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Reading this article from Marie Claire, which states that in Mauritania, "rolling layers of fat are the height of sexiness," I was struck by the eerie similarities that this country, obsessed with girthiness in its women, has with the West, constantly seeking the next diet or exercise plan to get closer to being the biggest loser. Many of them send their daughters to fat camps, to force feed them and fatten them up as they approach puberty with up to 16,000 calories a day (what) and threatening them with bodily harm if they don't eat it all; we send our teenage girls to summer fat camp in hopes that they'll shed their extra pounds and gain self-confidence (side note: the prep school in my hometown ran one of these programs during the summers,and I always felt sorry for the girls, watching them walk in the sticky heat of a Pennsylvania July to the grocery store where they weren't allowed to buy anything. The whole thing reeked of sadness). And in both cases, it's justified under the mantle of attractiveness, particularly towards the opposite sex: how will you ever find a man if your body is so revolting as it naturally is (which could mean fat or bony, depending on who is doing the interpreting)?
One woman profiled in the article says she enjoys the perks of being fat (that men adore her body and compliment her all the time), but that she wishes she could diet so she could be more dynamic and healthier and not wheeze as she walks. However, she's scared if she's slimmer that men will no longer find her attractive. Reverse the scenario: Western woman enjoys being thin for the perks, but wishes she could relax about her diet so she could be less stressed and more confident and healthier (constant dieting is B-A-D BAD for you!). But, alas, a softer body might yield less compliments and head turns.
Startlingly, another woman in Mauritania (who noted her struggles with gaining weight, and how she was teased in school by the plumper girls) revealed that recently, her husband told her that he "didn't like sleeping with a bag of bones." She has now started taking pharmaceutical drugs to help her increase her appetite and gain weight. Again, sound familiar?
Point being: the actual specifics of a cultural beauty ideal aren't really the problem. The problem is having an ideal that allows for no personality, no individual expressions of beauty, no room to breathe.
Much love,
The Sheriff
I don't think weight/bmi has very much to with whether you get noticed by other folks at the end of the day. Sure it's a factor, but most peoples' negative judgment of my attractiveness has centered around my lack of confidence and various appearance-enchancing material things. Anyway. I digress. I've heard about the Mauritanian body image deal before, but the discussion focused on how nice it was for thick women to be found sexy. It's good to see someone saying that extremes of either sort are always negative.
ReplyDeleteI've recently read two books about fat camps, Teenage Waistland (more of an ethnographic study) and Moose (a memoir). Both are thoroughly depressing and shine a light on how unhealthy the mindset of those fatcamps are. They're also both great reads.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I want to go to Mauritania to buy a "No Thin Chicks" shirt.
Thanks for this post, specifically for this sentiment: "...the actual specifics of a cultural beauty ideal aren't really the problem. The problem is having an ideal that allows for no personality, no individual expressions of beauty, no room to breathe." I dealt with some rather hurtful skinny-hatred this morning, so I'm especially glad to see your perspective that it's the confining nature of the ideals that is the problem, not the specific (arbitrary) ideals themselves. That is, if I'm rephrasing your perspective accurately.
ReplyDeleteOne tweak: The skinny ideal is really a thing among White people in the West; the ideal female body among Western people who are not White can be very different. So while I think it's fair to say that "Western countries" generally idealize a skinny form (because the overarching society in those countries idealizes a form that is White and skinny), I think we should be careful about generalizing about "Western Woman" in a way that erases the experience of many women of color in Western countries.
@Adrienne: Correction - the "skinny = ideal" is not just a white thing, but a developed/industrialized country thing. It is a middle class+ issue. You might not know this, but thin is also "in" in industrialized Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and probably South Korea and wealthier parts of mainland China as well. The "thin" ideal in many parts of Asia is even more extreme, likely because women there are typically smaller framed. Someone my size, at around 5'2" and 95-96 lb is probably considered "very thin" in the west, but "normal-thin" in Hong Kong. There are women there who probably can fit into what would be called size 000(P). As the majority of Asian women in the west are either immigrant or first generation, old country culture is still very much prevelant. And since the "old country" is very much industrialized, their media "ideals" are carried over here. Sadly, many people seem to believe that eating disorders are a "white thing" and therefore ignore the symptoms on say, Asian women.
ReplyDeleteGood points all around! I appreciate the corrections. And Adrienne, I was actually looking for a way to include Asian countries/mention that it's more of a white thing in the West, but I didn't want to make it sound to convoluted.
ReplyDeleteOh, and FUCK skinny-hatred. Saying "real women have curves" is just as oppressive and hurtful as encouraging thin bodies for people if that doesn't come naturally.
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