There are certain things I’ve experienced in my life that I want to protect my as-of-yet-imaginary daughter from.
First and foremost is, of course, struggle with body image. Which, yeah, hi, good luck with that Clink.
It’s near impossible. In fact, I don’t know a single woman - not one - who doesn’t have a problem with her body, whether it be forty pounds of extra weight or a small chest or hammer toes.
Women like to whine about how men have done this to us. They’ve gone and created unattainable standards that no woman can live up to and…well, you’ve heard the arguments. Hell, you probably wrote a paper about them in college.
I’ve found that it’s women who are harshest, however. No man has ever made me feel bad about my body; a woman has the ability to do so with just a look. Women can be brutal, usually as a defense mechanism against a society that intertwines beauty and self-worth so carelessly.
We judge the heavyset girl eating the hamburger.
We judge the size 00 eating the salad.
We judge. We compare. All the time.
I’m guilty of it. I’m guilty of seeing those photos of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s ass in a bikini and feeling smug and superior; I mean, come on, never in a million years would I have thought that my ass would look better than Ghosty McWhisperboobs.
It was when I showed the pictures to M and he commented, a bit bewildered, on my unbridled glee that I sobered up and realized that I did that thing. The thing that I hate. The thing that frustrates me most about this thin-obsessed society.
I reduced another woman down to nothing but her body.
Sometimes it feels as if being thin trumps all else - success, compassion, intelligence. You could arrive back home, having brokered peace in the Middle East, fed all the starving children in third world countries and also had the time to create a billion-dollar internet start-up, but if you got fat during your time away, you will be nothing more than fat in the eyes of your gender. The fat would level the playing field once more as this is a culture that worships at the Temple of Thin.
Maybe I’m being harsh. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic, having read this post on Jezebel about people calling Nigella Lawson fat, claiming she promotes an unhealthy lifestyle by cooking and - GASP - eating food that actually has calories.
Because, you know, god forbid a woman eat anything more than a stick of celery, lest she be labeled as unhealthy or lacking in self-control.
This isn’t an anti-thin post. Or a pro-fat post. It’s an anti-bullshit post. An I-wish-we-could-all-love-ourselves-for-who-we-are-kumbaya post.
Your size does not equal your worth. Size 2 does not equal perfection just as size 22 does not equal failure.
Only you can determine what you as a person are worth and whether that worth is based on more than the number on the inside of your jeans that no one else sees.
The rest of it - especially the celebrities and the Tinseltown obsession with thin that has trickled down to us mere mortals - is just noise.
All of these words are born out of a frustration with myself, I guess. A desire to love my body as is, instead of constantly feeling as though it’s not good enough. A desire to view other women for who they are, not what they look like. And vice versa.
I hate the way I’m wired, sometimes. I hate that when I am in the company of women who are bigger than I am, I feel automatically confident. I hate that being around someone thinner brings out the judgmental bitch in me. Also, the insecure bitch. Sometimes the depressed bitch.
I hate that I notice.
I hate that flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalog makes me want to skip dinner. And breakfast. Lunch, too.
I hate that I watched the BBC documentary Super Skinny Me - about two journalists who try extreme diets for five weeks - and took mental notes about which diets worked and which didn’t. I mean, fuck, one of the journalists developed a fucking full-fledged eating disorder and I was still all “but she looks great.“
We’re all fucked, I guess. We can blame it on men, on “society,” on other women, on ourselves. It doesn’t matter who got us to this place; what matters now is how we’re going to get out of it.
I guess I’m just hoping that this shit all works itself out before I bring another woman into this world.
I loved this post, Clink. So well written, and it’s true. I was walking on the UC Berkeley campus today and I saw a girl wearing a shirt I have, and thought, “Ha. I fill that shirt out a thousand times better than she does!” But then I was like, “Whoa…where did that come from?” I’m not one for body image issues, but I’ve never been so judgmental like that before. It shocked me.
