Tried to manifest a thigh gap, got a feminist awakening instead

I believed I could have anything in the world, and all I wanted was to be hot.

A few years ago I became infatuated with manifestation. I’d wake up each morning and do a meditation where I’d visualize my dream life: I’d get perfect grades, travel the world, make good money and–most importantly–be skinny.

Manifestation is the belief that by convincing yourself you already have something, you can will its existence into your life. While I had doubts about the philosophy, anything that promised getting hot was something I’d try.

I started looking for advice on how to manifest more efficiently online. I noticed quickly that most manifestation forums were dominated by women, as most fringe spiritual communities tend to be. This turned these online spaces into a microcosm of the female psyche. By watching what women manifested, we could see what we valued most.

One of the most popular things people try to manifest is an “SP”–a specific person. The SP was most often a crush or ex partner. YouTube videos offering advice on how to manifest your “specific person” would regularly get over a million views. The tips in these videos would include things like journaling what a day with your partner would be like as if you're already living together, or putting up clothes your SP would wear in your closet to pretend they’re living with you.

Some women would say that their SP was married with kids, or a celebrity, or someone that had broken up with them decades prior. In extreme cases, women said their SP had put a restraining order on them. These women would not be met with a gentle suggestion to let that man go, they’d just be reminded that the universe wants them to have whatever they want. All of these obstacles were simply divine tests.

The other thing most often manifested was body changes. “Subliminals” are audios with inaudible affirmations layered under music. A “flat stomach subliminal,” for example, might include affirmations like “I have a flat stomach,” or “my stomach is flatter than ever,” repeated by an automated voice. The idea is that your subconscious is absorbing the affirmations and manifesting them into your reality as you’re listening.

The amount of body-changes subliminals were endless. There were subliminals for having a button nose, becoming a literal carbon copy of Ariana Grande, getting a thigh gap, smelling perpetually like roses, never growing body hair again–whatever you could want, there was a subliminal for it.

What this shows is that when faced with the idea that you can have anything in the world that you want, most women want a man and a thin body.

Sublimanls dedicated to ending wars or homelessness would get a third of the views a “thin arms” subliminal would get. In everything, the dedication to achieving perfect womanhood had to be put first.

Manifestation–no matter how silly you might find it–should be empowering. Instilling women with the courage to take control over their lives is a good thing. In theory, it puts us in the driver's seat–actively opposing the conditioning we receive to be passive and docile.

But the primary aspirations still revolve around love and beauty. Patriarchy is particularly evil in that way. By robbing women of even the desire to want something more than beauty and male validation, we’re kept perpetually in its throes.

Women are promised that utopia exists on the other side of desirability. If we can only get small enough, sweet enough, chosen by enough men, we will be perfect. We will be happy. That Promise Land living in the female psyche will not die easily. Even when you give us all the power–supernatural and otherwise–we come crawling back to that ideal. Not because it’s true but because we’ve been offered no other route to happiness.

In this way, daring to have aspirations beyond desirability is one of the most feminist things you can do. Telling women to build the life they want–and to stop believing they have to be beautiful and chosen first–is truly radical.