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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne de l'Éducation is the property of Canadian Society for the Study of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following poems are an autoethnographic account of body image from the perspective of a 39-year-old bountiful, White-privileged, mixed-race femme dyke. The purpose of the poetic form is to inspire emotional connection and offer analytic commentary on the social construction of body image, aging, and beauty as a social commodity, from a lesbian perspective. Together, the poems present a perspective on lesbian body image that highlights our socialization as women first. Lesbian consciousness has a role in how we construct body image outside of a primarily male gaze, but it does not supplant heteronormative feminity. The poems also show the critical social gaze as reconstructed within us and by our lovers. In addition to social influences, the poems also show the life of the individual as a site of body image activism. The agency of "I" to reconstruct interactions of body acceptance and self-love is as clear as the contexts in which those struggles take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]