She's a perfect 10, but she wears a 12
Jan. 19th, 2003 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4Body image is a strange thing. Just been chatting to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
simonb in real life, and then read his latest journal entry. It always amazes me how many of the gorgeous people I know have such a low opinion of their own bodies (Um, those who don't have body-image issues, this doesn't mean that I don't think you're attractive! -- just so's you know).
I've answered Simes's poll, but what I really wanted to do was say "Simes, you're gorgeous. Stop being such a muppet." On the other hand, I don't think I have much right to tell him he's being daft, when (as I just told him) I have the same problem.
I think of myself as "short and fat", and have done ever since I was a teenager. Okay, so at 5'1" I don't have much problem with being described as "short". But fat? Well, when I acquired this body-image that I have, I was about a size 16. Sure, that's not fat, but it's chubbier than I wanted to be at the time, and at my height I can't carry excess weight very well; and it did make my face look awfully round and babyish, which made me awfully insecure -- it's hard to feel grown-up when people keep asking you your age for 15-rated films. Most of my friends were happily getting served in bars at the age of 14 (I'm not addressing the issue of whether or not I think that's a good thing; it's just what was happening); I couldn't see over the bar. The combination of this and the feeling that I wasn't trusted with very much independence at home (in retrospect, I can see a lot of the reasons for this a lot better than I could then) made me feel like I was a bit of a baby compared to my peers. But more importantly, the fact that I didn't seem to be able to be attractive to the people I most wanted to attract at the time -- tall, slender women -- seemed, to my teenaged logic, to be the fault of my features being the opposite of what I considered to be desirable. The fact that most of the tall, slender women I knew were a) teenagers in an all-girls school, where admitting to fancying women was social suicide, b) as insecure as I was, and c) probably straight anyway, never seemed to enter into the equation.
Anyway. Currently I weigh somewhere between 9 and 9.5 stone (we don't have any scales; I was 9.5 stone at Christmas, but I did eat a lot more than usual over the Christmas period), and my stats are something like 36-27-35. There's no way anybody could call that "fat"; I'm never going to be skinny, but that's partly because of my chest, which (to be quite honest) I don't want to get any smaller. ;-) But bits of my body still look huge and ugly to me -- maybe it is all muscle, but unless I'm actually flexing my pecs my upper arms look (to my biased eyes) like big saggy bags of lard. Ditto my thighs, and to a lesser extent my calves (they don't look fat, but they do look bulgy -- perhaps I should just cut my losses and buy a gym-skirt, and remind myself that some people really go for that Phys. Ed. teacher look...).
The main problem isn't in my body, though, but in my head. The little bit of my mind that automatically says "short and fat" when asked for a description of me would probably still be saying that if I was a size 8 and could miraculously add an extra 6 inches onto my height.
People who are trying to lose weight often find it really offensive that I should have issues about my weight. Thin people aren't allowed to have body-image issues -- after all, thin == happy, right? It's a Well-Known Fact(tm) that all women's problems -- and some men's problems -- could be solved if they could only do up the buttons on that size 10 skirt from Monsoon.
Who said "Beauty Myth" at the back there? Clever man. You win the china horses and the cuddly toy.
I'm not going to go into the cultural history of body image -- I'm not going to sing the praises of the cultures where excess body-weight is a coveted sign of prosperity and fertility, or equate foot-binding with the REPRESSIVE PHALLIC COMPETITIVENESS OF THE PATRIARCHY ("smaller == less of a threat"). For one thing, as you can see, I'd be unable to finish a sentence without descending into self-parody. But I do worry where it's all going to end. We may think we're in an enlightened age where women no longer have to wear elaborately engineered constructions of corsetry in order to be considered a worthy marriage-prospect, but in reality very little has changed. It's still a rare occasion to see a woman bigger than a size 12 in a mainstream magazine (unless she's being exhibited as an overweight freak), and now men seem to have bought into the beauty myth wholesale as well. In fact, men seem to have an even more difficult line to walk, between the muscularity that's required of them to prove their masculinity, and the health-consciously slim image that the New Man has to display.
