Speaking (recently) of being a "sexy feminist," let's talk about the phrase. I, of course, do not use the word "sexy" to contrast with or qualify the word "feminist," but rather in reference to the fact that you all already know--feminism is way sexy.
However, let's talk about an area where I frequently feel conflicted: weight loss.
I know you're all thinking, "Where's the conflict? Up with positive body image!" Well, of course. But there's this trend, particularly among young, liberal, well-educated people, to sneer at women who have a negative body image. I often feel that, in certain circles, there is a bigger stigma against dieting than there is against being fat. A conscious stigma, that is--we've all still internalized cultural ideals, so the message seems to be: "Be skinny...but don't try to be skinny." Deviating from either dictum invites a lot of shame. The fact is, most of us have it drilled into our heads that we need to be skinnier, and it is really hard to get totally free of that. This new stigma is well-intentioned, as it attempts to counter all those negative messages, but it often feels that diet-dissers doth protest too much. Smart people have fat prejudices, know they shouldn't, and get haughty about weight loss in compensation. I, personally, am tired of feeling guilty for eating a doughnut, and tired of feeling guilty for feeling guilty.
America, that schizophrenic country of ours, obsesses over thinness while breeding obesity. We're puritanical and hypersexed, extremely diverse and extremely egocentric, and we hurtle towards extremes like negatively charged ions. How do we reconcile? Where's the spectrum? I want to love myself, and fuck the patriarchy...but I also want to lose 10 pounds. Preferably 15. Okay, 20. So Sleater-Kinney's "#1 Must Have" has been going through my head in a loop, and I listen to Lily Allen just for that lyric that goes "I want to be able to eat spaghetti bolognese/And not feel bad about it for days and days and days." I WANT to be attractive to the opposite sex, and I KNOW I shouldn't want that.
We're all guilty of blaming the victim. We even ridicule overly skinny celebrities--ok, mostly the vapid ones, but often we view them as vapid BECAUSE they're so skinny. Why can't we work on removing the fat-shame in the first place? The people who look down their noses at calorie-counters are usually the same ones who casually insult fat people behind their backs. So how 'bout instead of scoffing at that Diet Coke your friend ordered, tell her she's beautiful? (And just so she believes you, maybe tell her so when she's NOT stressing about her dress size.) I've long had an unofficial policy, and as of now I'm making it official: if a friend of mine ever calls anyone fat--strangers, celebs, whatever--I'm calling them out on it. I don't want to hear it. It's destructive, unattractive, and WORST of all not particularly funny*.
Hate the unrealistic standard, y'all, not the people feeling oppressed by it.
*Which is, of course, the greatest sin of all.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
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4 comments:
OH MY GOD, you're so right. I'm so done with hating on fat OR skinny people.
I just hate on stupid people.
And racists.
Okay so here's what me and my friends used to discuss when the three of us sat around and did nothing more than talk about femenism, men and our issues. (it was a good time to be alive) So I mean the problem I think is an almost evolutionary one. Theoretically anyway. I mean to say that as liberal women we've all been raised to believe that dieting was evil and exercizing was for dumb blondes. thus the whole "If your gonna drink coke, drink regular coke NEVER diet coke" thing. I mean i know MY mother (quite possibly the original femenist) would way sooner alow regular coke in the house than diet. And this was great in the younger years of not worrying about body image. However, I think what this ended up turning into for our generation was a lack of interest in nutrition and diet itself.
Dieting sucks--booo evil dieting! However, keeping a healthy diet is something we all owe to ourselves so we can keep kicking anti-fem ass right up until we are 100 years old. I think we got stuck in this place where thinking about your body was un-cool and thus kind of set ourselves up for destruction in a small way because I don't know about you---but when I'm eating well and exercizing well I feel amazing. =)
The sad truth is that a small percentage of girls can look skinny and good without making an effort. And somehow all of society has been refigured around this standard. Of course obsessive dieting is annoying (and can be drastically unhealthy). So is indulging in all the food you want, or even pretending that you don't watch what you eat AT ALL in front of your other female friends. I often oscillate back and forth from thinking, I am fine and the extra pounds are SO minor in the scope of things and I'm healthy and blah blah blah and then being obsessed about eating one thing over another. I think it's unfortunately an common side effect of being a girl nowadays. Now I do think there are people who are fat, as in obese, as in it is actually dangerous and unhealthy for them not to lose weight. Of course that often goes in the opposite range as well. But as long as we're in the middle, healthy range, it's all about self-acceptance. I read somewhere that most people can only fluctuate 10 pounds either way of their biological weight at any given point in time, which might seem huge to some of us, but really puts things in perspective.
Which doesn't mean that we should make fun of skinny or fat people, but we should be atuned to the fact that what really matters is health, even if appearance seems more important sometimes.
I say don't merely hate the unrealistic standard, viciously attack with a big stick, leave it in pieces for the media to discover in the morning, and go have a double cheeseburger. Here's a stunningly beautiful woman by the stage name of Velvet D'Amour who has done just that: http://thetrendsetter.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/ulimate-plus-size-model-velvet-d-amour/
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