Thanks for writing about this.
hi there clink. i see you around a lot of the other blogs i check out, and i often lurk around here. turns out, by the time i come to comment, im number 30 something, and all i can do is ditto everyone else!
but now, holy hell, first?!
well, let me be the first to give out a big amen to you sister. no, it’s totally not just you. you basically summed up what i have been thinking about a lot lately. i just had a chat with my roommate about the whole jlovewhisper business, then watched the hills and felt bad when i saw lauren’s cute teal dress and cute bod. i guess us women are just wired to do this. sucks, and im with you- i hope we can figure a way to come to terms with it all.
good post!
hi there clink. i see you around a lot of the other blogs i check out, and i often lurk around here. turns out, by the time i come to comment, im number 30 something, and all i can do is ditto everyone else!
but now, holy hell, first?!
well, let me be the first to give out a big amen to you sister. no, it’s totally not just you. you basically summed up what i have been thinking about a lot lately. i just had a chat with my roommate about the whole jlovewhisper business, then watched the hills and felt bad when i saw lauren’s cute teal dress and cute bod. i guess us women are just wired to do this. sucks, and im with you- i hope we can figure a way to come to terms with it all.
good post!
oooh burn! not first- sorry distracted spunk!
It’s a big, vicious circle. The only way it can be stopped or broken or even dented is by starting with ourselves. Notice how things just seem to fall into place when you’re truly happy with yourself and you don’t have a judgemental bone in your body about anybody — or yourself? Yeah, so did I.
wow. clink that is one of the most honest to goodness AMEN you said it sister posts i have read in while in the blogosphere. i identify with you so completely on this. you probably have no idea how much, especially with my own body image issues. yeah. we should talk. but thank you for writing what we’re all thinking. it’s about time - and you put it into words better than anyone I can think of.
it is hard to admit we have those judgmental thoughts, but we all do. the best thing we can do though is BE ABOVE THEM. don’t say mean things and don’t act on those thoughts. and i think that makes us better people that we don’t. everyone thinks those things once in awhile, it’s human nature.
#1 really helps keep me from doing this, by insisting that everyone I think is cute is actually pudgy and not all that good looking (like my roommate, who is not only not pudgy, but is thinner than me). It makes me defend and say nice things about people who I might otherwise want to find fault with ;).
But yeah. Men, generally? Never have bad things to say about most women’s bodies. Women, on the other hand, are super harsh.
I’m hoping that the obsession is cyclical. Marilyn Monroe was a size 14. Don’t believe it? Watch “Some Like It Hot” and your eyes will be opened. Someday Rubenesque paintings (or I guess in our era, photographs) will become all the rave again!
On a side note, wait for my post tomorrow, it’s weird how on key we all are with our thoughts and blog ideas.
Fantastic post. Every sentence rings true with me, as I’m sure it does with many other women out there. I hate seeing a skinny (usually TOO thin) woman and thinking that I’m going to stop eating for a few days. Watching the ballet last week made me want to stop eating for the rest of the holiday season so I could be her size. Seriously? A ballet dancer? I hope one day we can all come to terms with our bodies.
I am so with you on this one. I do this too, but I try to keep it to a minimum by not saying it out loud. It frustrates me how these thoughts just creep into my mind, and also how some women freely and openly do this. We’re the same freaking gender. We’re supposed to be helping each other out, not poking fun at each other to feel better about ourselves. So yeah, I don’t want to have a daughter. I was a mean little girl when I didn’t know any better. We’re a cruel bunch. Great post, Clink.
I agree entirely with what you (and all the above comments) have said about women - but unfortunately it’s not JUST us.
As an engineering student I spend a lot of time in purely male company, and they can be unspeakably harsh when they don’t think there are any girls listening. The guys I know would never say anything critical to their girlfriend’s or friend’s faces, but they still think it, and discuss it, and give rankings and scores…
But anyway, there’s nothing we can do about them (except kick ‘em in the shins - or so - if you hear them) so you’re right to focus on telling us girls to be kinder to each other.
Great post, Clink. I can’t directly relate but I’m judgmental in similar ways and it’s just toxic. But I think it’s something you can get out of your system if you make the choice to.