(Yes, we're into the realm of gross generalisations. But you only have to glance at any aspect of mainstream culture to realise that they're not unfounded, and they're not even that much of an exaggeration.)
The problem is, the discrimination has become more insidious. Everyone is quick to say that "fat is beautiful", even as they wrap that size 8 Versace jacket a little closer around them. "Fat is great... I just, you know, prefer to be thin." And the trump card these days is health -- "I'm not saying that being fat is ugly, just that it's unhealthy." The problem is, health depends on a lot of other factors which we can't see -- BMI is only part of the picture. For one thing, the girl whose ribs stick out further than her tits is just as much at risk of high cholesterol as a voluptuous size 24; and that's even before you get into the issue of how much muscles (which most people would agree aren't a bad thing) can affect body weight. (Not that the perpetrators of the Beauty Myth are interested in muscles on women -- they're probably "unfeminine" or at best "tomboyish", and therefore outside the remit of Female Beauty.)
Then, of course, as previously mentioned, there's the backlash. The eternally-slim are often vilified by the supposedly egalitarian Anti-Beauty-Myth contingent because they are perceived as conforming to mainstream ideas of beauty -- ironic, really, as we're quick to shout that some people can't help being "big-boned", but conveniently forget that some people can't help being, well, small-boned. Let's get this straight: it's just as objectionable to criticise somebody for being too thin as it is to criticise them for being too fat; and it's just as objectionable to criticise them for wanting to change their shape as it is to criticise them for not wanting to change it. Live and let live. Every Person, as we never seem to tire of saying in some corners of netnews (usually just before we insist that our own way is the One True Way...), Is Different. Repeat the mantra often enough, and we might believe the implications of it -- that our shape, whatever it is, is just as valid as anybody else's; and whether we want to change it or not is (or at least should be) a matter for our own personal choice.
The bottom line (does my bottom line look big in this?) is that, in the words of the Beautiful South, "we live our lives in different sizes". Or, as the Smiths more bluntly put it, "Some girls are bigger than others; some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers." That's not to say that none of us can -- or should -- change the size that we are. Many people want to lose weight for a variety of reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that provided they do so in a controlled way and don't compromise their health; many people want to gain weight for a variety of different reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that, provided they do so in a controlled way and (where have you heard this before?) don't compromise their health. However, everybody's idea of an "ideal weight" is different, and everybody's idea of "beauty" is different. What one person considers "overweight" may be "just right" for another; technically, I'm overweight according to BMI charts (although of course they don't take muscle into consideration), but I'm considered "far too thin" to be attractive by at least one of my acquaintances. That's before even beginning to address the fact that for most people, personality is a lot more important than vital statistics.
I think I've ranted enough on this subject now. I'm sure I'll get shouted at from both sides; I'm sure I've trodden on toes of all shapes and sizes. Still, if it gets someone thinking -- whatever their shape or size, everybody needs to exercise their brain! -- then I guess it's all worthwhile.
simonb in real life, and then read his latest journal entry. It always amazes me how many of the gorgeous people I know have such a low opinion of their own bodies (Um, those who don't have body-image issues, this doesn't mean that I don't think you're attractive! -- just so's you know).I've answered Simes's poll, but what I really wanted to do was say "Simes, you're gorgeous. Stop being such a muppet." On the other hand, I don't think I have much right to tell him he's being daft, when (as I just told him) I have the same problem.
