A rant on body image.

It's been a while since I've posted in here, but after coming across a particular thread in GD, after the last two weeks I've had, I just needed to rant.

Western beauty standards, and specifically American ones, are totally FUBAR. I don't think anyone can say otherwise. However, the answer to the problem of boosting girls' self-esteem is not turning thin women into villains, the answer is helping women of all sizes accept themselves as beautiful. With all due respect to Mo'nique (whose comedy I love) the "skinny bitches are evil" mentality is bullshit and just as harmful to women as the "no fatties" bullshit.

I'm 5'9", 105 lbs. I didn't starve myself to get this way, this is my natural body type. The beanpole thing just runs in my family, regardless of gender. I have a freakishly high metabolism that simply won't allow me to gain weight, no matter how much I eat or sit on my bony ass and don't exercise. I'm not complaining, this is just a statement of fact. Two weeks ago, I went to visit friends out in Arizona. Before my trip, I went bra shopping, and was bombarded yet again with the message that flat-chested women are "less than". In four different stores, I couldn't find a single bra of my size that wasn't ridiculously padded. Then, when I was actually out there, there were all the needling little comments about how I needed to eat more (my appetite fluctuates, I can be ravenous one day and barely eat the next), I'm too bony, blah blah. It wasn't malicious (it rarely is), but it adds up, and it hurts. My self-esteem is not terribly high to begin with, and I have body issues anyway that are cultural. In the black community, big women are the standard of hotness. Badonkadonks, big titties--that's just what pretty is. "Real women have curves", you know (thus implying if you don't have curves, you aren't a real woman). One of the reasons I stay way the hell away from my family in the South is because at family gatherings people are constantly giving me shit about my weight, how I'll never get a man because I don't have <tits, ass, "birthin' hips", whatever>. I'm just this awful, bony, androgynous thing. In our heterosexist culture, androgyny, physical or otherwise, is the unforgivable sin--just look at the average DUer's comments about Ann Coulter's appearance. I struggle with "femininity" on a daily basis, and yes a lot of that is because of my weight and this "Real Women Have Curves" shit I see all over the body positive movement. What's wrong with that statement, which seems to be positive and intended to help curvy women feel better about themselves? It's the flipside of it, which suggests that if you don't have curves, you're not a "real woman" (whatever the fuck that is).

I am not trying to equate my body issues with those of larger women, many of whom have struggled with their weight their whole lives. Not by any means, I can't even image the shit such women have to deal with on a daily basis. I am just pleading for a little understanding, and just the tiniest bit of respect. Tearing some women down to build up others is totally fucked up, and if you'll allow me my tinfoil hat for a minute, sounds suspiciously like a patriarchal divide and conquer tactic. Call me crazy, but creating our own fucked up, exclusivist definition of a "real woman" and beating other women down with it instead of letting the patriarchal mainstream media do it for us is not empowering.

Flame away.

As a large woman, I guess I didn't really consider the flip side of the "real women have curves" thing, though. As empowering as that can be to big women, I can see how it could be hurtful to thin ones. Thanks for bringing that up.

SO adorable.

I'm glad you posted this because you have a very valid point. I think I may have posted an insensitive comment a time or two and I'm truly sorry. I have a glimmer of understanding on this because my daughter was tall and thin. She agonized over not having more curves and it's such an awful pressure. It's ridiculous that we can't accept each of us for who we are. You are beautiful, healthy, and wise. I had small breasts (still not huge) as a teen and both sisters had very large breasts. I remember the ridicule and snide remarks about when I would grow. It's painful and so unnecessary. Noone should be torn down like that.

Before I went on Prednisone, people would say things they considered witty, like asking me if I'd been vacationing in Biafra. I didn't diet. It wasn't my doing. I was very sick with an undiagnosed medical condition that made it very difficult for me to gain weight. I wasn't amused.

Now I'm accused of simply letting myself go because the med I take causes massive weight gain.

It's our metabolism, it's our genetics, and sometimes it's the DRUGS we need to stay alive! Shut the fuck up! If it were in our power to design our body shapes to please you, we might consider it just for some peace and quiet. Until we get that power, we don't need the fucking commentary.

90% of people who are successful at losing weight will gain it all back plus more within 5 years. This includes people who have done the more drastic gastric surgeries. We have no permanent treatment for obesity.

Likewise, there's not much we can do for people with borderline hyperthyroid and other conditions that keep them thin. Whatever your genes say you are going to be, that's what you are going to be.

I'm sick of the whole business. I've taken to saying "How very odd that you feel entitled to comment on the shape of my body. Do you want me to comment on yours?"

That at least shuts them up to my face.

That's better than what I was going to post, which is, well, I'm tired of being criticized for thinness. It's the result of...it's nobody's business what it's the result of.

Everything I throw out here is public domain.

That one was a paraphrase of a Miss Manners putdown from 20 years ago.

I agree with you.

