Dove have produced a new short film in conjunction with the Campaign for Real Beauty:
This is a great film and promotes a really important issue - that the cosmetics industry negatively affects young girls as well as grown women. However, these campaigns that try to persuade us to love our bodies, warts and all, really bug me sometimes. Basically, cosmetics companies seem to be using two types of women in their advertisements these days: Models, and Real Women.
The models, those leggy, perma-tanned, airbrushed gazelle-like creatures, have been around for a while. But the Real Woman is a relatively recent phenomenon. The Real Woman is voluptuous, relatively small-breasted and uses few cosmetics. She loves her body and she revels in her cycles and curves. She holds her head up high despite the fact that she is positively gargantuan by Hollywood standards, because she knows that she is beautiful and she loves her body. Well, I'm a size 6, I have E-cup breasts and I own so many sparkly eyeshadows I wouldn't be surprised if I am single-handedly keeping Barry M in business. Am I less "real" than the women in the Dove adverts? It's just another representation of female beauty to which few of us conform, even if the "message" behind it is rather more positive than that of traditional advertisements despite being just a sugar coating for selling us stuff.
There seems to be this assumption that women hate their bodies because of the constant bombardment of unrealistic images thrust at us by Hollywood and the cosmetics industry, and so we all need to learn to love our bodies in order to compensate for it. Fine. But why should I love my body? It's just a body. Men aren't expected to love their bodies. Loving your body makes as little sense as hating it. What we really need, in my opinion, is just to quit being so obsessed with our bodies in the first place.
The reason that loving your body is considered so important is that women's bodies are considered so disproportionately crucial to their worth as human beings. From childhood, women are taught that their self esteem should be tied up in their looks. There's this idea that you can't walk down the street with your head held high if you don't adore every inch of your body. This is bullshit. You don't have to love your body in order to be confident, because you are much more than just your body. I may have the shortest legs in the known universe, but I also have sharp wit, an optimistic disposition, kindness and intelligence. I may have big jugs, but I am also uptight, pedantic and socially inept. I am more than my physical appearance and I refuse to let my self image revolve solely around it.
There's also the uncomfortable truth that it's much easier for some people to love their bodies than others, whether from genuine attractiveness or the extent to which they fit some sort of media 'ideal'. If I do love my body, it's probably because it happens to be relatively close to the 'ideal' plastered all over billboards rather than because I actually have sky-high self esteem. And I realise that in an image-obsessed society in which women are regarded primarily as decoration with their worth measured by how fuckable they are, this makes me extremely lucky.
This pressure to love your body is just that: more pressure, on top of the pressure that women already feel with regards to the way they look. Loving your lardy arse is just as self-absorbed as punishing it with cellulite cream. You are only truly free of the beauty industry and the airbrushed standards it promotes if your lardy arse is not an issue in the first place.
The Campaign for Real Beauty, whilst coming up with some great films, totally skirts the issue. Although 'Love Your Body' is a big step up from 'You Need Cellulite Cream' the issue that would really be helpful for them to push is, 'Your Body Isn't Actually That Important'. But then, that won't help them sell any body lotion.
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Here's some tits - now buy our product
Londoners (and possibly those further afield - I'm not sure how far this campaign has spread) can't fail to have noticed that The Sun is now 20p. The reason they can't fail to have noticed is because of the advertisements emblazoned across the side of buses, featuring a topless woman whose tits are covered by two giant 10ps.
People have understandably been up in arms about the vile objectification inherent in this, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody mention, with regards to this or to similar such campaigns, what really pisses me off about it: the assumption that the consumer is a heterosexual male.
To be honest, I'm not that bothered about the assumption that I don't read The Sun. But sexualised images of women's bodies are used to sell so many products and services that have little or no male bias. I was living in Reading a couple of years ago and once saw a billboard at the train station that made me shriek with rage (actually shriek, on a train platform...nobody took any notice though - there are a lot of nutters around these days). It was an advertisement for a local printing company, featuring a woman whose modesty was concealed by strategically placed bits of paper, with the suggestion that she might remove them if you were to use this company for your printing needs.