I think of myself as "short and fat", and have done ever since I was a teenager. Okay, so at 5'1" I don't have much problem with being described as "short". But fat? Well, when I acquired this body-image that I have, I was about a size 16. Sure, that's not fat, but it's chubbier than I wanted to be at the time, and at my height I can't carry excess weight very well; and it did make my face look awfully round and babyish, which made me awfully insecure -- it's hard to feel grown-up when people keep asking you your age for 15-rated films. Most of my friends were happily getting served in bars at the age of 14 (I'm not addressing the issue of whether or not I think that's a good thing; it's just what was happening); I couldn't see over the bar. The combination of this and the feeling that I wasn't trusted with very much independence at home (in retrospect, I can see a lot of the reasons for this a lot better than I could then) made me feel like I was a bit of a baby compared to my peers. But more importantly, the fact that I didn't seem to be able to be attractive to the people I most wanted to attract at the time -- tall, slender women -- seemed, to my teenaged logic, to be the fault of my features being the opposite of what I considered to be desirable. The fact that most of the tall, slender women I knew were a) teenagers in an all-girls school, where admitting to fancying women was social suicide, b) as insecure as I was, and c) probably straight anyway, never seemed to enter into the equation.
Anyway. Currently I weigh somewhere between 9 and 9.5 stone (we don't have any scales; I was 9.5 stone at Christmas, but I did eat a lot more than usual over the Christmas period), and my stats are something like 36-27-35. There's no way anybody could call that "fat"; I'm never going to be skinny, but that's partly because of my chest, which (to be quite honest) I don't want to get any smaller. ;-) But bits of my body still look huge and ugly to me -- maybe it is all muscle, but unless I'm actually flexing my pecs my upper arms look (to my biased eyes) like big saggy bags of lard. Ditto my thighs, and to a lesser extent my calves (they don't look fat, but they do look bulgy -- perhaps I should just cut my losses and buy a gym-skirt, and remind myself that some people really go for that Phys. Ed. teacher look...).
The main problem isn't in my body, though, but in my head. The little bit of my mind that automatically says "short and fat" when asked for a description of me would probably still be saying that if I was a size 8 and could miraculously add an extra 6 inches onto my height.
People who are trying to lose weight often find it really offensive that I should have issues about my weight. Thin people aren't allowed to have body-image issues -- after all, thin == happy, right? It's a Well-Known Fact(tm) that all women's problems -- and some men's problems -- could be solved if they could only do up the buttons on that size 10 skirt from Monsoon.
Who said "Beauty Myth" at the back there? Clever man. You win the china horses and the cuddly toy.
I'm not going to go into the cultural history of body image -- I'm not going to sing the praises of the cultures where excess body-weight is a coveted sign of prosperity and fertility, or equate foot-binding with the REPRESSIVE PHALLIC COMPETITIVENESS OF THE PATRIARCHY ("smaller == less of a threat"). For one thing, as you can see, I'd be unable to finish a sentence without descending into self-parody. But I do worry where it's all going to end. We may think we're in an enlightened age where women no longer have to wear elaborately engineered constructions of corsetry in order to be considered a worthy marriage-prospect, but in reality very little has changed. It's still a rare occasion to see a woman bigger than a size 12 in a mainstream magazine (unless she's being exhibited as an overweight freak), and now men seem to have bought into the beauty myth wholesale as well. In fact, men seem to have an even more difficult line to walk, between the muscularity that's required of them to prove their masculinity, and the health-consciously slim image that the New Man has to display.
(Yes, we're into the realm of gross generalisations. But you only have to glance at any aspect of mainstream culture to realise that they're not unfounded, and they're not even that much of an exaggeration.)
The problem is, the discrimination has become more insidious. Everyone is quick to say that "fat is beautiful", even as they wrap that size 8 Versace jacket a little closer around them. "Fat is great... I just, you know, prefer to be thin." And the trump card these days is health -- "I'm not saying that being fat is ugly, just that it's unhealthy." The problem is, health depends on a lot of other factors which we can't see -- BMI is only part of the picture. For one thing, the girl whose ribs stick out further than her tits is just as much at risk of high cholesterol as a voluptuous size 24; and that's even before you get into the issue of how much muscles (which most people would agree aren't a bad thing) can affect body weight. (Not that the perpetrators of the Beauty Myth are interested in muscles on women -- they're probably "unfeminine" or at best "tomboyish", and therefore outside the remit of Female Beauty.)