This is one of those things I’ll never understand. Because, usually, when I hear a woman say something like that, I’m looking at her and going, “You clearly don’t see what I and others see.”
Co-incidence.. I just blogged about the Dove ad where little girls are fed on their body images from the age of 5 or so itself.. And I related so well with it.. I am never at peace with my body, and I was one of those little girls who grew up to be an even more insecure woman..
Great post Clink… I try to be as non-judgmental as possible but I think it comes naturally with being a woman. But I also watched that documentary and thought that they looked terrible skinny! Especially the younger journalist - loved her much more with a little “meat” on her bones
GREAT post. And you already know how I feel about all of this. (It involves me giving you a hug and us going out for burgers.)
When I saw the JLH pictures, I thought, “Good for her!”
And Nigella? Mrrroowwwr.
This was a great post, Clink, and I agree wholeheartedly with so much of what you’re saying. And speaking as someone who has lost a ton of weight (over 100 pounds), and then gained a little bit of it back, thin does NOT equal happy. I thought for my whole life that if I could just be thin, everything else would fall into place. And is turns out? As long as I’m healthy and I feel good? It doesn’t matter what the scale says. And last time I checked? No one was reaching inside my clothes to see what size I wear. The only one who sees it is me. So while there are days I hate my body? Seeing pictures of JLH in a bikini just made me think, “Huh, she’s normal, just like me.”
Also, I heart you.
Great post! I think, as women, maybe we just need to realize that we’re all in this together. It doesn’t need to be a competition…we can ALL be “winners”. But we can’t do it at the expense of ourselves or others.
It’s clear that you’re not alone but I also want to speak up for women who don’t do this. I am one! Of course I’ve had judgmental thoughts about others and myself, but size is not something I think about all the time.
Make no mistake, this is not something women are doing to each other collectively or individually, this is a societal phenomenon. Standards of beauty, in terms of size, are variable. (Pretty faces seem to be appreciated by all at any size.) VARIABLE. In our world, where food is readily available, thinness becomes a sign of wealth, which is the opposite of how it has been in other times. So, we value thinness, because it is scarce and means you’re rich.
Yes, I think we can, as individuals, do something to change our attitudes, but don’t put all the burden of this on “women.” We are all, men and women, young and old, part of this attitude.
So now the question is, are you still not trying on wedding dresses until you are a size 4? I know that we all want to be unbiased, non-judging, but when it comes down to how we view OURSELVES, do we ever change? I know I for one hold myself to a different standard than my friends and family when it comes to sizes and how I look, and I’m sure I’m not alone…
Well thought post. Nice job. The United States is one of the fattest countries in the developed world, yet we still judge to the harshest degree. Ironic, eh?
To repeat what everyone has said, great post! You are not the only one. I go through the same thoughts as every other woman who has commented or ever blogged about their body image.
it’s so nice to see a post that is about women’s weight that’s not just bashing skinny people. i’ve struggled with being my tiny size my entire life… never been able to gain the 20lbs i’ve always wanted. i’ll never forget being in high school (the most dreadful time for any girl) and reading an article about how “fat is back” and it was a couple of pages talking about how unattractive skinny girls are, how thin is out, and how no guys will like me because they like “real women with curves”. i wrote a letter to the main stream magazine but never saw it printed.
and i always get the “oh i hate you” when i complain about not being able to gain weight, but i’m supposed to sit there and listen whenever everyone else complains about notbeing able to lose weight. it’s so twisted.
the thing i’ve noticed that bothers me the most is that even as an adult people feel it’s completely acceptable to ask a thin girl, “how much do you weigh?” are you kidding me?? i’d be punched if i asked “healthy” women that. and what’s up with that. bigger is “healthy” … so i’m not healthy?
sorry for the tirade. but the women on weight is always a bullshit issue and kudos to you for calling it out. kudos indeed clinky.