Uptight types might have been appalled by the idea of any flesh on show at all, liberal types might have been appalled by the idea that impressionable people such as teenage boys are subjected to such blatant objectification, but what I found so unbelievably offensive was the idea that this company was only marketing itself to heterosexual men. The implication was that a woman (or indeed a gay man) couldn't possibly have responsibility for deciding what printing company to use, because women just file things and answer the phone. Or indeed pose as bait for men, who are of course ruled entirely by their dicks.
I hope the company went out of business - they certainly deserved to. Even if they provided a good printing service, I'll bet that even men who appreciated the aesthetic qualities of the advertisement and weren't bothered by its sexism would have been turned off by the idea that they made no mention of how great their products or services were, instead using the cheap shot of a naked woman.
I actually fail to see how a campaign such as this could possibly be effective. Heterosexual males comprise less than 50% of the population. Unless you are actually just selling porn (and even The Sun doesn't fall into this category) it's utterly, incomprehensibly stupid just to target this one group. What are they thinking? WHY does this sort of thing continue?
People have understandably been up in arms about the vile objectification inherent in this, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody mention, with regards to this or to similar such campaigns, what really pisses me off about it: the assumption that the consumer is a heterosexual male.
To be honest, I'm not that bothered about the assumption that I don't read The Sun. But sexualised images of women's bodies are used to sell so many products and services that have little or no male bias. I was living in Reading a couple of years ago and once saw a billboard at the train station that made me shriek with rage (actually shriek, on a train platform...nobody took any notice though - there are a lot of nutters around these days). It was an advertisement for a local printing company, featuring a woman whose modesty was concealed by strategically placed bits of paper, with the suggestion that she might remove them if you were to use this company for your printing needs.
Uptight types might have been appalled by the idea of any flesh on show at all, liberal types might have been appalled by the idea that impressionable people such as teenage boys are subjected to such blatant objectification, but what I found so unbelievably offensive was the idea that this company was only marketing itself to heterosexual men. The implication was that a woman (or indeed a gay man) couldn't possibly have responsibility for deciding what printing company to use, because women just file things and answer the phone. Or indeed pose as bait for men, who are of course ruled entirely by their dicks.
I hope the company went out of business - they certainly deserved to. Even if they provided a good printing service, I'll bet that even men who appreciated the aesthetic qualities of the advertisement and weren't bothered by its sexism would have been turned off by the idea that they made no mention of how great their products or services were, instead using the cheap shot of a naked woman.
I actually fail to see how a campaign such as this could possibly be effective. Heterosexual males comprise less than 50% of the population. Unless you are actually just selling porn (and even The Sun doesn't fall into this category) it's utterly, incomprehensibly stupid just to target this one group. What are they thinking? WHY does this sort of thing continue?
Monday, 17 September 2007
Friday, 14 September 2007
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Men like women with curves
I cringe every time I hear this. It usually assaults me from the pages of some trashy publication, the latest being the news pages of Cosmopolitan, which advised me that, since nine out of ten men would rather shag a size 10 glamour model than a size 0 supermodel, it was now okay to eat doughnuts.* Thanks for letting me know - I will now allow myself several of those yummy custardy ones with a side order of deep-fried mars bars without feeling guilty. Goodness knows why I still read women's magazines - perhaps I just enjoy defacing them with my red pen. But what really annoys me is when this statement comes from men themselves. Nice, thoughtful men who think they're being really helpful.
This isn't exactly breaking news, much as it is treated as such every time some dodgy survey corroborates it. We all know that most men have a preference for women with rather more flesh on them than the average Hollywood actress. If women were motivated by wanting to please men, nobody below a size 12 would ever think about dieting. But they do. And it pains me to hear well-meaning men try to solve the problem by telling their female friends that hey, a few extra pounds don't matter to the average bloke.