Then, of course, as previously mentioned, there's the backlash. The eternally-slim are often vilified by the supposedly egalitarian Anti-Beauty-Myth contingent because they are perceived as conforming to mainstream ideas of beauty -- ironic, really, as we're quick to shout that some people can't help being "big-boned", but conveniently forget that some people can't help being, well, small-boned. Let's get this straight: it's just as objectionable to criticise somebody for being too thin as it is to criticise them for being too fat; and it's just as objectionable to criticise them for wanting to change their shape as it is to criticise them for not wanting to change it. Live and let live. Every Person, as we never seem to tire of saying in some corners of netnews (usually just before we insist that our own way is the One True Way...), Is Different. Repeat the mantra often enough, and we might believe the implications of it -- that our shape, whatever it is, is just as valid as anybody else's; and whether we want to change it or not is (or at least should be) a matter for our own personal choice.
The bottom line (does my bottom line look big in this?) is that, in the words of the Beautiful South, "we live our lives in different sizes". Or, as the Smiths more bluntly put it, "Some girls are bigger than others; some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers." That's not to say that none of us can -- or should -- change the size that we are. Many people want to lose weight for a variety of reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that provided they do so in a controlled way and don't compromise their health; many people want to gain weight for a variety of different reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that, provided they do so in a controlled way and (where have you heard this before?) don't compromise their health. However, everybody's idea of an "ideal weight" is different, and everybody's idea of "beauty" is different. What one person considers "overweight" may be "just right" for another; technically, I'm overweight according to BMI charts (although of course they don't take muscle into consideration), but I'm considered "far too thin" to be attractive by at least one of my acquaintances. That's before even beginning to address the fact that for most people, personality is a lot more important than vital statistics.
I think I've ranted enough on this subject now. I'm sure I'll get shouted at from both sides; I'm sure I've trodden on toes of all shapes and sizes. Still, if it gets someone thinking -- whatever their shape or size, everybody needs to exercise their brain! -- then I guess it's all worthwhile.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-19 06:06 pm (UTC)I do consider myself fat, basically in the back of my head everything that raises the central abdomen area above the peripheral abdomen (in my case, roughly to the height of the rib cage) I consider as excess baggage and would happily do away with. It's somehting that I'm so convinced of that I'd devalue people's opinions rather than believe them, which is why I hated my doctor and my mother telling me so much that I was underweight.
It's strange because I don't notice how other people look, really (to the extent that other people think me rude for not mentioning things) that I should really hate mine; I know it's irrational, but it doesn't stop me doing it.
Well done for posting something. I've been meaning to post something about SW recently, but I've been scared off by so many people being advocates or haters that I'm sure if I say something neither-one-way-nor-the-other that I'm going to offend virtually everyone.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-20 05:29 am (UTC)As for postig about SW, I may advocate it but I'm not a zealot - I'd be interested to hear your opinions :)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-20 05:46 am (UTC)I've certainly seen other people do it, sleeping with people to gain favour with them (and something I've worried about a lot recently). It's not something I do myself, but unless you get tarted up in lots of places you're ignored in the sense that strangers don't even talk to you, as well. I don't know if it's because people don't, in general, have conversations for pleasure, and only really as part of chatting up for mating, or if that's too disingenuous but it's how it seems sometimes. At places that are über-trendy meatmarkets that's kind of par for the course I suppose, but at geek/goth things unless you turn up with the right badges (for whichever group), you're dismissed by a lot of people before you open your mouth. It's starting to remind me of America with the Jocks and the Nerds and stuff.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-20 09:53 am (UTC)[I need some kind of meta-tag with which I can mark stuff that I want to come back to at another point, so I can search through for it ... oh, but there's no search facility anyway, so scrap that idea. Ho hum.]