This was a great post. And you’re totally right. How many emails have we exchanged about just this topic? I was watching that awful Kimora Lee Simmons show and she said “2 is the new 4, 4 is the new 6 and 6 is the new 22.” I wanted to vomit. And then, even though I don’t want to admit it, felt fat. I hate feeling like a 6 isn’t good enough. Grr.
I’m including a link to this week’s nytimes modern love column, which your excellent post made me think of. It isn’t directly on point to how women treat each other about weight, but it is as to how women treat each other. The author was raped when she was drunk at a frat party in college. Afterwards, the women in her sorority turned on her. I don’t think this is a problem caused by women, per se. I just think that in a society that still has a lot of misogyny, its easier, in any situation, to blame the victim, because it makes us feel safer. She has a fat ass, and I don’t, so men will like and value me. She acts like a slut, and I don’t, so I won’t get sexually assaulted. Whatever it is. It’s incredibly depressing. I think its important to have female friends, but it’s equally important to have female friends who aren’t extremely superficial and weight-conscious, who won’t care if you go up or down 3 pounds, and who don’t judge you for every misstep you make. IMHO, friendships where you feel a constant pressure to be thinner/prettier/better are generally toxic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/fashion/02love.html?em&ex=1196917200&en=bd14b6c9fef3512b&ei=5087%0A
Hi Clink,
Amen to your entire post. I read a book a couple of weeks ago that touches on this issue and wrote about it on my blog; you might find it an interesting read. It’s called Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney Martin.
It’s so weird how when I read the celeb trash rags at the gym and in my mind I’m commenting on how grossly thin some of them are, and then I turn the page and I’m mentally judging other ones for being larger than “ideal.” It’s weird how some of the classes I take at the gym, I’m one of the smallest in there and I feel so much better about myself, whereas in other ones I’m one of the largest and I feel so unattractive. I really wish I could just love my body for what it is and what it can do, and love other people’s bodies for the same, rather than looking at celeb photos and wishing once again that I wasn’t curvy and muscular but lean and svelte.
***Beginning rant***
I saw the same episode that Molly did and seriously almost became ill. Why isn’t a 6 ok anymore? When is the way we are ever going to be enough? It can be said about so many other things though. Why are we alway striving for the perfect bag, shoes, hair?
We are definitely our own worst critics and when the woman on woman hate ends we will finally be in a better place. But until we stop being such judgie twats to each other, I fear for the world our daughters will be brought into.
****rant over***
Very well written post. It hit home for a lot of us.
Great post. I know I am guilty of sizing women up by the size of their ass. I’m not sure when it started happening or when/if it will ever stop.
I saw that show on BBC as well. And had the same reaction. And then was disgusted with myself for thinking it.
I’ve had such struggles with this issue too, coming from a family of overweight people and hearing my parents say disparaging things both about their own weight and body types and also about very thin women and how disgusting they are. I never understood why it was okay to mock really thin women anymore than it was okay to mock really heavy women. Everyone judges people, whether it’s because they look too good or not good enough. I’m working on losing a lot of weight right now and I’m up to 47 pounds, which is a big enough difference that people have started commenting. And it’s really interesting to hear all the perspectives. People treat you differently when you’re fat, but it’s not like being thin solves all your problems. It’s a huge mess and thinking about raising a daughter in this confused, judgmental culture is a really scary thought.
Like the others I am totally with you. I think it’s a constant battle that we must face as women in this society. But more than that, it’s about finding peace with ourselves. Even my mother nearing 60 fluctuates with her weight and self-image quite a bit and it’s not about deprivation or starvation, but rather balance.
I agree with your post completely. It’s extremely frustraing to realize that we put the pressure on ourselves. But at least we recognize the cycle. Hopefully seeing this side can prevent us from judging ourselves and everyone else too hard.
i agree completely, and your writing really struck a chord with me. i think it’s something all women face and that we need to be aware of it; i know my mother is guilty of it…i can come home for a holiday, and i could be missing a left arm, and she’d be all like, “honey, did you put on five lbs?” awesome. just. awesome.
thankyou for writing this.
xo, bb
AWESOME POST!!!