By suggesting that women should have curves, you are not making an enlightened pro-feminist statement - you are simply perpetuating the idea that women have an ideal to which to conform in order to please men, whatever the nature of that ideal may be. Women's bodies do not exist for male gratification. Women do not shun cake in favour of low-fat low-carb no-taste diet food in order to impress men with their jutting collarbones. The female obsession with weight loss will not be solved by men giving us permission to eat. It's such an arrogant attitude and it really, really annoys me.
An unnaturally (for most women) slim figure is associated with wealth, status, social mobility, stylishness, femininity... There are even crazier factors than that at play - like the fact that skinniness is a trump card for female competitiveness, and that moaning about the size of one's hips facilitates female bonding:
This is repeated ad nauseam, with the slimmer party becoming gradually more and more smug, and the porkier party becoming more and more distressed. But crucially, it gives them something to talk about. There are of course two clear-cut rules: 1 - One must not admit to being happy with any part of one's anatomy; and 2 - One must violently disagree with anything the other party says. Then there's the fact that, since breasts are supposed to be at least medium-sized, any woman who does have a skinny physique can moan about her lack of boobage. See - nobody's left out. It's rather clever really. Of course, there's always the chance that the slimmer woman will attack her peer by saying, "But you've got such a lovely figure! So curvy!" which is as backhanded as compliments get.
Believe me, the body image issue is a frickin' minefield. And if you go in armed only with, "But men like women with curves," don't expect to get out of there alive.
*By the way, this was BLATANTLY an advertorial for Krispy Kremes
"Men like women with curves, so why should you diet to achieve a size zero? Hey, don't worry, eat that chip butty if you want it, because I don't mind if you have a lardy arse. Men like something to grab hold of."
This isn't exactly breaking news, much as it is treated as such every time some dodgy survey corroborates it. We all know that most men have a preference for women with rather more flesh on them than the average Hollywood actress. If women were motivated by wanting to please men, nobody below a size 12 would ever think about dieting. But they do. And it pains me to hear well-meaning men try to solve the problem by telling their female friends that hey, a few extra pounds don't matter to the average bloke.
By suggesting that women should have curves, you are not making an enlightened pro-feminist statement - you are simply perpetuating the idea that women have an ideal to which to conform in order to please men, whatever the nature of that ideal may be. Women's bodies do not exist for male gratification. Women do not shun cake in favour of low-fat low-carb no-taste diet food in order to impress men with their jutting collarbones. The female obsession with weight loss will not be solved by men giving us permission to eat. It's such an arrogant attitude and it really, really annoys me.
An unnaturally (for most women) slim figure is associated with wealth, status, social mobility, stylishness, femininity... There are even crazier factors than that at play - like the fact that skinniness is a trump card for female competitiveness, and that moaning about the size of one's hips facilitates female bonding:
- My hips are so huge!
- Noooo, they're tiny! Mine are enormous!
- Noooo, you're so skinny! I have a jelly belly!
- No you don't! You're tiny! Look at my muffin top!
- Pssshh - if you've got a muffin top I've got an entire wedding cake!
This is repeated ad nauseam, with the slimmer party becoming gradually more and more smug, and the porkier party becoming more and more distressed. But crucially, it gives them something to talk about. There are of course two clear-cut rules: 1 - One must not admit to being happy with any part of one's anatomy; and 2 - One must violently disagree with anything the other party says. Then there's the fact that, since breasts are supposed to be at least medium-sized, any woman who does have a skinny physique can moan about her lack of boobage. See - nobody's left out. It's rather clever really. Of course, there's always the chance that the slimmer woman will attack her peer by saying, "But you've got such a lovely figure! So curvy!" which is as backhanded as compliments get.
