We are told being a woman and being oppressed under patriarchy have nothing to do with our bodies. Yet there are countless examples of how the female body is marked, even carved, moulded or disabled by patriarchy.
Feet binding, chest ironing, neck rings, dieting, FGM...

Often these practices are tied to patriarchal and capitalist status : married or weddable, as displays of the husband's wealth... they can also develop as a response to male sexually predatory behaviour. This is the case with chest ironing and also often with female obesity.

Several friends have told me how they became obese after a rape, or after remembering a childhood rape. They explain their sudden weight gain as a means to punish their body but also protect themselves from the male gaze, blur their female features and remove

themselves from the pool of rappable women.
Anorexia, self harm, cutting are also female typical forms of physical self punishment that most often that not arise from refusing to become a woman in a world where there is nowhere to hide from the dehumanising male gaze,

From incessant taunting by male peers and from the social pressure to conform to the demands of patriarchy.

It has always been, and still is about our bodies. Our bodies are the terrain of patriarchal imposition, of male colonialism and of our own rejection of it.

There can be no feminism without recognising the centrality of the female body for patriarchy.
It is all about our body.
That is why we must be able to define ourselves as a sex class, centred around the specific needs of, and exploitation imposed on, our female bodies.