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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
No Name Given said, "Really. Sometimes I think that after the Pankhursts, feminism has been nothing but one enourmous wank."
There is a running current in Salon letters for some people to read an article and just blame feminism for everything they disagree with. This article on weight obsession has nothing to do with feminism and just a little bit to do with self-confidence,self-indulgence, male-female relationships, consumerism, marketing, immaturity, egotism, and on and on. Feminism did not cause and will not take 'credit' for weight obsession, teenager's dressing like pros, or Victoria's Secret breastbots. I'm afraid that successful marketing in our consumer society won that round.
I wasn't quoting the article. I was quoting the previous reader's letter, which did mention patriarchy's blame and women's self-expression - both of which are prominent femininist leitmotifs.
It seems to me that she's a "binge and purge" kinda gal. All I see in there is binging and anorexia. Whatever happened to just eating moderately, exercising moderately, and leaving it at that?
Can Ayelet Waldman write anything about ANYTHING that doesn't somehow drag her poor children into it?
Ayelet, forget saving for college. I hope you are putting aside the big bucks for their therapy...
"For my daughters’ sake…I make sure that the women whose looks I admire all have sufficient fat reserves to survive a famine, and I make a lot of snide comments about the skeletal likes of Lara Flynn Boyle and Paris Hilton."
I'm not going to defend unhealthy thinness or media images that promote that as an ideal. But the above sentence triggered a now-familiar reaction to many of the "women's body image" pieces I see in Salon.
It's easy to select a wealthy, famous supermodel or actress to air one's dissatisfaction with the prevailing thin ideal. It's easy to vent one's anger toward marketing, fear of the encouragment of anorexia, and, dare I say, jealousy towards these women and those who have similar weights and body types. They're easy targets for all of that.
But I must point out that thinness is not always brought about by anorexia, starvation diets, media hype, or a Hollywood lifestyle. Some women are ectomorphs, it's a fact of life. I'm sick of reading Salon's female writers' "snide comments" about thin women, and I'm even more appalled that Waldman believes this petty carping is actually helping her daughters steer clear of body-image obsession. Even if they learn that it's not necessary to be thin, and that anorexia is dangerous, which I hope they do, I see no need for showing them a nasty attitude toward other people's bodies. Besides which, it smacks of underlying jealousy and thereby defeats her purpose.
Is it possible to promote a healthy acceptance of one's body type, and of all body types, without attacking thin people? When I read these attacks, I find it very hard to believe these writers truly wish to celebrate body type diversity. It sounds a lot more like competitiveness and divisiveness. Not all voluptuous women are abusing their bodies with food. Not all thin women are abusing their bodies with starvation diets.
A little more tolerance of your sisters, please.
So apparently, Ms. Waldman's idea of the perfect gift during the hoiday season is....a better genetic roll of the dice for her kids?
Food, and in particular, holiday food traditions, are about the love, warmth, and generosity of the season. So, your holiday host and hostess used four pounds of butter? Do they eat like that every day? I doubt it. Ms. Waldman might want to focus on other things than her weight: like teaching her kids the value of daily good nutrition vs. the enjoyment of long-standing holiday traditional foods, and how and when each has its place.
In addition to the beat-to-death conversations about weight, body image, patriarchy, and post-feminism, the conversation that's really gone missing is about our ability to cook, to share, to feed ourselves effectively and what that means for our traditions and for our future.
Get over it...stop the self-loathing and start loving your life, your kids, and your world. Teach your kids how to cook, choose sustainably farmed or organic foods over mass agriculture, and revel in your history as evidenced in your holiday foods—then you'll not only do the world and the starving a favor, but you'll do yourself one, too.
Kelly writes:
She is just expressing how she feels, which is good for women, especially on a subject where so many feel the same way. We will never get anywhere on these issues if we can't be honest about what society/patriarchy/consumer culture has done to the body image of women in this country.
My point, Kelly, is that "so many" don't feel the same way. "So many" -- almost everyone that I know -- stopped obsessing about their weight when they hit their forties (if not before). I don't want people to get the impression that women in their forties are still stuck in the size-two fantasies of their twenties. Most of us aren't.
Those who continue to obsess are the ones hanging on to that "culture of thinness" you abhore. You are giving it life, and that's no good for us or for our children.
Ayelet speaks to and for me in this article. I am almost 55 and if I could reclaim the amount of time and energy I have spent obsessing about food and my weight, my life would seem decades longer. I do not worry about my daughter, and I do not research anorexia, but what really hits home for me in this writing is the damage we do to ourselves.
We may choose to blame genetics, the media, our ethnicity or other factor. The tragedy here is that we waste precious time thinking and suffering about this issue.
I have read many times in many places that "losing weight doesn't make you happy". That is a load of crap. It is easier to live in this country when you are thin, and I for one, am happy when I can fit into and look good in anything I want. My behaviour changes when I am thin; when I am overweight I limit my social contacts and my activities. I get depressed. This is simply the truth for me.
I am not an intellectual lightweight (pun intended) nor a shallow person. But let's be real. Life is easier (and better) for those women who are not fat.
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Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
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