Believe me, the body image issue is a frickin' minefield. And if you go in armed only with, "But men like women with curves," don't expect to get out of there alive.
*By the way, this was BLATANTLY an advertorial for Krispy Kremes
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Barbie through the ages
First ever Barbie commercial - 1959
Bleargh!
Barbie Meets Ken - 1961
Barbie manages two years without a boyfriend. Ken seems to have changed quite a lot in appearance since 1961 - he looks positively ancient in comparison to the blond Prince Charming figure that I grew up with.
Color N Curl Barbie 1965
Superstar Barbie 1976
Whatever that girl's on, I want some.
Super Hair Barbie - 1980s
"Glamorous" jumpsuit? I beg to differ!
Great Shape Barbie - 1983
This is absolutely revolting. Really, really worrying. Is it any wonder that the girls who were in the target age group in 1983 are now paying extortionate gym memberships and devouring creepy women's magazines instead of carbs? You're looking good, Barbie!
Olympic Skater Barbie
The first advert I've come across on YouTube for a Barbie who does anything not directly related to improving her appearance.
Dance Club Barbie
Glitte Hair Barbie - 1994
Teacher Barbie - 1995
A Barbie that does something non-gender specific. Hooray!
Splash & Color Barbie - 1996
Olympic Gymnast Barbie - 1996
1996 was the year that the US gymnastics team won the Atlanta Olympics. Here, Barbie embodies the American Dream...
Barbie Hair Highlights - 2006
Top Model Barbie - 2007
And finally, the whole Barbie theme is subverted in this 90s advertisement for Cool Shaving Ken. Look how ridiculous it seems when the Ken doll is subjected to his own beauty regime...
Something that really strikes me is that in advertisements featuring children playing with the dolls, the children themselves seem to have got older and older. In 1965, they look about six - around the same age as the target audience. In that 2007 commercial they look about fourteen. I wonder what's happening here - if Mattel are trying to expand the age range of their customer base, or if they're going for an even more aspirational theme.
I was never allowed to have Barbies as a child, but boy did I want them. It wasn't just about peer pressure - I wanted a Sega Megadrive and a BMX bike because of peer pressure, but neither of them had quite the same delinquent appeal. I think a lot of the time, particularly with the children of parents who disapprove of this sort of thing, part of the appeal of Barbie is that girls know that there's something a bit naughty about liking something that's just about being pretty. Mattel know damn well that what little girls want is not Nuclear Physicist Barbie, or UN Diplomat Barbie, or Human Rights Lawyer Barbie. What they want is Pop Idol Barbie, Glamour Model Barbie and Botox Barbie. Barbie has always been presented as a vacuous model with an IQ inferior to her waist measurement because that's what consumers want from her.
I think if I have daughters I'll be inclined to let them have Barbie dolls if they want them. I see no real harm in them in the context of a relatively gender-neutral upbringing and besides, banning things just draws attention to them. I think once a child wants a toy, any damage associated with it has already been done. Banning after school television makes much more sense than banning the toys advertised on it.
Seeing that Great Shape Barbie commercial really brings home for me how far we've come in the last twenty years. I really don't think that a commercial such as this would be tolerated now. I'd like to live in a world in which six-year-old girls aren't encouraged to be obsessed with dresses and make up, but I'm glad that I no longer live in a world in which six-year-old girls are encouraged to be obsessed with the circumference of their thighs.
Bleargh!
Barbie Meets Ken - 1961
Barbie manages two years without a boyfriend. Ken seems to have changed quite a lot in appearance since 1961 - he looks positively ancient in comparison to the blond Prince Charming figure that I grew up with.
Color N Curl Barbie 1965
Superstar Barbie 1976
Whatever that girl's on, I want some.
Super Hair Barbie - 1980s
"Glamorous" jumpsuit? I beg to differ!
