late July, I noticed that I listed a mirror on my packing list. For some reason, this, out of all the items on the packing list—which included toilet paper—surprised me the most. I knew the amenities available to me in a rural village would be limited, but I never thought about mirrors. While on the trip, I found myself only looking at the mirror I brought once a day for maximum of 10 seconds, just to make sure I didn’t have crust in my eyes, and I found myself very rarely thinking about my physical appearance. When I got back to the States, I coincidentally came across an article about a woman who, nearing her wedding day, decided to go a year without looking in a mirror just six months before her wedding. And I thought two weeks was a feat!
Fact: Women spend, on average, five full days a year looking at their own reflections.
Now wait a second and really let that statistic set in. That’s an entire school week! We are wasting nearly a week of every year just looking at ourselves. Despite my accusatory tone, I must admit that I am also very much guilty of this. There is a mirror at the entrance of my house that I always, without fail, pay a visit to before stepping a foot outside my house. My family even notices and makes fun of me for it. For Princeton alum Kjerstin Gruys, it was not fear of vanity that led her to wean herself off of any reflective device, it was fear of relapsing in the wake of wedding pressures. During her undergraduate years, Kjerstin suffered from an eating disorder. She even wrote her senior thesis on body image and sorority culture.
She said in an interview, “I’m am avoiding the mirror so I can get on with my life and do other things. I hope to take the emphasis away from my body and just focus on other things.” I think we, as women, can learn from Kjerstin’s efforts. I’m not saying that we all have to stop looking at our reflections to prove that we are comfortable in our own skins, but perhaps we can cut down on the time we spend looking at features that are not going to change no matter how hard we stare. If you’re interested in Kjerstin’s journey check out her blog A Year Without Mirrors.
Her wedding is in a week, so things might start getting even more interesting!