Women’s Weight - A National Obsession
February 6 2009 |
Deficiency is mourned in our financial markets, but idealized in our women’s bodies. Popular media goes into a frenzy when a female celebrity puts on a few pounds. This week, for example, the New York Post described singer Jessica Simpson as a “HUGE success,” “a BIG star,” and a “FAT lady” who sings. The words “huge,” “big,” and “fat” were emphasized in the article’s title.
Why is media obsessed with women’s weight; why has body weight become an occasion to deride and mock capable women? What message does this send to young women who have grown up with an unprecedented sense of equality with men? “Be anything you want, but be thin.” Why is being thin so important?
In the 1950s and before, the popular feminine ideal was curvy and voluptuous. Marilyn Monroe and Betty Davis were hardly stick figures. But Twiggy, the British fashion model who emerged in the early 1960s, was elongated and “twig-like.” Interestingly she became the new fashion ideal, just as Betty Freidan’s Feminine Mystique became widely known and women started questioning their restricted role in society.
This new direction became a double-edged sword for women who aspired to become overly thin. As they shed the voluptuous curves of the past, women became free to pursue more masculine activities and careers. They assumed these new roles with concern about being full-bodied, strong women, and many sought to appear like gangly boys: weaker than men, sometimes emaciated and unhealthy. Debilitating new diseases like anorexia and bulimia struck millions.
Weight has become a criteria by which women judge themselves and are judged publicly. Finally there’s an outcry.
It is true that being overweight poses health problems, for women and men. But many of the women undermined in media for being “fat” actually have healthy and appropriate body weights. The next time a newspaper or magazine goes on about a woman’s figure, see it for the sexism that it is. We still have along way to go.
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