Great Shape Barbie - 1983
This is absolutely revolting. Really, really worrying. Is it any wonder that the girls who were in the target age group in 1983 are now paying extortionate gym memberships and devouring creepy women's magazines instead of carbs? You're looking good, Barbie!
Olympic Skater Barbie
The first advert I've come across on YouTube for a Barbie who does anything not directly related to improving her appearance.
Dance Club Barbie
Glitte Hair Barbie - 1994
Teacher Barbie - 1995
A Barbie that does something non-gender specific. Hooray!
Splash & Color Barbie - 1996
Olympic Gymnast Barbie - 1996
1996 was the year that the US gymnastics team won the Atlanta Olympics. Here, Barbie embodies the American Dream...
Barbie Hair Highlights - 2006
Top Model Barbie - 2007
And finally, the whole Barbie theme is subverted in this 90s advertisement for Cool Shaving Ken. Look how ridiculous it seems when the Ken doll is subjected to his own beauty regime...
Something that really strikes me is that in advertisements featuring children playing with the dolls, the children themselves seem to have got older and older. In 1965, they look about six - around the same age as the target audience. In that 2007 commercial they look about fourteen. I wonder what's happening here - if Mattel are trying to expand the age range of their customer base, or if they're going for an even more aspirational theme.
I was never allowed to have Barbies as a child, but boy did I want them. It wasn't just about peer pressure - I wanted a Sega Megadrive and a BMX bike because of peer pressure, but neither of them had quite the same delinquent appeal. I think a lot of the time, particularly with the children of parents who disapprove of this sort of thing, part of the appeal of Barbie is that girls know that there's something a bit naughty about liking something that's just about being pretty. Mattel know damn well that what little girls want is not Nuclear Physicist Barbie, or UN Diplomat Barbie, or Human Rights Lawyer Barbie. What they want is Pop Idol Barbie, Glamour Model Barbie and Botox Barbie. Barbie has always been presented as a vacuous model with an IQ inferior to her waist measurement because that's what consumers want from her.
I think if I have daughters I'll be inclined to let them have Barbie dolls if they want them. I see no real harm in them in the context of a relatively gender-neutral upbringing and besides, banning things just draws attention to them. I think once a child wants a toy, any damage associated with it has already been done. Banning after school television makes much more sense than banning the toys advertised on it.
Seeing that Great Shape Barbie commercial really brings home for me how far we've come in the last twenty years. I really don't think that a commercial such as this would be tolerated now. I'd like to live in a world in which six-year-old girls aren't encouraged to be obsessed with dresses and make up, but I'm glad that I no longer live in a world in which six-year-old girls are encouraged to be obsessed with the circumference of their thighs.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
The Daily Mail can't spell "misogynist"
It's not that surprising really, but still highly entertaining. Witness three different spellings of the same word, only one of them correct.
Perhaps I should send them here.
(NSFW, extremely sweary and hugely offensive to disabled people...but very funny)
Perhaps I should send them here.
(NSFW, extremely sweary and hugely offensive to disabled people...but very funny)
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Carbs are the new fat
Virtually any women's magazine you will ever read will have a feature or two on diets. Something that's really interesting is how the content of these features and the advice given has changed over time.
Ten years ago, fat was the antichrist. Women were advised to eat a diet rich in complex carbohydrates, lean protein, fruit and vegetables, but no fat! Don't eat fat - fat will make you fat. Fat must be banished from your diet. Fat is bad and evil and wrong. Men are allowed to eat fat, but any woman who eats fat will be punished by her hips expanding to grotesque proportions so that the whole world can see that she's eaten FAT.
Ooooh, I'm scared.
These days, carbs are the new fat. Now we're supposed to be eating lots of fruit and vegetables, lots of protein, and fat is allowed but no carbs at all. Pasta is evil. Bread is the antichrist. Potatoes? You've got to be kidding! They'll make you FAT.