[...] I’ve turned to the bloggers out there alot, to get support. From Good with cheese to this post at Such Great Heights, hearing how everyone deals with their struggles and reading about their trials and tribulations [...]
Awesome post, Clink. I actually had a different reaction to Jennifer Love Hewitt. I can relate to her and when I saw that hey, no ones perfect, even her, it made me feel better about myself. See, I’m a size 0. Which means, I get a lot of shit for being a size 0. HOWEVER. I am not your typical size 0 twig. I have an ass, hips, stomach, and boobs. I’m 110 lbs, 5′2. Some people are amazed that i’m only a size 0, because yes, i look bigger than your typical 0 (and after they say this i panic and vow that i’ll never eat again), but my pants do not lie. Most say I should not complain at all about my body because if they were a size 0 or 2 they wouldn’t be complaining. But like you said, every woman does this to herself.
I know i don’t have a healthy body image. Yay i’m a size 0 but thats just a friggin number. I’d rather be a size 6 or 8 like I once was and lose my stomach and get my waist back. I know I could be much heavier, I have been before. Just like JLH’s size 2 isn’t perfectly tiny, my size 0-2 is not perfectly tiny.
And yes, women are completely to blame for this. I’ve never had a guy make me feel bad about my body, in fact they’ve only complimented it. Thank you for such a great post Clink!
You’re beautiful, Clink. Both inside, and out. We all know this, yet you won’t go and shop for a wedding dress. (Have you gone yet? I’m saying this off of past knowledge.)
Weight issues are a part of the woman condition. They’ll never go away, you just have to teach your daughter to love who she is, and not put so much value on her weight.
I hate my body, but B insists that I look great. In fact, he tells me so often, I’ve learned to accept it. I think it’s funny that the one person in the world whose opinion of us should matter most, the one person who has to love us and look at us every day can think we’re perfect, but somehow we’ll always question.
I don’t know how the hell it happened, but I seem to have escaped adolesence and my 20’s relatively unscathed, as far as body image issues go. I’m well aware of what I look like, but I generally don’t have a complex about it.
However, I still judge. You know who I judge? The body-conscious girls who seem to tie all of their self-worth up in their physical appearance.
So really, I’m just as bad.
ugh, i am the same way. and whenever i look at my body and have pangs of hate and disgust, i think about how ridiculous it is to care THIS much about looks.
but you are right - women do it more to each other than men do.
I’m just gonna say it: I have dimples on my ass. Yes, I’m a fairly thin gal, but still the dimples remain. No matter how much I try to exercise or eat right, the dimples are there. So sue me, dammit!
I lurve you. And I don’t have a daughter, but I’m raising two sons who are watching their mama eat whatever and whenever she wants; so I’m trying to do my part to ensure that the next generation of men knows what real women are like.
Thank you, Clink. You said it for all of us.
Clink,
I really liked this post and I can certainly relate and empathize with your mindset because I often feel the same way. I want to gently encourage you to go wedding dress shopping if you haven’t already. Embrace your size 6 and stop waiting until you have slimmed down even further. Besides, if you are getting married in July…you are quickly losing time.
Great Post, Clink. I am a size 28. I am losing weight to become healthier, not to have society no longer judge me anymore. People are taught that 1st appearances are the most important. So, People look at the first impression….thin, big, just right…People judge. I am a Well-Educated, Beautiful, Talented, and Highly-Active who is a size 28. I learned a long time ago….that if someone judges me for my size, then they are definitely not worth my time.
Well stated. Your post pretty much sums up every woman I know, including myself. Very well said.
As someone who is in the double digit jeans, even I feel better when I see someone who is bigger than me. I feel bad about it too. I had a co-worker tell me I’d be a pretty bride because I have a “lovely face”. This goes right along with someone telling you, “She was AT LEAST 2 of you!” Um, yeah, way to make me feel good. NOT. I don’t know where it comes from either, because my mother never made an issue about body size in our family.
We need to stop comparing ourselves to each other, no one is prefect.