I seem to go through phases of dressing according to various stereotypical images, and goth offers so many such images to choose from... but then my personality is just the chaotic thing that it is, and it doesn't conform to any of those images except in fleeting moments here and there. I think this is a feature. :-)
I don't know which "group" I fit into, but then it doesn't matter because I always end up just talking to the same handful of people, and dancing to the same handful of tracks that I know, and avoiding the same irritating people, and ... this is why I don't bother going much any more. Well, that and chronic tiredness not combining well with 3am bedtimes. :-/
no subject
Date: 2003-01-20 09:47 am (UTC)I know what you mean (I think), but I find that too much of that sort of "friendliness" just leaves me feeling really empty and miserable.
I often flirt with people because basically it's the only way I know how to interact with strangers -- I guess probably because I learned pretty much as soon as I hit my teens that giving out "available" signals instantly transforms me from ugly freak into Available Woman with REAL BREASTS, and therefore Object Of Desire ("object" being the key word) -- but at the moment I have a very very low sex drive so I feel guilty flirting with people, because I feel like I'm leading them on, pretending to be a Real Sexual Being but actually more likely to just go "um, can we just hug?" when it comes to the point where a normal person would expect some vaguely bed-oriented shenanigans. So I still flirt, but then I inexplicably (from other people's point of view, anyway) go all wibbly and want to hide in a corner.
and realising that much of my feeling of loneliness come through a Lukácsesque Marxist link between alienation and objectification (I said you'd laugh)
I didn't laugh, because I think I know what you're getting at & if so then I sympathise, but I don't know much about Marxism and have no idea about Lukács, so I think I'm missing some of your cultural reference-points.
the problem being that life can be considered as a sequence of short-terms
Is that a problem? I think life is a sequence of short-terms. In a lot of ways we're not the same people all the way through our lives, so the narrative continuity is a construct with which we attempt to impose order on something that's fundamentally chaotic. The problem is that too much of this results in something a bit like "The X-Files" -- it started out as a really good series of single stand-alone episodes which were really enjoyable and satisfying in and of themselves, but as soon as they tried to tie it all into one vast overarching plot, the individual episodes rather lost their way, and became less satisfying in the short term -- but, because they want to make as many series as possible, the long-term resolution/unification is endlessly deferred (oh, god, I'm turning into a parody of myself now -- all together now, with animal noises) in a Derridaesque dance of the divided self. MOOOOO.
But seriously.
I do consider myself fat [...] It's somehting that I'm so convinced of that I'd devalue people's opinions rather than believe them, which is why I hated my doctor and my mother telling me so much that I was underweight.
I know this probably won't have any effect, but: I don't think you're fat, and I don't think you're underweight. I honestly think you're a lovely shape and size. I hope you're not upset/offended by my saying that, I don't mean to make things worse, I just think you look great. To be honest I wouldn't be able to guess what dress-size you are or anything, but I know that when I look at you, you look... well... in proportion. I mean, nothing leaps out at me and says "ooooh, too thin there!" or "gosh, needs to lose a few pounds there" or anything.
Argh. "When in hole, stop digging." Please ignore as much as you like of the above.
I've been meaning to post something about SW recently, but I've been scared off by so many people being advocates or haters that I'm sure if I say something neither-one-way-nor-the-other that I'm going to offend virtually everyone.
I know what you mean... I'm very uncomfortable about some aspects of SW, but on the other hand it's obviously worked really well for some people. I think it's just that I worry about the effect it might have on people who are less clueful & less strong-minded than the people I know for whom it's worked, if you see what I mean. ... Anyway, you're unlikely to offend me by posting about it, so that's one person less to worry about offending. :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-21 04:23 pm (UTC)I guess it's just a bit of a tortuous analogy these days, but it's how I tend to think of things because it's what I leanrt first.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-21 05:14 pm (UTC)However it isn't going to work for everyone.