I blame Dr Fatkins, sorry, Atkins. Ever since his bonkers diet came back into fashion and loads of Hollywood celebrities attributed their lean figures to it, the media has taken up the no-carbs mantle, trying to persuade us that eating even a small portion of the best wholegrain organic bread will turn you into the 400lb Angry Mom on Ricki Lake.
These magazines always manage to get quotes from "respected nutritionists" backing up what they have to say. Funny that the whole of nutritional science seemed to turn on its head as soon as Jennifer Aniston went on the Atkins. What's also interesting is that dieting is always linked with health. A "healthy" meal is one that won't make you fat. Even articles that have no specific weight-loss angle bang on about it. I read something in Cosmopolitan a couple of years ago that made me absolutely seethe. It was an article in which three women tried out different "healthy" diets without the explicit goal of weight loss at all. One of the women was very sporty and had previously eaten a carbohydrate-rich diet. The nutritionist put her on a low carb diet, chiding her that, "If Lucy didn't eat a carb-based snack after going to the gym, she wouldn't undo all her hard work." Right. So the only reason Lucy goes to the gym is to lose weight.
At least this U-turn from low-fat to low-carb a few years ago demonstrated just how fickle the media is when it comes to this sort of thing. What we're supposed to eat goes in and out of fashion almost with the same frequency as what we're supposed to wear. Low carb is in fashion just as skinny jeans are in fashion. Being on an 80s style, low fat, high carb diet is as unthinkable as being seen in shoulder pads with a frizzy perm.
All nutritionists always seem to have agreed on is the following:
Too much saturated fat is bad
Refined carbohydrates are bad
Vegetables are good (fruit is a bit controversial because is has - gasp! - CARBS in it)
If you want to lose weight, you need to get lots of exercise
Ten years ago, fat was the antichrist. Women were advised to eat a diet rich in complex carbohydrates, lean protein, fruit and vegetables, but no fat! Don't eat fat - fat will make you fat. Fat must be banished from your diet. Fat is bad and evil and wrong. Men are allowed to eat fat, but any woman who eats fat will be punished by her hips expanding to grotesque proportions so that the whole world can see that she's eaten FAT.
Ooooh, I'm scared.
These days, carbs are the new fat. Now we're supposed to be eating lots of fruit and vegetables, lots of protein, and fat is allowed but no carbs at all. Pasta is evil. Bread is the antichrist. Potatoes? You've got to be kidding! They'll make you FAT.
I blame Dr Fatkins, sorry, Atkins. Ever since his bonkers diet came back into fashion and loads of Hollywood celebrities attributed their lean figures to it, the media has taken up the no-carbs mantle, trying to persuade us that eating even a small portion of the best wholegrain organic bread will turn you into the 400lb Angry Mom on Ricki Lake.
These magazines always manage to get quotes from "respected nutritionists" backing up what they have to say. Funny that the whole of nutritional science seemed to turn on its head as soon as Jennifer Aniston went on the Atkins. What's also interesting is that dieting is always linked with health. A "healthy" meal is one that won't make you fat. Even articles that have no specific weight-loss angle bang on about it. I read something in Cosmopolitan a couple of years ago that made me absolutely seethe. It was an article in which three women tried out different "healthy" diets without the explicit goal of weight loss at all. One of the women was very sporty and had previously eaten a carbohydrate-rich diet. The nutritionist put her on a low carb diet, chiding her that, "If Lucy didn't eat a carb-based snack after going to the gym, she wouldn't undo all her hard work." Right. So the only reason Lucy goes to the gym is to lose weight.
At least this U-turn from low-fat to low-carb a few years ago demonstrated just how fickle the media is when it comes to this sort of thing. What we're supposed to eat goes in and out of fashion almost with the same frequency as what we're supposed to wear. Low carb is in fashion just as skinny jeans are in fashion. Being on an 80s style, low fat, high carb diet is as unthinkable as being seen in shoulder pads with a frizzy perm.
