A lot of skinny, prominent (and I’m talking third wave, not second) feminists don’t do this.

I understand part of that has to do with “work” and “achievement standards in the workplace” and “appropriate professional dress”, but I’m wondering what middle and upper middle class feminists are willing to look at the class issues bearing on that.

For me, it all boils down to the highly sexist notion that a woman’s worth (both in her own eyes and in the eyes of society in general) is measured by how attractive she is — to potential partners, to herself and to the world at large. As it stands, beauty and sex appeal are the only real currency women can exchange for what passes as something that at least resembles cultural or individual power. Until we as a culture begin to value women for their accomplishments, abilities and contributions first, and beauty becomes a secondary, if not largely irrelevant, factor in what makes a woman powerful and successful, it will remain extremely difficult for us make peace between our feminist belief that patriarchal standards of beauty are bullshit and our desire to be beautiful (and therefore powerful and relevant).

As long as appearance remains more valuable and more useful to women than substance, it doesn’t matter how thin or how fat or how curvy or how athletic or how large-breasted or how slim-hipped the “ideal” is — the underlying imperative that women exist as public property to be looked at and judged according to how successfully they please the gaze of the world hasn’t changed. Obviously, no matter what the ideal might be, not every woman will be able to achieve it and therefore the cycle of self-hatred and dissatisfaction will continue.

Sorry for coming to this thread late. It’s been awhile since I’ve had the pleasure of reading this blog.

I agree with what everyone is saying about goal base vs image based aims. I resent how long it took me to learn to use my body, and the reason it took me so long is because using my body was always framed as changing my body.

I always found the study that inspired Nike’s “If You Let Me Play’ ads fascinating for that reason. The numbers all seemed to indicate that what playing sports did for girls (more accurrately, high school aged girls) was give them a solid experience in how false the idea that “my body is all about how it looks/what it can do for others” that’s gets fed to women really is. The girls seemed to gain a sense of respect for their own physical accomplishments that was extremely helpful in making all kinds of choices that kept them happy and healthy.

I thought the ‘I’m more likely to leave a boyfriend who hits me” line was especially revealing. It makes sense to me that it’s much easier to leave an abusive boyfriend if your relationship with your body is centered around what you can make it do rather than how much others desire it. For people who believe the latter, leaving an abusive boyfriend can be a catch-22. Leave him and what purpose does the body he’s abusing serve? For someone who believes the former, it’s a much clearer choice. When you not only feel like you own your own body - but also feel proud of what it can do, it’s much more obvious that an abuser is showing disrespect and not love.

That isn’t to say that high school girls playing sports is a cure for abuse or that other factors don’t pay a part in such cases, just that a goals based health focus is more in line with feminism in a variety of not immediately obvious ways.

If you needed that special diet pill to get skinny, you’re going to need it to stay that way too.

I was in Vitamin World last weekend, buying my two huge canisters of Spirutein (bc of the sickly lil me/trying-to-put-on-weight thing), and two girls in their older teens or young twenties were getting sold on some diet pills behind me in line. The saleswoman was stressing that because the regimen of the store’s pills involves eating three times a day and drinking lots of water, it was the only “surefire way” to lose weight. I wanted to turn around and ask, Why not just try the eating regular meals and drinking water thing first and see how that goes?, and frankly I’m not sure why I didn’t. But I also wanted to tell those girls that they didn’t need to lose any weight and were certainly far from needing to spend money on snake oil to do it, but I couldn’t come up with a way to phrase it so I wasn’t implying that anyone else does. I’m not sure how we got to where ‘three square meals a day’ is commodified and sold as extraordinary measures, but it certainly hasn’t been by being ok with ourselves.

I don’t think you need to live in a Berkeley bubble to understand what you describe. It’s hard because I really don’t like the ideology that if you eat rightyou’ll live to be 100 anyway, it’s not true, it’s individualistic, and it’s victim blaming. But more than among the women I know I really feel that for a lot of people ideas of healthy eating are tied up with the same food, control and body image issues that drive so many women. Among men the ideology seems to be much more uncomplicated.

Trillian - absolutely I knew what you meant. I was worried that other people wouldn’t.

I agree with what everyone is saying about goal base vs image based aims. I resent how long it took me to learn to use my body, and the reason it took me so long is because using my body was always framed as changing my body.

If your goal is “I want to be able to hike up (name your local mountain)” and you actually do it it’s pretty clear that your goal has been met, but if your goal is “I want to be toned”, well, how do you measure that?

Not only can you always be more toned, but the real point is to have the magic mirror tell us we are the fairest of them all. The goal is centered around other people’s (the patriatarchy’s) approval. Which is never going to work for obvious reasons.

Finishing a day hike is not only a finite goal that isn’t based on the subjective and often sexist opinions of others, it’s often it’s own reward. Getting in shape enough to climb a mountain means you get to climb the mountain.

And hell yes about consumerism and the diet industry in particular. At the very least, it sets people up to be dependent upon the products. If you needed that special diet pill to get skinny, you’re going to need it to stay that way too.

