I will preface this post by admitting that this is a topic discussed so oft, there is practically nothing fresh to add. However, since our society continues to adopt an ever more sociopathic bent in its idea of female beauty, I feel the need to raise the issue again.
Last night, as I emerged from my post-Tae Bo bath, I received the following text mesage from a male friend who was watching the evening's broadcast of Dancing with the Stars with his three young daughters.
"Cheryl Burke is looking heavy."
I immediately replied that my friend is a sexist punk, but curiosity getting the better of me, as it always does, I promptly set my DVR recording in motion to have a look at this purportedly "heavy" woman......What I saw was, give or take, reflected in the image above.
I am almost too exhausted by this injustice to comment, but of course I will. I am 31 years old and far from famous. When I graduated with my BA in 2000, I weighed upwards of 190 pounds and wore a size 16. I couldn't walk a standard issue flight of stairs without breathing heavily. Obviously, that is unacceptable at the age of 22, and though it took me a few more years to claim ownership of the hard work required, I am proud to say I lost 60 pounds and have kept it off (give or take a few holiday fluctuations) for 6 full years.
I won't deny vanity played a role in my efforts, but in large part, I stay in shape for the right reasons - my health. I am perhaps phobically afraid of the aging process and the idea of becoming physically dependent one day, but that does not distort my own ideas of healthy womanhood. I might hate the cellulite that lives on my thighs, but I am learning to love Mother Nature's curves a little more all the time.
How in the hell can Cheryl Burke, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Love Hewitt or Tyra Banks - all media targets in recent years, and all gorgeous women - be called "fat" by anyone?
The argument has been made that standards are different for those in the public eye because they "know what they're getting into" by choosing a career that in part, requires trading on one's appearance. Nonsense, and I would think a man with three daughters would know better. Why does it seem that with each passing news cycle, female beauty becomes an ever more abstract concept, to be discussed in academic theory, but never really achievable by anyone? I realize there was never a formal meeting held by the Earth's males, but it feels at times as if there's a global conspiracy to keep us ladies held in check by some basic level of worthlessness.
In 2007, when Britney Spears was in the throes of her career meltdown, and bombed performing her single "Gimme More," live on MTV, she was upset not at her deteriorating mental condition, or her crappy lip synching. No, she was in tears backstage after the show, wailing that she looked "like a fat pig," as if that were the worst of her problems in that hour. She was about to lose custody of her two sons, but egads! Priorities! Let's lose those 5 pounds first!
It's wrong. It's out of control. Men of the world, I ask ye: please start picking on your own gender. Lord knows there are plenty of uglies to choose from. Ah but yes, I forgot, as long as the man is rich/funny/talented, looks don't matter. Just ask Jesse James, Tiger Woods or Larry King.
Ladies! Let's stop being complicit in our own destruction. Next time you feel a catty comment about another female's weight rising to the surface, eat some chocolate instead. It tastes a whole lot better than jealousy anyway.
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jmac1949
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Comments
I'm with you! When all men resemble, I don't know, Brad Pitt when he's actually filming a movie and not between...
R
I'm with you! When all men resemble, I don't know, Brad Pitt when he's actually filming a movie and not between...
R
I'm always disgusted in the supermarket checkout when one of the tabloids prints a rumor about an actress who might be anorexic - right next to article titled, "OMG Jennifer Love Hewitt has cellulite!" Your male friend isn't the only one who should get smacked upside the head.
Cuss - I hope your daughter never went back to that crappy excuse for a doctor again. I don't even know him and he just made an enemy of Boop.
what happened to eating to live?
r
I am a fat woman. I've battled my weight my entire life. I have left doctor's offices in tears when one wouldn't give me birth control pills (he said, "You will gain weight. You need to work on losing weight. Come back when you've lost 50 pounds."). Another doctor proceeded to berate me after I tripped and hurt my knee. "You should eat one sandwich a day. Your knees will feel better. " I needed physical therapy and pain meds for a torn meniscus, not his admonitions.
I get really sick of seeing very thin or healthy-sized women the victims of attack because they are looking a little "thicker" than usual. Really skinny women have it the worst. A pound or two gain, which could be water or an extra sushi roll consumed at lunch, can make a woman look like she's packed on an extra five or ten pounds. If I gain or lose that much, nobody notices, but I'm still an enemy of the state for being such a fattie.