All nutritionists always seem to have agreed on is the following:
Monday, 16 July 2007
Alli oops
From tapeworm eggs to heart failure, diet pills have always been a fairly controversial subject. But now a new over-the-counter drug has become available in the US, which works in part by punishing users for eating too much fat by making them lose control of their bowels. No, really.
Why is this a feminist issue? Well, because prescription-only diet pills are quite rightly only available to people who are medically overweight. Over-the-counter diet products are aimed at those attempting to lose weight from either a normal or only slightly overweight frame - i.e. women. It's only women who are under pressure to lose weight from an already-healthy physique, and so any over-the-counter or black-market weight loss aid is bound to be aimed mostly at women and to have more female consumers.
Perhaps it's just the fact that I've never actually been fat talking, but I find it incredible to think that any normal-sized person would be so desperate to lose weight. If the only thing standing between you and a chip butty is the prospect of soiling your trousers, then perhaps it's time to break your diet.
Why is this a feminist issue? Well, because prescription-only diet pills are quite rightly only available to people who are medically overweight. Over-the-counter diet products are aimed at those attempting to lose weight from either a normal or only slightly overweight frame - i.e. women. It's only women who are under pressure to lose weight from an already-healthy physique, and so any over-the-counter or black-market weight loss aid is bound to be aimed mostly at women and to have more female consumers.
Perhaps it's just the fact that I've never actually been fat talking, but I find it incredible to think that any normal-sized person would be so desperate to lose weight. If the only thing standing between you and a chip butty is the prospect of soiling your trousers, then perhaps it's time to break your diet.
Thursday, 12 July 2007
The F-Word
When I was on the Tube this morning, a fat lady got on at Wembley Park. She wasn't huge - she was of average height and I'd guess about a size 18. However, her mere presence, not being able to help pushing past people, caused a skinny woman to give her what I call a "bitch stare". You know what I'm talking about - that slouching, hands-on-hips, scoffing, disgusted expression that all the popular girls at school did at you when you were twelve, and which I will readily admit to having regularly practised in front of a mirror at that age in a desperate bid to become victor rather than victim (I never quite managed it, but my impersonations of that type of girl never fail to amuse people now, so I suppose I did achieve something in the end).
Anyway, Fat Wembley Park Lady was the victim of this particular bitch stare for the terrible sin of taking up more than her alloted amount of space, not looking as if she aspired to New Woman's idea of attractiveness, and looking as if she ate calories on a regular basis. Perhaps Bitch Girl was just grumpy because she had low blood sugar.
Fat Wembley Park Lady then sat opposite me and I considered, as we continued our journey on the stinking hell-hole that is the Metropolitan Line at 8am, that she didn't in any way fit the stereotype of a fat woman. She was dressed well in a manner which flattered her figure (Trinny and Susannah would have approved), she had good skin, she was wearing make up and nice shoes - she looked as if she took care of herself. If I had been asked to describe her appearance to a third party, I would have hesitated to use the F-word not because she wasn't fat, but because she didn't fit into the stereotype of the fat woman.
The fat woman is greedy, lazy, slovenly, lacking in self-control, lacking in self-respect, and she has let herself go. Therefore, one can't describe a woman as fat without also describing her as all of the above. That's why we come up with these patronising euphemisms for fat. Fuller-figured, larger lady, curvy (used by bitchy women as a backhanded compliment - for, "You've got such a lovely figure, so curvy!" read, "You fat ho"), voluptuous - they're all ways of saying "fat" whilst distancing the person from all of the negative baggage that goes with that particular word.
The fat woman constantly has to prove that she does not conform to this hideous stereotype. If a slim woman chooses to go out in sweatpants with no make-up, that's fine. But if a fat woman does this, she has let herself go. A fat woman has to be seen to have self-respect, because the implication made by her size is that she doesn't, because no woman would allow herself to get fat if she had any self-respect or self-control. Self-control, yeah, because the only reason women get fat is that they stuff their faces with cream cakes all day. There are a number of reasons why a woman might be fat, and none of them have anything to do with laziness, greediness or lack of self-control.