I gave a moments glance to that GD thread and didn't really get involved.


The way American TV is - at least for now - I don't see much improvement in the situation. I guess there is always hope, though. Marketing, advertising drives this nonsense.

this society will find something wrong with you. Your nose, your hair, your weight. I have quit trying to please anyone and I no longer feel bad about it. I am free and it feels good. Now if I could just quit telling myself I don't live up to the standard I will have won. That is the worst thing it has done, it has created the problem in our own minds.

with that tall slender body form (although she got boobs, who from, we're not sure) alot, though to be fair she picks on me the same way. I hate the skinny bitches are evil line, because I am considered skinny in the black community (I have a tiny tiny waist and mega hips). I try not to rag on people's appearance cuz it sucks just as much as having men comment all the damn time on your junk in the trunk or whatever else you have; it all reduces you down to a freaking object, one to be hated or one to be sexualized.

As for the bra issue, I can't find any without padding, and I'm a B/C cup. I mean, how big are they supposed to be?!

I don't understand this either--I am B/C as well and I can never find one that doesn't try to create a "D" look.

I've taken to just not wearing one unless it is absolutely necessary for the sake of propriety (which is still sick and twisted...).

She says that she feels more confident wearing padded bras, not so that her breasts look bigger but so her nipples don't show when wearing form fitting shirts. I don't like padding because I think that it makes me look huge, but as a result I try not to wear form fitting shirts that show my nipples.

they have no support and I need it--but all the padded ones I find make my chest look at least a full D cup, which is not my goal. I've found a couple that don't produce that effect, but man, it was hard.

I know, because I've seen them when shopping for bras. I'm already a 44DD, why on EARTH would I want to be any bigger? And why do all the bras in bigger sizes have underwires? OUCH. I rip them out as soon as I buy them. My boobs don't have to be lifted up to my neckline.

Actually, I found some great bigger size bras at Just My Size (www.jms.com), if any of the other larger ladies would like to check it out. I never thought I'd be able to find a sports bra in my size, and I did!

There are so many variables among us. We vary in height. We vary in bone structure. We vary in metabolism. We vary in where our bodies store fat.
I find it messed up for myself that I am upset that I don't look like a supermodel when I realize how sad that it would be if we all looked the same.
I commented to my husband that men tend to look more the same than women do in body type, hair style, and clothing. I said that was one reason that I always thought women were more attractive even though I feel heterosexual. We should celebrate us having a variety of looks and celebrating being individuals.

It's about loving your body image and feeling good about yourself which so many women have a hard time doing. I have a standard rant in the break room where I work. I'm a nurse, so it's a mostly women. So there will be "women's" magazines laying around. I can point to the cover on any one of them, from Oprah's to Glamor to Redbook--whatever. Without fail the topics of dieting and sex (not matter how it's worded, it's how to please your man in bed) are there. (In some high calorie recipes are right behind the dieting section.) Seconded, of course by makeup tips and clothes. And there are always vapid articles about this and that interspersed with ADS and ADS geared toward telling women "You should look this way" "This is what is sexy"
Blech. I was telling a fellow nurse the other day I'd rather read Cosmo, because at least it doesn't PRETEND to be something other than dieting, sex, makeup and clothes.

Me? I'm unapologetically muscular, and in good shape. I've been this way most of my life. It comes very naturally, I use light weights, have no interest in body building. I hate gyms, I do my workout at home and in the fresh air. I too get little comments "Look at those arms" (I always think you should see my calves, girlfriend) Someone was asking me how to get in shape-- but I don't want muscles!(They ask because I have a flat belly) I don't want muscles! I tried to tell her how genetic it was for me, and light weights would not add bulk to the average women, yada yada yada.
I hate the Coulter comments. I wish they'd stay away from her appearance.
I don't know you, but you are beautiful just the way you are. Personally, I don't know any "skinny bitches" How I feel about someone is based on behavior, not looks or pants size.

I completely agree with you. Why we can't just mind our own frelling business about other people's bodies is beyond me. Why can't we, as a society, just accept that different people have different standards of beauty? I don't happen to be into certain body types, but that sure as hell doesn't mean there's anything WRONG with them - and I accept that other people find those body types irresistable. Isn't that what it's all about?

I've been on the receiving end of some of that "how do you stay so skinny" BS myself, although I think I'm absolutely normal in size. Just because I'm not overweight - which apparently all 46-year-old women are expected to be - people (women) think there's something suspicious about me. It's got little to do with anything I do, or don't do - it's simply the way Mother Nature made me (and it probably has something to do with not being all that interested in food most of the time). But I agree with you about not being regarded as a "real woman" if you don't have big boobs or a butt - you could drop a plumbline down my backside, I have no butt at all, and I'm just barely a B cup, so I guess I'm not a "real woman" either.

I wish people could learn to keep their opinions of other women to themselves. It's very rarely appropriate, and it's quite often hurtful.