BritGirlSF: The reason most people are taught to look at things that way is because it makes them good little consumers and keeps them buying stuff. Or at least that’s my theory. I think the whole point of the diet industry is for people to fail, because if they ever succeeded why would they need to buy any more stuff?

That is exactly my take…I think our constant bombardment of advertising is meant to sell - more importantly than any specific product - the perpetual notion that we are lacking something (and can buy the something). At the same time, we’re being taught that our worth is all tied up in our physical image, because an ad has to boil down to image. And the message is always that what we already are is not ok.

Maybe in some way that’s part of why body issues seem compartmentalized from our feminist thinking - it’s ingrained on a non-verbal level, the part of us that just sees and wants (reptile brain?), and everything that counterbalances it comes from a much more rational place. It’s unfortunate that instead of our logic taking over, that contradiction so easily becomes a way to hate ourselves on two levels instead of just one.

Rachel - Too often I’ve had conversations with people where they’ve shownt he opposite reaction to your grandmother. If the clothes are too big it’s the lothes fault - but if they’re too small it’s the woman’s bodies fault.

BritGirlSF - that site is awesome (I have long rants about how they can cup-size bras but not shirts or togs), only wish I could afford it.

And we need to encourage people to look at what they want to do, and whether their bodies will let them do that, and not shame them for having goals that we may consider modest—if what someone really feels they need to be able to do is climb the stairs without wheezing.

It won’t be enough to counteract the societal messages. Health, fitness, and thinness are pretty inextricably linked in people’s minds and the message that “thin=healthy” provides a justification for women to fall into those body-hating thought patterns. But it’s another metric, which I think might help.

Mickle said, “Especially since some of the stuff about “how my body works” is as important to feminist discussion as “how I think about how I look.” ”

And on top of that, I think the other issue is how were are taught to think about our body works.

Mickle said, “It would be really nice if the people who made seat belts thought about how they worked on women with breasts as large as mine - cuz they really don’t. It would be nice if comfortable bras for breasts my size weren’t so expensive. It would be nice if there were more options for buying clothes - especially dresses. A lot of these things can be changed, just like body image.”

Yep, this issue only feeds the body hatred. You can relate is back to the weight example, society isn’t made for bodies that diverge from the standard (whatever) that is). I think this is partly related to the standardization that comes from mass production; supposedly as we move into the post modern era this is suppose to change with the development of the niche market. My grandmother used to make clothes for me, and she would go buy a pattern. My body didn’t realy fit any patterns, so she would adjust it accordingly (take out a few inches in the waist and add a few inches in the hips. I always remember her saying they needed to make the pattern better because my big butt would fit in it. She wasn’t insulting me; she was mad about the pattern. Why can’t more women be like that nowadays–mad at the pattern, and not the body? Mad at the seat belt design and not the big breast, mad at the chair and not the butt….and so on

Charles - It was BStu’s comment #17 that I considered off-topic. But it was his comment #19 (along with earlier comments from Robert, jon and Ed) that lead to the second paragraph of that post.

People questioned whether big breasts could be an inconvenience. Other people with big breasts said they could be. (whether that justifies what the doctors and parents did is another issue)

Yours may never bother you, but mine can be downright annoying at times. (When I run, when I sleep, and most especially when I eat and stuff falls on them instead of my napkin.) That’s not “I can’t accept how I look” that’s “gee, my body doesn’t always work the way I want.”

I’m not saying I don’t ever think the former, or that you don’t bring up an important issue, but I don’t see how dissmissing other people’s experiences is really conducive to the good point you are trying to make.

Especially since some of the stuff about “how my body works” is as important to feminist discussion as “how I think about how I look.” It would be really nice if the people who made seat belts thought about how they worked on women with breasts as large as mine - cuz they really don’t. It would be nice if comfortable bras for breasts my size weren’t so expensive. It would be nice if there were more options for buying clothes - especially dresses. A lot of these things can be changed, just like body image.

OT: I had an argument with (I think) my doctor once in high school about BMI. I told him it was stupid because it didn’t account for muscle. He disagreed and pretty much said that complaint didn’t apply to me anyway. :p..

As far as “but what about people’s health!” goes - the skinniest I’ve been was the summer before sophmore year of college. I’d been eating healthy because my dad was on a special diet for health reasons. (Note, however, that it was simply healthy food - the portions were whatever I felt like.) More importantly, though, I had nothing to do all day but wander around downtown walking from library to bookstore and back again.

If all these people worrying about people’s health really wanted to make a difference, they would make fresh fruit and veggies cheaper and give everyone more leisure time. Obsessing about every calorie and giving people complexes just makes everyone more unhealthy.

Unfortunately, that’s the route my aunt is going with my cousins and it drives me crazy. Sad thing is, my cousin probably thinks it’s working - even though if anything is helping it’s more likely to be her daily walks than anything else. (yes, I am very much for encouraging people to get out more, but more because most people I know think it’s fun, but have all kinds of other stuff they “have” to do instead. not because I think everyone should think it’s fun.)