She's give birth at some point in the last five years
She was fed crap and never encouraged to do any exercise as a child. Fat children become fat adults, and when one has been fat all one's life it's virtually impossible to change
She has an eating disorder. Compulsive eating is just as distressing for the sufferer and just as medically serious as anorexia or bulimia, but it's not taken seriously by the public, the media or the medical community because apparently all the chunkmonster needs is to lay off the pork pies a bit
That's just the way she is. It's a terrible cliche, but people really do come in different shapes and sizes. Obviously there's a point at which nobody is naturally that fat, but if she's just a little on the tubby side it's likely that that is programmed into her genes. Since appetite and metabolism are controlled by the body's genetic predisposition towards a particular amount of body fat, it's extremely difficult to fight one's natural physique
She suffers from a medical condition or is on medication that makes her gain weight
None of these descriptions suggest a lack of self-respect, apart from that of the compulsive eater, who needs help rather than judgement.
I'd really like to see the word "fat" as no different from "tall" or "blonde" or even, dare I say "thin". It's a physical description, not a loaded judgement. I'd like to be able to describe fat women as "fat" without insulting them and without implying that they do nothing but devour cheeseburgers in front of Ricki Lake and that they deserve all the type 2 diabetes they get. It's okay to call a man fat, because a fat man is just fat. I'd like fat women to be just fat too.
Anyway, Fat Wembley Park Lady was the victim of this particular bitch stare for the terrible sin of taking up more than her alloted amount of space, not looking as if she aspired to New Woman's idea of attractiveness, and looking as if she ate calories on a regular basis. Perhaps Bitch Girl was just grumpy because she had low blood sugar.
Fat Wembley Park Lady then sat opposite me and I considered, as we continued our journey on the stinking hell-hole that is the Metropolitan Line at 8am, that she didn't in any way fit the stereotype of a fat woman. She was dressed well in a manner which flattered her figure (Trinny and Susannah would have approved), she had good skin, she was wearing make up and nice shoes - she looked as if she took care of herself. If I had been asked to describe her appearance to a third party, I would have hesitated to use the F-word not because she wasn't fat, but because she didn't fit into the stereotype of the fat woman.
The fat woman is greedy, lazy, slovenly, lacking in self-control, lacking in self-respect, and she has let herself go. Therefore, one can't describe a woman as fat without also describing her as all of the above. That's why we come up with these patronising euphemisms for fat. Fuller-figured, larger lady, curvy (used by bitchy women as a backhanded compliment - for, "You've got such a lovely figure, so curvy!" read, "You fat ho"), voluptuous - they're all ways of saying "fat" whilst distancing the person from all of the negative baggage that goes with that particular word.
The fat woman constantly has to prove that she does not conform to this hideous stereotype. If a slim woman chooses to go out in sweatpants with no make-up, that's fine. But if a fat woman does this, she has let herself go. A fat woman has to be seen to have self-respect, because the implication made by her size is that she doesn't, because no woman would allow herself to get fat if she had any self-respect or self-control. Self-control, yeah, because the only reason women get fat is that they stuff their faces with cream cakes all day. There are a number of reasons why a woman might be fat, and none of them have anything to do with laziness, greediness or lack of self-control.
None of these descriptions suggest a lack of self-respect, apart from that of the compulsive eater, who needs help rather than judgement.
I'd really like to see the word "fat" as no different from "tall" or "blonde" or even, dare I say "thin". It's a physical description, not a loaded judgement. I'd like to be able to describe fat women as "fat" without insulting them and without implying that they do nothing but devour cheeseburgers in front of Ricki Lake and that they deserve all the type 2 diabetes they get. It's okay to call a man fat, because a fat man is just fat. I'd like fat women to be just fat too.
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