I think it's time to start seeing people for what they offer in the way of talent and personality and forget what they weigh. I realize extreme obesity or thinness is hard on the body so I continue to eat healthy, whole foods and try to get as much exercise as I can. While I'm in no danger of dying from being thin, too much weight could do me in. Still, it's my body and it's all I got. If I don't love it, who else will?
Woody Allen movies with all the gorgeous women falling in love with him is a typical male fantasy playing all the time in our movies and TV.
There is a time when 'heavy' becomes a bad thing. Like my mom who has major joint issues because she is morbidly obese. Heck, by some scales I'm obese. I work out like a possessed mad and still have that love handle look. The battle continues...
I guess that someone can't label someone else 'fat' unless it's a health issue or the one throwing out the label is rail thin... Too many pot bellied guys stick 'fat' on otherwise perfect women. Is it transference?
When someone criticizes another person for being overweight, I look at the person saying it. If they aren't trim themselves, then I look at it as just jealousy.
I've had to bite my tongue a number of times when people say things like that and I watch them bite into another brownie or cookie themselves.
I am constantly amazed at how a size 4 is considered "fat" in Hollywood.
Well said. R
As if that were smart and healthy, anyway. Nice post.
To say that any person looks 'unappealing', in any way, hardly sounds sexiest.
I think you are confusing 'mean' with 'sexiest'.
Women can be every bit as mean as men, but we don't call 'mean' girls/women sexiest.
I am mean to women all the time, especially to women who are lazy, unproductive, self-centered, selfish, or mean themselves. Being mean to lazy, unproductive, self-center, selfish, or men women is not sexiest.
The better question is; is it okay to be mean to people you find unappealing?
No, it is not okay to be mean to people just because you find them physically unappealing, but being mean to people who are unappealing to you is not a form of sexism.
If it is sexiest to be mean to people who you find unattractive, then woman who are mean to men they find unappealing are likewise sexiest.
Personally I don't want to demonize women who shoot down guys in bars. Those women are mean, but they are not sexiest.
Your male friend who said, "Cheryl Burke is looking heavy", is a jerk, not a sexiest pig.
You got to get the terminology correct.
Remember; mean man = jerk, mean man who doesn't want to give women equal pay = sexiest pig.
Mean woman = Hawt Bitch.
Fat chicks are hawt.
It is all in how you feel.
To be alive, is to undo your belt and LOOK for trouble.
Zorba.
Becky I agree the media thrives on this issue, but if you support the media by sitting in a couch watching it or reading it, there's a kind of complicity too, don't you think ?
"Men of the world, I ask ye: please start picking on your own gender. Lord knows there are plenty of uglies to choose from."
Exactly.
I young woman I knew had lost a substantial amount of weight, but her father still told her she needed to lose more to become a working actress. She walked away from her dad, repeating to herself in a tone I and others could hear her, "Same height, same weight as Marilyn Monroe. Same height, same weight as Marilyn Monroe. Same height, same weight as Marilyn Monroe." She, too, was a size 14.
No response from her dad who, like us, couldn't have missed hearing her.
Side note: Tiger Woods, fugly? I suppose it's a matter of taste, but body-wise he's ripped.
But it's capitalism - you sell products by creating needs. Convincing women that they have to be ultra-thin makes money. And greed spans is thoroughly gender-neutral.
As someone who lived in LA and has worked in the entertainment industry for 25 plus years, I can tell you that this attitude is so pervasive it even infects those of us behind the camera. I'm wondering when if ever I will outgrow the feeling of pressure - at the ass end of my 40's - that I somehow have to look like my 16 year old 5'8" 100 pound stepdaughter or I'm less than feminine (ain't gonna happen.)
Another thing interesting about some of the men in Hollywood who make these pronouncements about women - they aren't exactly Men's Health coverboys themselves. Yet they are so totally comfortable and smug dismissing a woman with ten extra pounds as something less than acceptable. I guess everybody needs a dog to kick - when will we women wake up and stop taking it?
(PS I know Jennifer Love Hewitt and even at her "heaviest," she would stop traffic anywhere on this planet.)
And your friend's daughters? I feel for them. They are taking in every critical word their dad says.
Q: "Why does it seem that with each passing news cycle, female beauty becomes an ever more abstract concept, to be discussed in academic theory, but never really achievable by anyone?"
