Scales Suck

As I've said before, I'm in Res Life at Smith (hence the pseudonym, Albright Sheriff). I have a fabulous house and I love them dearly (plus my room is ballin' outrageous). But Res Life is not all fun and games and bonding, and it does have some responsibilities, one of which is annual room inspections. Essentially, this consists of me and my Res Life co-hort poking our heads into peoples' rooms, making sure they have their recycling bins and no animals/guns/drugs laying out, and then we leave.

But during inspections, I couldn't help but notice one glaring thing that at least 40% of my residents had in their room: scales.

Smithies generally pretend to have a laissez-faire attitude toward their weight, likely because it's not considered very politically correct thing to worry about as a feminist and as a strong, independent woman. But seeing these scales in the rooms of women I never imagined would waste their time concerned over something so petty was a little disturbing to me. I've seen a lot of other evidence that it matters more than we'd like to pretend it does: I had to stop going to the gym at 6AM because there was always a clearly anorexic girl there, with visible tendons in her legs, running on the treadmill as if her life depended on it (I always wanted to reach out to her, but was scared. Of what? Making her worse? Humiliating her? I don't know. But it haunts me that I saw her everyday in that private hell and never said a word).

Even outside the gym and the dining halls and the bathrooms, I see at least a few Smithies with eating disorders in every class that have that look about their face that makes my heart sink with familiarity: they're never really there, never actually with you. They're counting calories, computing BMIs, thinking about work out plans and opportunities to binge in their minds, just to quiet that anxiety, that guilt, that hurt.

But. The majority of Smithies, based on my non-empirical, totally anecdotal evidence, are not eating disordered or disordered about their eating. They might not love their bodies, though, and that concerns me nearly as much.

I am not entirely on the bandwagon of fat as a feminist issue (in this country, it's really more of a public health issue). However, I don't think anyone should be made to hate themselves for their body type, and I think advertising and fat shaming and general attitudes in America absolutely encourage that (see: the recent controversy over Lane Bryant, a plus size retailer, showing an ad of a full-figured woman in her lingerie during prime time. Such controversy does not really arise when we all drool over the size 0 women of Victoria's Secret strut their stuff on CBS every holiday season....I wonder why?).

I also reject the notion that "real women have curves." Do my curvy hips, tits, and ass make me feel womanly? You bet they do. But are the slender and gorgeous La Femme or the tiny and toned Lady Lola any less of women than I am? Absolutely fuckin not. I understand the desire for a backlash against the skeletal ideal we've been sold for so long in the ads and the runways. But to demonize people for their natural body type or to imply that it makes them less feminine simply perpetuates the idea that there is one kind of woman that we should all strive for. Adding a few pounds to that archetype of ideal woman doesn't make the idea of having one standard any better, though it may make it more accessible. All women and all body types are beautiful, assuming they're nourishing their bodies.

So what should we do about this?

Ladies (and fellas): let's start by tossing our scales. Admit it: you have never once gotten off the scale and gone "damn, I feel so much better now that I know what I weigh!" Unless you have been medically advised to watch your weight or to diet, you don't need a number to define how you should feel about your body. Am I recommending throwing all moderation to the wind and eating everything in sight, all day everyday? No, because that also would be disordered. But I am suggesting that your life and overall happiness will greatly improve when you don't torture yourself with the knowledge your precise poundage.

It's a start, anyway.

Much love,
The Albright Sheriff