Great post, Clink! The thing is, the more that time goes on and the more media obsessed our society becomes, it just keeps getting worse. I really felt for Jennifer Love Hewitt when they published those photos of her. Can you imagine being exposed like that and being put down in such a public forum? And we wonder why girls are developing eating disorders at younger and younger ages! We’re all guilty of feeling the way you’ve felt (and commented on above), but all we can do is try to stop. I have hope for our generation that one day we will stop seeing people in sizes and weights.
[...] It can’t be just me, right? There are certain things I’ve experienced in my life that I want to protect my as-of-yet-imaginary daughter […] [...]
Well you don’t *know* Jennifer Love Hewitt. So you can’t judge her as a person. She’s not a real person to you (or me or any of us for that matter). She’s just a hot rack in a photo or that Hanes commercial I love so much.
I would do wonderful, terrible things to her. Until I got to know her. Then I might not like her and I’d lose interest and wander off to go get some more skittles.
Real people and pretend people aren’t the same.
I was thinking the exact same thing today. If I have a daughter I want to be a good healthy role model for her and not do what my mother did/said to herself in front of me. I’m certain our superficial culture has exacerbated this issue, but I also know I have been obsessed since I was a child. Before the internet.
Even in this comment section women are sharing their “numbers” and I’m mentally comparing. She’s a size x? She’s that weight and that height? That means I’m.. ok? not ok? need to keep dieting…?
Coincidentally I started a diet today b/c I have been feeling awful lately. Not just a tug in my jeans, but an overall lethargy.
I think we need to focus on health- mental and physical- and stop the (self/other)hating!
It’s an awful curse for our generation and the generations surrounding ours. I have no idea how to stop myself, or what will stop this for the future.
i think women judge each other because we are so busy judging ourselves that we automatically hold others up to the same impossibly high standards. (i know that was neither a well-constructed sentence nor a particularly original thought here in the comments page.) it’s not always mean; sometimes a girl is prettier than me (thinner or heavier; i’m particularly jealous of good hair), and i can admit that. it just makes me feel particularly good when a cute boy hits on me instead. and we can all keep wishing we weren’t wired to be so competitive, but it’s all biological anyway.
i hate jlohew for reasons beyond her thighs (mainly, claiming to be our generation’s audrey hepburn and instead being pretty much talentless), but you know what i noticed first in those pictures? how happy she looks to be having a day at the beach with her boyfriend.
I thought she looked really good, honestly. She has always had a full, lush body that I’ve envied and I didn’t think the pictures looked bad. She looked hot. And happy.
monkeyinasuit said it best, “she looked happy”. And that’s what matters.
Magazines like US Weekly and People and anyone who prints stuff like McWhisperboobs’ behind and the ‘Who Wore it Better’ sections are, as my boyfriend points out, bought by women. And no matter how fun it is to see what star wore what dress, women are continuing the demand for the garbage.
So, yeah, we hold ourselves to the standards of these airbrushed women and diet and starve and exercise for hours a day to look like them, but when we see them in the non-airbrushed sense, we mercilessly make fun of them. Tell me how that works!
don’t evny skinny people, like you wrote, every type has body-image issue. a lot of skinny people actually don’t want to be skinny, and envy those who aren’t. when you’re skinny, not only women judge you, men do too, took me a while to be not bothered by passer-by whispering/yelling… “what’s wrong with her, she looks anorexic.”
in my teens, i used to cover up myself with long sleeves shirt even in the summer. one day i just stopped, and started to wear whatever i like. i still get stared at, it’s still difficult to find clothes that fit and always need your clothes altered. but hey, life is what you make of it. i pretty much embrace the fact that i’m skinny, and always will be. i just need to keep having healthy lifestyle and i’ll be okay.
and now there is a quiet “anti-skinny” movement going on and it makes my heart jump when i feel it. so you know it’s just a “trend”, beyonce trend, kate moss trend, it comes and goes. as long as you’re healthy, screw the trends.
i enjoy looking at girls of every body types, as long as they feel carefree and confident. yes, you can actually “see” it outside when they feel carefree and confident inside.