A: B/c it's the last and sure-fire way of controlling women now that they've empowered themselves through education, careers, birth control, the choice of kids vs no kids, etc. In short: if they can take of themselves and not be afraid of supporting themselves; if they know that they have a choice in their own bodies and destinies; if they indeed have evolved into human beings IN THEIR OWN RIGHT--then hurt them where they're most vulnerable: their appearance.
This is why, young ladies, you MUST be vigilant about availing yourselves of the vast opportunities you now take for granted, those that I listed above and so many more. Learn to know yourself FIRST before you enter any major event in your life, so you'll do so of your own volition and NOT b/c "it just happened." Learn to cultivate beauty in YOUR OWN eyes, and it'll be appreciated as your signature style. It's hard to go against the herd, but the rewards are vastly worth the effort.
Now in my 50s, I so enjoy the benefit of all those battles and wars fought by women before me. Coming from "the barrio" as I did, the victory is all the sweeter b/c now I have the luxury of NOT marrying b/c I can take care of myself.
Ladies, if you don't have the respect for us battle-worn broads, then show the indulgence by at least listening to us when we share our stories; most of us really are trying to help you. So much has changed for all of us--yet, by this despicable and spiteful piece of trash TV, it proves to me that so little has actually changed. And women are just as guilty about it as men, alas.
There is another side of this same story.
Oh, no!!
Women are NEVER EVER this nasty to men.
After all, in open salon, they're all perfect.
Well, several years ago, I developed asthma and, what was prescribed was prednisone, a steroid.
In two months I grew 60 goddamn pounds of drug lard.
I'm 71 nad, for those of you who see me as an abuse target due to my age, have at it.
Well, here is a pic of me at the time I developed asthma~~
I WAS
Add about 50lbs to that and you will see your target of nastiness.
I used to get looks and compliments then.
Now I get sneers by the same types of females.
If you think that it's only about your tight little asses being unaccepted if you don't meet the standard, it is time to work past your hatred of all things male and see the real world for what it is.
Women can, of course despair
Over noses, cheekbones, hair,
If their special facial features
Look quite nice, or like creatures.
Nevertheless its their weight
That (they think), determines fate.
But, they must, exaggerate
Over what attracts a mate.
Sometimes, I’d say it hinges
Whether she shaves or singes
Or, perhaps, goes on binges.
It’s possible she merely winges.
But an ounce, nicely placed
Can leave a lady undisgraced.
This should be bravely faced.
It’s just a matter of male taste.
So, cheer up girls, the world contains
Men who most admire brains.
Although it’s true, I will admit
A great behind just adds to it.
For the record, by the way, I PREFER Kirstie Allie as a plus-sized babe.
I have nothing against lean, fit ladies, but then there's Ms. Serena Williams, another fantastic lady with a real body. You can't improve on these ladies because they are already perfect. But I think all women should start from that perspective: I'm already perfect, so unless I'm 3000 pounds overweight, I shouldn't mess with an already wonderful and sublime body.
Obviously, anyone can slip into delusions and go overboard about how much fat is ok, but for women who are healthy and active, why they need to conform and match some sort of impossible standard no one can match just boggles my mind. Ladies, do yourselves a favor and do what men used to do: Give up. Be yourself. Be proud of who you are. Stop the Cosmo subscriptions and drink more Cosmopolitans instead. Have a little chocolate. Eat some real food. Get a little exercise. Live life in moderation. Except when it's time to cut loose and go crazy. But let yourself go, and then bring it all back again.
If I could master the advice I just gave you, I'd look much more like Patrick Swayze in his prime than like Chris Farley.
Here's why we should care: the standard of beauty dictates which women get jobs, which women are role models, which women get promotions, and which women have lovers. Women who are obsessed with their weight are at high risk for developing eating disorders, a trend which is hotter than the "obesity epidemic" ever will be. People of all sizes should be fighting this standard every time they get the chance. One way is to reject "beauty" magazines, with all the photos of emaciated stars and discussions about who is and isn't gaining weight. Another is to reject weight loss dieting and discussions.
Also, I know the "go eat a piece of chocolate" comment was meant in jest, but we should be disassociating food as a reward or a way to satisfy any feeling that we have other than hunger. Eat a piece of chocolate if you want one. That should be all there is to it.